Photoshop Tutorial: How to Paint a Realistic Proportioned Female Face from Scratch

In this tutorial I will show you how to paint a proportioned female face from scratch... There are plenty of advanced ways to achieve this, but this tutorial will start with the absolute basics and move on to more advanced techniques, so even beginners can follow.

First I'm going to show you how to achieve the right proportions... After that we bring the face to life by painting and smudging it into a beautiful woman.

If you try this tutorial, don't forget to show your result by submitting it in the practice contest.
Let's get started!

End result:

Author:

Views: 33525

Score: 9.06 / 10

Author earned: $30

Practice tutorial

Tags:facefemalepaintingrealisticscratch

Step 1

Open a new document 1500x1500. The first thing we have to take into account is the facial proportion. I am going to draw the rough sketch by using grids. Go to view > show >grid (check the grid). To change the default settings
go to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid and Slices

Step 2

They say width of an ideal face spans 4.5 to 5 eyes and height of 7 eyes. Consider each grid as the measure of an eye. Now we will construct the face. Below figure shows you how they are in proportion.

Step 3

Create a new layer call it "Sketch”. With pen tool draw the shape of face assuming it’s going to look like an egg. Once the sketching is done we don’t need the grids so go to View > Show > Grid (uncheck)

Step 4

Create a new layer in between background and sketch layer call it "Base"
With a large brush fill in the color.

Step 5

Now that we have the skin color let's add some shadows and highlights. Create a new layer call it "shadows". If you don’t know which colors to pick then don’t worry you can see it in the below picture. With a soft air brush of size 50-75 I made some strokes.

Step 6

I hid the "shadows” layer intentionally just so you can see what I’ve been doing. Create a new layer and call it "Blush”. I use this layer to show the blush on cheeks, nose and forehead.

Step 7

Create a new layer and call it "highlights”. Keep it in mind that any new layers you create should be below the "Sketch" layer.

Step 8

Merge base, shadows, blush and highlights layers. The image should look somewhat like this.

Step 9

I read that a lot of people use the smudge tool to give the face a smooth look or to blend the colors. That tedious procedure didn’t work for me so I figured out another method. Select the whole face (you can do that by clicking on the base layer by holding ctrl). Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and blur it by 31px radius. Tadaa!!!!!

Step 10

Clean the edges off.

Step 11

Create as many layers as you want and don’t forget to name them. You can delete them if you are not happy with what you have done. Create a new layer call it “nose”. Added shadows

Step 12

To give it a smooth look blur it by 10px radius.

Step 13

Give some details to the nose.

Step 14

Create a new layer call it "Lips” The upper lip is darker than the lower lip. Remember one thing. Whether it’s a face, nose or lips don’t just use burn and dodge tool. First add darker/lighter shades to create depth.

Step 15

Darken the line that’s in between the lips and add more details with burn and dodge tool.

Step 16

Create a new layer call it "eyes”. The eyeball that you see is not pure white at all. So use some lighter shade of Grey to paint the shape. Now the series of screenshots below should be pretty self-explanatory.

Step 17

Focus on Iris now. I am just painting simple iris with less details.

Step 18

Painting pupil is the easiest thing and fun to do too ;-)

Step 19

Usually hair of brows is messy. So go easy on `eye brow shaping` for that natural look. See to it that the color of brows and color of hair is close.

Step 20

No need to scratch your heads when adding an eye shadow. Just pick the darker and lighter shades from face.

Step 21

Some times after smudging, the edges appear as if they are not blended with the surroundings. Use blur tool to get rid of the edges and blend the colors nicely.

Step 22

Painting is almost done now the time to use burn tool ;-)

Step 23

Don’t burn your painting if it turns like below. Instead pick a darker shade of the color from the area you want to burn and manually add that color.

Step 24

Defining more with dodge tool.

Step 25

Fix the gaps or sharp edges if you have any.

Step 26

Thought of doing hair also but I didn`t want to drag the tutorial. May be in another tutorial.
Final result.

50 Comments:

Alan2641 says:

Well written -- great results

(1 year and 280 days ago)

Guest says:

great tutorial i like it

(1 year and 278 days ago)

Guest says:

awesome!!!

(1 year and 278 days ago)

04mehul says:

very good explain.

(1 year and 278 days ago)

Guest says:

there some mistake.
u diidn't tell about hair

(1 year and 277 days ago)

Guest says:

very good explain. but u not tell about hair

(1 year and 274 days ago)

Guest says:

excellent, but what about the hair does not say how, has a second part?

(1 year and 273 days ago)

hereisanoop says:

nice tut

(1 year and 273 days ago)

Guest says:

beautiful.......

(1 year and 272 days ago)

Guest says:

niceeeeee pls more tutorials pls mail me

My ID: naturefriend111@gmail.com

(1 year and 272 days ago)

erikuri says:

Very beautiful and well explained! Ushurani, you have magic hands!...

(1 year and 268 days ago)

ushurani says:

Thanks a lot all. I will definitely write another tutorial on how to paint hair.

(1 year and 268 days ago)

Guest says:

wonderfull explanation

(1 year and 261 days ago)

Guest says:

It is wonderfull i don't know how i say,,Beautifull thanks..

(1 year and 258 days ago)

Guest says:

magic i loved it helps that this kinda sites is out there

(1 year and 255 days ago)

ramsonikailashi says:

very good

(1 year and 249 days ago)

Guest says:

very magical job.
ram babu sharma

(1 year and 249 days ago)

ponti55 says:

Very well explained. Great job.

(1 year and 246 days ago)

Guest says:

amazing work.its really well.

(1 year and 241 days ago)

Guest says:

it was very good to see it . a very good explain........

(1 year and 241 days ago)

Guest says:

It was very helpful!
You could have spent more time on the irises though, as that's the only part that doesn't look realistic at all

(1 year and 236 days ago)

Guest says:

is this done with a mouse or a graphics tablet?

(1 year and 235 days ago)

Guest says:

pagerank sorgulama

(1 year and 225 days ago)

Guest says:

thanks

(1 year and 223 days ago)

Guest says:

i like it very good

(1 year and 218 days ago)

Guest says:

She looks a lot like Caley Cuoco

(1 year and 215 days ago)

Guest says:

good work..
see my research http://www.tutorials99.com

(1 year and 206 days ago)

Guest says:

Excellent work man...

(1 year and 200 days ago)

Guest says:

greattttttttttttttttttttttt
thanks

(1 year and 199 days ago)

Guest says:

very good

(1 year and 196 days ago)

kapilkumar1983 says:

great tutorials, i am very big fan your www.pxleyes.com, i want to learn that how to make realistic character in photoshop. Please share with us some tutorials like this, thank a lot, i am very happy join your website.

(1 year and 187 days ago)

Guest says:

super

(1 year and 183 days ago)

neeraj55 says:

well done!

(1 year and 183 days ago)

Guest says:

I found my greatest mistake in painting ! that tutorial revealed it to me thanks :P

(1 year and 178 days ago)

Guest says:

nice teaching

(1 year and 177 days ago)

Guest says:

too good but i wanna know about hairs

(1 year and 174 days ago)

Guest says:

awesome!

(1 year and 171 days ago)

Guest says:

thanks.. you are really helping me...

(1 year and 170 days ago)

telmafrancione says:

A very well done work!
Thanks for sharing

(1 year and 163 days ago)

bijucomax says:

very good explain,.good one,.thaks

(1 year and 151 days ago)

sir righteous says:

very cool tutorials, very much impressed
my eMail: righteous4real@hotmail.com

(1 year and 145 days ago)

Poonam says:

I have read many other digital painting tutorials, but this one is very well written. Thanks

(1 year and 135 days ago)

Guest says:

Toll gemacht - good work

(1 year and 126 days ago)

steed says:

wow, Great work

(1 year and 116 days ago)

jun says:

Wow! Amazing....... that's great..!!!!

(1 year and 92 days ago)

feed says:

Great work

(1 year and 78 days ago)

Guest says:

eagerly waiting for the hair tutorial

(1 year and 26 days ago)

strikingbullet says:

HATS OFF

(287 days ago)

Guest says:

Blending is always better than blurring and smudging. You really could have saved time when adding more enhancement if you would have just blended as you worked.

(42 days ago)

Happytuts says:

Fentastic Results

(7 days ago)

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