Tutorial

Although it’s not very popular for the non professional users, Corel Painter is the best software you can use to obtain a digital image that looks like a real painting. This powerful program can emulate all the type of natural media (like charcoal, oil brush, watercolor, ink pen, chalk, airbrushes, pastels, colored pencils, crayons, ecc.) and it’s now at his tenth release that it’s called Corel Painter X. The interface is very similar to Photoshop but Painter is much more user friendly and simple to use; you just have to chose a brush and start painting!

For this first tutorial I’ll show the process of creation of one of my most popular images, Stardust using the Airbrushes and the Blenders.

Concept creation: I usually start with a simple sketch of the character/scene I have in mind to see how to compose the illustration, to do this create a new layer and name it “lineart” in a way that you can simply paint over it or hide it in the final steps. The sketch can be made in a very speed way or with more details and defined lines but what is important is that the overall scene is layed out in a convincing way.

Choosing colors: Once the sketch is finished I start studying the color palette I would like to use. In this step you should decide the overall mood of the painting and in relation of that which color to use for the background and for the characters. This step is also essential to obtain a strong integration between the character and the background, because both of them should reflect the colors from each other.

Coloring the background: As a classical painting I start coloring the background using a big size airbrush without adding details, only to set the mood of the painting and only when I'm satisfied of the result I start coloring the character.

Coloring the character: In this phase it’s very important to set a palette of colors to use for the character in order to let it become consistent and strongly integrated with the background. To do this I create a new layer where I put the 4 or 5 principal colors to use. I start coloring the character with a mid tone and after that I add shadows and lights in order to give it a three dimensional aspect. At this point I start blending the colors with the blender set to “Just Add Water” that it’s an incredible tool to give the character a roundness. After that I start adding details on the body in order to let it become “real-life-like”.

Character’s workout: Now that the body is painted it’s time to add some interesting details to let the character become more interesting, so I decided to add some tattoos.

Character’s tattoos: Once the body is at an advanced stage I start adding details and elements to let it become more interesting. Iin this case I decided to add tattoos on her skin to let her became more fascinating.

Character’s finishing: At this stage I clean out all the lineart and start to blend the colors to give at the character a real-life aspect.

Background’s details: When the character is almost finished I start working on the background’s details. In this phase I like to try different compositions in order to find out the best one.

Final decisions: Once the character and the background are finished I take time to look at the final image to decide if add/remove/change things. In this case I decided to add a pair of wings.

Adjusting colors and contrast: As final step I usually try some colors corrections to see how it looks with slightly variations of colors (Effects-> Tonal Control-> Correct Colors). After that I adjust the sharpness of the image to let the borders become more clear (Effects-> Focus-> Sharpen). Finally I adjust the brightness and contrast (Effects-> Tonal Control-> Brightness/Contrast).