What comes before painting Values?

If you want to paint realistic faces

Dear artists,

Welcome to the #2 letter of my Diary!🌟

Do you struggle with making your painted faces look more realistic?

Do you also struggle with making your painted faces look more interesting?

If yes, this chapter is for you, where I’ll share tips on giving VOLUME and SATURATION to your painted faces. This is from week 2 of CGMA Digital Portrait Painting by Mélanie Delon.

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COMPOSITION

Wk 2 Goal: How to frame the portrait to tell the story better?

• Always think about what you want to STORYTELL, and what feeling you want to portray?

  • Every element in the piece (background, costume, props, etc) should help us understand the character better, and not just because it’s pretty

  • The focus should still be on the face since it’s a portrait painting. Keep empty spaces around the face to frame it

  • That’s why at the start, it’s important to craft a persona for your character. This will guide the direction for the elements you want to put later.

A persona I wrote for my butterfly archer

• Placement: Honestly no right composition, it depends on what you want to story-tell. Always ask if the intended focal point is clear enough from the thumbnail

  • Try to have a slight tilt in body and/or face to feel more dynamic, unless it’s a full front headshot, which can look dynamic since it’s very near

• Mélanie strongly recommends this in order of importance: (1) Face Structure, (2) Volume, (3) Shapes

  • I’ve asked about using Asaro head references, but she advised NOT to use at the start as they focus on the light & shadow, instead of the structure

  • Face Structure is important first as that’s the underlying foundation, then it’s easier to place the lights & shadows AFTER

  • Define structure by adding light on bones (eg. browbone, under brow on the outer area, cheek, philtrum & chin. This forms a rough triangle

  • Volume is seen with Lights, so be patient to add multiple layers - each layer with more brightness, more variation in color and brush strokes, using a big brush with soft pen pressure

• Assignment: Submit 3 more colored thumbnails, with different color schemes and body positioning. My storytelling themes are ‘warm sunset’, ‘sadness’, and ‘hope’.

My week 2 submitted assignments

Key Feedback from Mélanie:

OVERALL

1. Focus on defining Face Structure first, as shared above

2. Be brave to add more saturation to Shadows - better to have more than none, as skin is translucent and can see the blood through the skin, so need to feel the red tone underneath

• Give a lot of saturation to eye sockets, nose bottom and lips first

• Shadows around the nose & ears are redder, as the skin there is very thin and light goes through them more

3. Nose bridge shadows should be subtle & suggestive. This keeps viewers focused on more important facial features like eyes

INDIVIDUAL FEEDBACK

1. ^ Archer: Eyeball Structure - Draw a circle for the eyeball, mark the corners, and wrap the eyelids around this ball to give Volume. Then add the pupil and iris.

2. ^ Robot: The left side (facing us) looks pretty big so reduce the width. Add much more saturation to give life, and soften the nose shadow sides as light is falling on the middle of her face.

3. ^ Sunset: In very strong light, light & shadows are very colorful, vibrant & intense. Add much more light & saturation in the middle, and no need for strong shadows at all

4. ^ Angel: Composition mistake - don’t crop the fingers

SUMMARY

Main takeaway: Push light on face bones, very subtle shadows around the nose, more saturation for shadows.

I’ve also created a summary sheet of the key learnings & process steps for my CGMA portraits, which you can download for free here.

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Other Highlights of My Week

1. Had delicious Pho with my dear friends

2. I’ve resumed my lessons on ‘Painting with Light & Color with Tonko House’ on Schoolism. Here’s one of the studies I’ve done, and I’m pretty proud of it.

• Glass: reflects light lightly on the table, and has pretty dark & light outlines near the top & bottom

• Metal: Strong contrast between light & dark

• Plastic: Highlights can get pretty strong, but not shadows. The transition from light to shadow is pretty gradual too

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What did you think of this Diary? 

Is it useful? Too long? Easy to digest?

Feel free to reply to this email if you have any feedback or any questions!

I’ll be dropping the next letter on the coming Sunday, sharing week 3 of my CGMA journey, so stay tuned.

Have a lovely week everyone!🖤