Photoshop painting tips using light and shadow on character demo

Photoshop painting tips using light and shadow on character demo. In this tutorial, I will show you how to utilize light and shadow in the environment to spice up your character. The drawing below, in step 1, are the drawing from the previous drawing step by step tutorial of How to draw Surge, you can follow the link to see the full drawing tutorial.

Painting light and shadow Photoshop tips and technique

The great painter, Craig Mullins said, “Decide what is in light and what is in shadow and don’t mix them up. Two values, but if they are well thought out and designed and drawn they can look totally real.”

Try to keep everything simple to begin with and focus on these three rules
1) Shapes (Composition, silhouette and/or correct drawing). Just practice a lot of drawing from life and from ref.

2) Values (Let just focus first on get the lighting correctly via monochromatic or achromatic, then you can apply some colors as you advance further in your illustration process. Trust me, this will work. For exercises and more tips on values go see -Values exercises study shade and -Colors VS Values tips and technique

3) Edges (Soft/Hard and lost) In real life most edges look soft because our eyes are constantly moving. An edge will only assume its sharpness if we specifically focus on it. Therefore, it is best to keep the edges soft in general unless you want to draw attention to a certain feature as is the case with the focal area.

Below are a video demo showing the painting process.

If you want to know more on how to utilize light and shadow in painting to make a dramatic effect, please go check out a premium tutorial illustration technique 1 to gain your knowledge of light and shadow and support the website. Trust me, you will improve and enjoy the premium tutorial. It goes into in depth on how to use light and shadow in digital painting or painting in general.