CHARACTER Art Painting LIGHTING PROCESS:
Painting by Sarah Puett
Tools used: Round Brush, Dodge/Burn tool
Tool Settings: For the round brush tool, keep Transfer ON, turn OFF Pen Pressure in Shape Dynamics, and the Flow LOW (10-25%). These constraints are flexible and be adjusted to any painting needs.
3 sketches of the Character Art for review by the team
Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) Allied Character Card
Joseph Brant pointing and leading troops into war
by Sarah
Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) Allied Character Card
Joseph Brant standing behind a tree, pointing and leading troops into war
by Sarah
Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) Allied Character Card
Joseph Brant sneaking across battlefield
by Sarah
Lighting Explained
1. Start with flat colors. Keep an extra layer of linework copied onto the flats. This is eventually blended together later.
Use the dodge/burn tool OR soft brush tool to LOOSELY map out where you want the highlights and shadows to be. Remember to treat the body merely as a shape, and shade accordingly.
Add rim lighting, usually either blue or white. What is pictured here is too thin---go bold!
Be sure to have a clear sense of where your light sources are to create realistic lighting.
(Ignore the upper half of the torso---we will be painting the arm and abdomen area in this tutorial.)
2. Begin to smooth out the highlights/shadows with the soft round brush tool. Remember to keep the Transfer on and Flow very low.
An excellent technique is to use the ALT/option key to grab local colors in your image to help blend the colors together.
3. Use the hard round brush tool to define certain areas in the skin that need to appear sharper. Such instances pictured include in the elbow and the bottom of the shoulder muscle.
The hand will be revised in the next step.
4. The hand is now shaded using the hard brush tool without any smoothing.
There are two ways to begin shading! It's okay to start by using the soft brush tool or the hard brush tool. Make sure the image is SOFTENED later if shaded initially with the hard brush, or SHARPENED later if if shaded initially with the soft brush.
The anatomy of the torso has also been revised.
5. Add hues of red, yellow/green, and blue to the skin. Add the most blues in the shadows, and the most yellows/reds in the highlights. Try to add more than what is pictured here as it is very subtle; too subtle for printing purposes.
This helps the skin look far more realistic.
6. Smooth the hues together using the soft round brush.
Sharpen the areas of the skin that need sharpening with the hard round brush (you can see this was done in the inner elbow/wrist highlights).
Use the dodge/burn tools subtly to create brighter highlights and darker shadows. This will help your image have higher contrast.
Use the dodge tool to make the rim lighting appear more visible as well.
7. Add some white bounce lighting (as seen on the chest, hand and stomach) to add an easy extra dimension of realism.
In this image, the bounce lighting is too subtle. Remember that these will be printed a little over an inch long. The white bounce lighting should be far more bold than pictured here or it won't show up!
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8. Use the Color Balance (Command+B) tool to add color contrast to your character. Make sure “preserve luminosity” is checked. Select “Shadows” and bring the blue to +16. Select “Highlights” and set the yellow to -16 and the red to +17.
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9. Light ‘em up! Take the soft round brush and paint a blue highlight behind the character to really make it stand out. Lower the opacity until you see it fit, but keep it bold.
This was done in the middle of making the background tutorial, so check that out first. It has instructions as to how/why the character needs to be darker toward the bottom of the painting.
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10. Take the same round brush tool and amp up the rim lighting. Remember: BE BOLD! That cannot be stressed enough. It is surprising how small the cards are.
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11. Refine the rim lighting, and use the dodge/burn tools as well to further define the highlights and shadows on the character.
Make sure the character (especially the character's face) takes precedence above all else in the image!
12. Adjusting for print: Make sure your image is not too dark. Typically, darker images are not printer-friendly, so further adjustments had to be made to the lighting. This is here as a reminder to be careful!
Do an S curve to lighten the lights.
Adding flats for the sash
3 choices were presented of outfits.
User feedback:
African American Middle School student noted he looked like he was in battle, that he looked angry, and that he was in proper dress.
17-year old African American high school friend said she thought he looked like he was in battle and that the value tokens looked like "power".
Musees thought the outfit was too colonial,
From Susan 2/19/18
- See the Diversity Page for some user testing feedback.
- When we go to the Public Museum you can see some Native American Clothing and a Gordet that was similar to what Thayendanegea wore.
- The Tory Symbol could use a highlight so that it can pop out on any background.
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13. Further adjustments were done on this card to address concerns that Indigenous Peoples experts had. Research was done by the artist on the character's costume design for further accuracy and to remove a one dimensional character which shows his victory in battle to include in the writing not only war leadership but also translation and leadership.
Research included looking at clothing worn in the time and the known portraits done of Joseph Brant.
Poses from known portraits were exaggerated to be more dynamic and express mood and emotion.