Part 1: Getting Started
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This tutorial is aimed towards artists and assumes you have some knowledge of Adobe Photoshop. It mostly contains the tips and tricks I've learnt over the years and does not go into complete detail on the processes.

Adobe Photoshop is my software program of choice. A long time ago I used to use Corel PhotoPaint since it was fairly cheap, but since discovering Photoshop's superiority, I'll never go back. For people who can't afford Photoshop, I recommend getting the cheaper Adobe Photoshop Elements. It's basically the same program, without CMYK colour mode and a few other changes.

If you're serious about digital illustation, you can't go without a drawing tablet. Mine is a 6" x 8" Wacom Intuos2. Although you can buy them much larger, I find it easier to work on a smaller surface since you don't have to move your arm about to draw lines. You can get 4" x 5" Wacom Graphire tablets, which are cheap and great for beginners.

For this tutorial, I've chosen everyone's favourite gambler from the Wheel of Time, Mat Cauthon. Every illustration must start somewhere, and mine starts with a particularly messy pencil sketch. I admit, I'm not very good at pencil drawing. I sketch, and there are always more lines than I need. Which is why I'm colouring right over the top. Make sure you scan your images in at a very high resolution - this way, when you do your illustration and resize it for web display afterwards, it makes your lines look even smoother, your colouring neater, and hides little mistakes. My Mat image is about 1400 x 1500 pixels in size.

The sketch is always the background layer, and each new item, such as the eyes, the hat, and the hair, is on a new layer. This makes it much easier to move things around and make adjustments to individual parts later on. Sometimes I find I have the eyes too far apart, or want to change the colour of the hair, and if everything was on the same layer this would take forever to fix.

One important thing to remember - you can never have enough reference. Gather as many photos of people, and other artist's work that you can. Use the photos to get proportions and colours right, and study other artist's work to see how they do their shading. I have a large collection of high-resolution Final Fantasy renderings on my computer and plenty of artbooks in my bookshelf which are great to study.

Part 2: Faces - General Overview
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Generally, I like to start with the face when coloring. First, I create a new layer. Then I use the vector pen tool to create an outline of the area I want to colour (I use the polygon mask tool as well, but the pen tool can create smoother curves). To turn the vector outline into a mask, go to the Paths palette and click on the dotted circle at the bottom ('Loads Path as Selection'). I then fill the area with a nice flat skin colour, deselect the mask, the check "Lock Transparent Pixels" on the layers palette. I like to use a skin colour image, which I select colours from depending on what shades I feel like using. Each row is a set of colours for a different skin tone. Mat uses the third row of colours.

Next, I create new layers for the Eyes, Eyebrows, Eyelashes, Nose and Lips. The same process applies - masking a selection, then filling with a flat colour. Then, I use darker and lighter variations of the base colour to create shading - I hardly ever use the dodge and burn tools to lighten and darken areas. A few pointers for eyes - they're never white, so keep the base colour to be a slightly pinkish grey. Remember you need two highlights - a large round bright one, and a blurry, less bright one on the opposite side of the pupil. Yes, Men have eyelashes, so don't forget to put them in - just don't make them as long or as obvious as you would for a female. For lips, keep the top lip a little darker on average than the bottom lip, shade them both so they are rounded, and keep the highlights uneven and stripey. For men, keep the outlines a little soft and blurry, not harsh - they're not wearing lipstick! These two images are shown at actual size of my Photoshop file.

With the eyes, nose and mouth in place, I use my skin tones image to shade darker areas under Mat's eyes, under his lips, the corners of his mouth, etc. I actually had to move the positioning of the eyes when I was done, as when the shading around them was in place, they looked too far apart. Keep highlights to a minimum - the shiniest part is likely to be the tip of the nose, with the cheeks and chin slightly lighter than the area around them. If, at any time, something looks the wrong color, don't do it again - just use the hue/saturation adjustment filter to fix up slight problems, such as the lips being too red for a guy, or the skin being too orange.

Part 3: Hairy Business
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I know this tutorial was meant to cover the making of Mat from start to finish. But, well, I did Mat a while ago now. And it's very hard to show how hair is done when all you have is the completed item. So, for this part of the tutorial, I've used a new image - a portrait of Faile.

Sometimes I do hair first, sometimes I do it last, other times in between. Depends on how I'm feeling at the time. For Faile, it was one of the last things I did. To begin with, I lightly sketched out some fine hairs to get a general idea of how it would sit around the face. IMPORTANT NOTE: It's almost impossible to do realistic hair with only a mouse. It can be done, but it's much slower. If you're a mouse user, go buy a drawing tablet. If you can't afford one, have lots of patience ^_^; Basically, it's very hard to draw smooth curves with a mouse in the direction you want them to do.

TIP FOR MOUSE USERS: In my old mouse days, I would hold down the shift key while clicking points with the brush tool in a curve shape. Holding down shift draws a straight line from the first click to the next click. If you keep doing that, you can get a fairly good line. But it does take a long time.

Anyway, back to Faile. I drew in the fine lines. Then, I coloured in a dark block area on a new layer where the bulk of the hair would be - no skin or background would be showing through these parts.

At this stage, I'm still not interested in colours. I'm just using a nice dark colour to do all the work, and get all the basic hair shape down.

Next, still on the bulk hair layer, I go over the original hair strands I drew, making them much darker and adding in many more strands to get a good quantity of hair. There is no cheating in my pics - every single strand is drawn individually.

TIP FOR MOUSE USERS: You can cheat if you like! Check out the second image below. Grab a nice spotty brush in Photoshop like the one in the picture. Then, set brush fade to about 200 pixels (in brushes --> shape dynamics in PS7, right side of main toolbar in PS6). Click and drag - you'll get a big bunch of hairs that come to a point like in the picture. Worked for me for a long time ^_^

Right, now it's time to add some shine to that dull, lifeless hair - without expensive shampoo. I use at least three or four different colours to add in highlights. Hair looks more realistic if it has a bit of variation. The first colour I layed down was a dull brown, which I added all throughout the hair to start distinguishing individual hairs. Then, a lightish grey-brown for a bit of highlighting, then finally a light grey-peach for the brighest highlights. In this stage, I also broke up the outline of the hair bulk by adding lots of random messy strands around the edges. Make sure to throw in a few hairs that don't follow the general direction of the rest - otherwise the hair will risk getting a plastic, hair-sprayed, artifical look. See the close up below.

Part 4 is coming shortly!

Copyright 2004 Sarah Ellerton, reproduced with permission
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