American Beauty
You can see by the number of painting steps I used that creating this painting took a lot of time and attention to detail. I made full use of the variety of painting tools available in SketchClub. Then I also used iColorama and Metabrush to add effects. Metabrush is particularly effective for softening and smoothing away the rough edges that may have been introduced in the previous steps.
I started with this photo from the Sktchy app.
I opened the photo in SketchClub, and I reduced its layer opacity.
On a new layer, I used the Pen tool with the Smoothed brush to sketch outlines over her face. I will use these outlines to guide my painting. I reduced the layer opacity of this sketch layer.
On a new layer, I painted hair in circular strokes, using the Smooth tool.
I created a new layer and dragged it under the curls layer. I painted with a soft round brush and a dark gray color all over the curls.
On the same layer, I made the brush smaller and painted with dark blue in several spots in the hair. Then I used the Brush tool with the 2B Pencil and painted brown highlights in the hair, using a curved stroke.
On a new layer, I used the Brush tool to paint with the A6 Chalk Pencil to create eyebrows.
On the same layer I painted the lips, teeth, and shadow between the lips, using a small hard brush, and using the eraser as needed.
On the same layer, I painted the eyeballs, using the Brush tool. First I used a hard round brush to paint a dark brown eyeball. Then I used a smaller hard round black brush to paint the pupils. Then I used a small soft round white brush to paint highlights. Then I used a small B1 hard round brush to paint a black edge around the iris.
With various brushes, I continued painting the whites of the eyes and eyelashes. For the eyelashes I used the Smooth tool and the Shrub brush under the Brush tool.
Using various brushes I shaded and highlighted the mouth and drew small vertical fold lines.
On a new layer, using a soft round brush and gray paint, I shaded her face and neck. I used the tones in the photo to guide me. I painted purple onto her dress strap with a hard round brush. I dragged this layer under the hair layers.
I turned off visibility for the sketch layer. I don't need it any more.
On a new layer, I used a soft round brush to paint a skin tone onto her skin. I dragged this layer to just under the gray toned shadows and highlights layer.
On a new layer I used a soft round brush to paint a green background. I dragged this layer to just above the photo layer. Then I used a darker shade of green with the Dust brush, under the Brush tool, to add texture to the layer. Then I created another new layer under the green layer and painted a yellow shade onto it.
On another new layer, I used a large soft round brush to paint golden highlights onto the skin. I reduced the layer opacity to 50%. I dragged this layer to be just above the skin color layer and just under the skin shadow and highlights layer. Now I turned off visibility of the photo layer. I saved to my camera roll.
I opened the image in MetaBrush. On a new layer I used Brush/Artist3 on the hair, and I reduced the layer opacity. On another new layer, I painted in Wets/Lines and Tools/Blur on the face.
I opened the image in iColorama. I used Form/Crop to crop the image. I used Adjust/Exposure with an inverted brush mask to to lighten the high tones in the face. I used Effect/Raise at low opacity to emphasize the strokes. I used a preset under Preset/Border at low opacity for a slight border Effect.
I used Form/Crop to crop.
I opened the image in MetaBrush. I used Brush/Artist3, Brush/Noise, and Wets/Lines to smooth out areas of the skin.
