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Digital Portraiture: Page 3

Author: Roger Elliot, Associate Editor

It is now time for us to begin to work on the face itself! But before we start I need to talk to you a bit about tonal values. Skin is all about tonal values. I have devised what I hope to will be an example that will help you to achieve the values you desire. Look at this box; Here I have eight different values of a red. The darkest at the bottom and the lightest at the top. One of the problems with digital painting is that it has a tendency to look layered. This need not be. I have found that this program has marvelous properties! It will allow you to get all those different values that are needed to do a successful portrait. Let me attempt to show you how.

Here I have taken the smudge tool and I have blended the values together from top to bottom. Now how many values do I have? Fifteen? Twenty? More? Just like a color pool on my palette, this is a color pool in my computer! Now, I am able to select the value that I might need by simply placing the eyedropper tool over the value I desire and click!

Here in this example I entered a circle of dark red leaving the white of the canvas in the center. When I blend this red toward the center, the white of the canvas mixes with the red and it becomes pinkish. This is much like working with oil paint when the canvas is pre coated with white! That is, the white is "wet"! This is a wonderful aid to us as we work with portraits! Also, in this example you can see that it is possible to mix two colors together to achieve another color. Does red and blue make purple? Yes! OK...armed with this information let us move on to skin tones!

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