Digital Portrait Painting: Light, Shadow & Skin Tones

A major focus of this class is learning to see the face as simple planes and value shapes.

Digital Art · Intermediate · Free · 1 min · 1 lesson

About this class

Learn how to build a convincing digital portrait by focusing on the large shapes of light and shadow before getting caught up in small details.

In this class, I’ll walk through my process for developing a stylized portrait from an early sketch and color block-in into a more dimensional finished painting. You’ll see how I separate the light and shadow sides of the face, establish believable skin tones, define facial features, and gradually introduce highlights and smaller value changes.

A major focus of this class is learning to see the face as simple planes and value shapes. Instead of trying to perfectly render every eye, nose, or lip from the beginning, we’ll use lighting to establish the structure of the head first. This approach can make portrait painting much easier and helps avoid the flat or over-rendered look that often happens when details are added too early.

You’ll also see how I refine the portrait while keeping the strong lighting statement from the original block-in.

By the end of the class, you’ll have a repeatable process you can use for portraits, character studies, fan art, concept art, and general digital painting practice.

Lessons