Light, shadow, depth, and perception

- With the nose, similar to the eyes, if I just do a couple small suggestions of subtle pores in certain areas, all of a sudden, it will look way more realistic. That's just a suggestion. Sometimes my students will drive me crazy; I tell them over and over again, they'll hand in their assignment; they just want to do details so badly, that the values won't be right, structure drawing. They've spent all this time trying to paint in pores in the skin, and they wonder, "Why does it look flat, or not feel right?" I have a couple assignments that I do on purpose, that the character has so much detail, like stubble, pock marks, all that stuff. It always gets them every time. It's a fun assignment because I try to show them, they have to try and ignore all that stuff, but they still do it. Once I get this nose done, and then a couple things in the mouth, start working on some facial hair, it should start to come together kind of quick. Just because you're using Photoshop, doesn't mean that it's going to turn out... I still think you need to have knowledge of painting to get the kind of results. I don't believe in counting on the computer too much. It is easier in one way, and harder in another because it's easy to fall into lazy ways of taking advantage of what the computer can do, and I think it can change your style too much. There are good and bad things. You just have to understand what those are in order to prevail in it, I think. The nice thing about this one is, I don't really have to spend all this time painting a mouth, really. It's nicely hidden. I think the more that you actually really paint traditionally, the better. So, this first layer is rough, but it's just the first layer. So, what I'm going to do is take the blur tool on top, and I soften it into the block-in. This is just the first step. The idea is, I'm not trying to do every single hair the exact way I see it, I'm just trying to get the value and color, and then I just have fun with it. Then, I'm going to create a layer of hair under that one, before I work on the mustache any more. The reason is because this facial hair is underneath the mustache. So, the mustache has to be on top, just like it really is. And then, I like to start with doing everything dark first. Larger brushes. I'm going to go a little bit darker than it's supposed to be at first. And then, mimic what hair does with the shape. I just try to pay attention to the way I see his hair moving. This is a lot more fun than painting add alls. (chuckles) So, basically you just have to have a knowledge of the way that hair works, and then you're just following the values and the temperature, and it's about understanding science: how things work. But, you don't have to sit there and do every single hair in the exact same spot. I know people that do that, and it's crazy. I think I talked about it before, but one of my favorite things is hair, because it's such a fun way to capture somebody. It's a fun way to be playful, and you can sculpt it. It's a lot of fun. All right, so that's the first pass, and them I'm going to, again, blur it, but this time a lot more than I did the other one. So, what I want to do now, is continue the same thing, but now it gets a little bit trickier because, what I'm trying to do now, is work on my values and edges so that I can soften everything into one another, so it will really feel like hair. I can paint underneath this mustache without messing it up, so I can just block in and shade underneath, but then, on this same layer, I'll probably add another layer on top of this eventually, to have extra-fine hairs. But right now, I'm sculpting the shape out. Just to make sure the shape is what I want. So, the reason this has greenish-gray tints in it is because of his jacket and his shirt. Different things are reflecting off of it. I try to put in a little of that, and it just helps with the illusion. The other reason I like to do it in layers, is because I haven't done the neck or anything underneath, and when I go to paint that, the hairs will not be lost. It's not like I have to redo those again. I can add more later, but it just helps with the speed. Now, doing something like this with oils or acrylics, I've done it before, it's the same thing in the sense of, I do it the same way: I start with my big main shapes, and I slowly get from bigger brushes to smaller, so it's kind of like building layers of hair, but this is definitely an advantage, doing it in Photoshop, it's way faster, more precise, less stressful. And again, I would blur this to soften it, because this is still just one layer. I'll do more on top. It's almost like doing a block-in again, but this time with hairs. So, that's probably all I would do on the beard for that stage. There's more to do on it, but now... This stage of it is kind of like doing a block-in again. It may look like I'm detailing, but I'm not really, yet. This is still just sculpting it out first, before I commit to anything, 100%. So, just following the flow of the hair. If you notice, the only reason you see lighter hairs, is because there's darker hairs below it. I try to mimic that by first putting a layer darker, and then putting the lighter hairs on top. I'm just trying to get the darks established, then I'll go on top with lighter values. To get this to the complete final, how I would like to have the hair, I probably would end up doing a few more layers on top, still, because there's still developing. Some of this stuff will stay, but most of it I want to soften still. Now what I typically do, there's still more to do on this side here, but now, I'm going to flatten both layers of hair because now I've got these two different layers I've flattened, that are one, and I want to make them even more one, so I want to soften them together a little bit more. I really wanted to do something fun, I wanted some character. My dad has got a great face, he's got great expression. I could have done someone just sitting there, and I could have exaggerated and had some fun with it, but the expression was really fun. I really loved the exaggeration that he already has naturally, and it allows me to experiment a little bit with the structure. It doens't matter if people don't know who he is, I think they're going to laugh when they see it, I think it's going to make them wonder who he is. Plus, it's my dad. It's kind of fun to have some fun at my dad's expense, so that's probably the other reason. (chuckles)