Making of Judithby Marta Dahlig, Poland


6. Defining Light sources - When I had a naive sketch done, it was time to start defining the objects. For the purpose of this written version, I marked the planned light source on top of the sketch, so you can see what I was aiming for. I have one chosen directional light and a very neutral ambient lighting to complement the effect.


7. Basic Character - Moved into detailing the most important part of this image - the face, I had to push the whole body a bit further. Using the same ragged hard round, I ran over the areas picking and applying colors as well as marked in the basic color blobs for lips and eye sockets of the character.


8. Convexity and Cavity Maps – Painting face can sometimes be a hideous task. Painting a very naive “wireframe” on top of the face (red lines) especially helpful to model a character correctly. After you have such a model, you can easily distinguish the most convex, i.e. highlighted places (light blue lines) and the shadowed, concave areas (dark blue lines). Such sketches are super helpful and I used to do those for every painting when I was still feeling unsure about my modeling. Right now, I seldom use them, but I thought some of you might it inspiring :)


9. Basic Face Shading - I applied some basic shadows and highlights on top of the face, as well as defined the key features: lips, eyes and nose. Using low opacity brushes while continuously switching between an airbrush and the Ragged Hard Round granted me a rather smooth look from the very beginning and so I did not have to worry about blending throughout my working process.


10. Pushing it - Basic look of the face somewhat ready, I moved back to detailing the body. Constant switching between painted elements might slow down my workflow, but it prevents me from getting bored and, most importantly, lets me control the composition of the piece from the very beginning. To define the flesh and give it a feeling of depth, I applied some shadows and highlights especially to the legs area. The colors I choose are very spontaneous and on the video you will see my eyedrop and block in the colors from one object on top of the other (for example from textiles on top of the character and vice versa).