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thornwolf — Digital Underpainting Tutorial [NSFW]

Published: 2008-05-11 16:42:32 +0000 UTC; Views: 19106; Favourites: 459; Downloads: 272
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For Photoshop, but I imagine it works well in any other program where you can control the opacity of your layers.

This is the step by step process of how I did my last upload using Rubens style of using a green underpainting for fleshtones. One would think that it's really difficult to do an underpainting digitally, but nope! It's not! Actually there's several ways to do it, this is just how I did.

If anyone can tell me of other ways I would love to hear them so I can try them out!
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Comments: 55

lvl99tonberry [2013-06-05 13:04:36 +0000 UTC]

This is interesting, and I may try this the next time I paint a nude, might let you know about it too. Thank you!

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LaraMuk [2011-05-25 20:35:27 +0000 UTC]

this is great because it is similar to what we did in my painting class! my canvas paintings turn out great with the underpainting methods, but my digital paintings struggle so It's neat to see kinda how you went about it. do you post wips of your works at all? *goes to check*

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KateCollett [2011-04-17 18:16:06 +0000 UTC]

This was SO helpful! Just messing around I recently came up with a sort of similar way to paint, but this tutorial gave me the last few pointers I needed to make it work really well. Thank you!!

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thornwolf In reply to KateCollett [2011-04-19 05:59:20 +0000 UTC]

Oh I'm so happy you found it useful! Do you have a link to your experiment you applied it to? I'm still futzing around with it myself, haven't quite gotten it perfected, so if you have any additional pointers you've discovered I'd love to hear em!

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KateCollett In reply to thornwolf [2011-04-23 23:19:44 +0000 UTC]

Oh, I only played around with underpainting a little in this deviation: [link] I used blue for the underpainting instead of green, obviously. I'm not nearly as far along with digital painting as you, but so far this technique really suits me, more than anything else I've tried. I'm still playing around with digital, trying to find what works for me. I think my problem was wanting my digital pieces to be as good as my traditional work right away, instead of treating digital as a whole new medium that you need to practice the basics with first.

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thornwolf In reply to KateCollett [2011-04-26 01:29:28 +0000 UTC]

For some reason DA is being weird and that link sent me to your gallery main page and not a specific deviation, but is it the one of the girl in the water?

I really hope you continue with it, I'm still practicing. Just yesterday I tried that grisaille method using just gray instead of a colored under painting. It takes a lot of work to get the overlaying color to not look flat and muddy when you put it on top x_x but like you said, it takes practice! I think I too fall into that frustration of not getting it right the first time.

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KateCollett In reply to KateCollett [2011-04-23 23:24:18 +0000 UTC]

Oops, that wasn't the right link I guess? I'm bad at technical stuff lol. Maybe this will work: [link]

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ljscribbles [2010-06-10 16:45:36 +0000 UTC]

Hmmm, I'll have to try this out. Thanks for the great tutorial

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Vekke [2009-06-07 09:18:14 +0000 UTC]

I love this tutorial C:

and hmm, do you have any ideas as to what colours would be good to use as an underpainting with darker tones? I suppose I could just play around-- one day that I DO start painting humans, but I like hearing other peoples' input too X3

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thornwolf In reply to Vekke [2009-06-10 04:47:24 +0000 UTC]

I'm not actually sure but my default is more of a desaturated indigo for most things.

Glad you like it!

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deadrabbit13 [2008-12-09 20:23:47 +0000 UTC]

Never thought to do that, I'm going to have to experiment with this concept a bit.

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Silveril [2008-08-28 17:20:56 +0000 UTC]

i've been using underpainting for watercolors, but had no idea how i could manage that with digital
thank you so much ^^"

i still have trouble picking the right color (for the final skintone), considering its opacity will get lower though.. would you mine explaining how you pick that color?

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99deatheaters [2008-07-31 23:46:04 +0000 UTC]

By far one of the best and useful coloring tutorials out there.

By the way, I've been using your tutorial for a few weeks now and I keep forgeting to come here and thank you for sharing, so finally here I am. Thank you.

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thornwolf In reply to 99deatheaters [2008-09-06 15:39:02 +0000 UTC]

youre welcome! Do you have any samples of the technique applied?

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99deatheaters In reply to thornwolf [2008-09-07 15:56:18 +0000 UTC]

[link] & [link]
Most of them are over y!-gall, but anyway.

Of course they aren't good as yours, but I'll
practice. C:

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99deatheaters In reply to 99deatheaters [2008-09-07 15:57:41 +0000 UTC]

*I ment that most of the drawings I did wih your tutorial are over y!-gall, not here, btw.

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srom [2008-07-17 06:23:05 +0000 UTC]

Do you choose green because it's complementary to the flesh tones?

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thornwolf In reply to srom [2008-07-24 11:36:30 +0000 UTC]

Yes, for real pale "pink" figures, green makes more sense than with a tan figure.

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joeyv7 [2008-06-23 14:40:29 +0000 UTC]

nice - thanks very much!

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BomKosh [2008-06-21 12:08:48 +0000 UTC]

:/ Uh... Yeah... You didn't have to show us that... f-fat lady, man. Didn't you thought of something else like a teenager?

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thornwolf In reply to BomKosh [2008-09-06 15:40:04 +0000 UTC]

Nothing's preventing you from moving on, but the fact you felt the need to take the time to comment speaks volumes.

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BomKosh In reply to thornwolf [2008-09-06 21:54:19 +0000 UTC]

Um... Right!

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K33Ki In reply to BomKosh [2008-06-29 06:07:53 +0000 UTC]

Being that this is a tutorial meant to teach, drawing something that would distract those being instructed would take away from the over-all tutorial.
Therefore it's important they used a less "distracting" subject.

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BomKosh In reply to K33Ki [2008-06-30 04:52:51 +0000 UTC]

Um... okay...

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K33Ki In reply to BomKosh [2008-06-30 06:25:32 +0000 UTC]

Sorry, it was in reply to someone asking why you would use a larger woman.
I assume that's why?
Of course, assuming... ><

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BomKosh In reply to K33Ki [2008-06-30 06:37:50 +0000 UTC]

Oh!

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lylie-foak [2008-06-21 05:09:49 +0000 UTC]

YAY! Finally big women I applaud you.

And your tutorial is epic wickedness.

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MisforMurmur [2008-06-21 03:50:29 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much for this. It will help me out immensely.

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Silvercresent11 [2008-05-17 10:27:29 +0000 UTC]

This looks very helpful and easy to follow. I hope to try it out some time - thanks so much for this! ^_^

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KestrelShatterwind [2008-05-13 04:33:05 +0000 UTC]

I had never thought before of applying a grisaille technique digitally. I'll have to see if I can work with this sometime, after replacing my broken tablet..

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thornwolf In reply to KestrelShatterwind [2008-05-13 06:23:51 +0000 UTC]

THATS the name of it I keep forgetting. Thank you.

Yeah try it when you can, I bet with your skills it would turn out /awesome/.

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hollyann [2008-05-12 22:55:49 +0000 UTC]

That's awesome! I gotta give this a try next time I do a digital colour

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lennan [2008-05-12 20:00:13 +0000 UTC]

This is great. THanks for the tutorial. I plan on trying the technique out some day.

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destroy-the-limits [2008-05-12 19:49:03 +0000 UTC]

That's awesome. People sometimes don't understand what I mean when I talk of that technique, but this'll show them in a very good way.
Thank you!

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TheShadowMachinery [2008-05-12 10:21:41 +0000 UTC]

For me, I think it is a very good and useful tutorial even in traditional media. Very clear and understandable. Thanks.
(DA is acting weirdly. Sorry if I accidentally doublepost now)

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TheShadowMachinery [2008-05-12 10:19:58 +0000 UTC]

For me, I think it is a very good and useful tutorial even in traditional media. Very clear and understandable. Thanks.

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selunca [2008-05-12 03:59:22 +0000 UTC]

Have I mentioned how much I love your tutorials? This was amazeingly helpful, and I want to try it out LIKE NOAW.

Any suggestions for wanting to try this under an animal painting?

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thornwolf In reply to selunca [2008-05-12 07:23:57 +0000 UTC]

ooooh animal painting is a whole other ballgame my friend. The purpose for the green underpainting in /this/ piece is because combined with the red flesh tones it gives an illusion of paleness.

My suggestion would be to use an indigo shadow instead of a green.

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Pvyrus [2008-05-12 02:37:29 +0000 UTC]

Wow great tutorial! I have trouble with digital shading so thanks for sharing your technique

*Hurray for Macs!*

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salamandersoup [2008-05-12 02:28:40 +0000 UTC]

ahh, thank you for making this! I've tried to do this before and failed, but you make it look so easy here. xDD thanks!

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CairnCoyote [2008-05-11 20:36:48 +0000 UTC]

I'm really going to have to try this; nice work!

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Blackmane [2008-05-11 20:06:46 +0000 UTC]

I use a similar technique

One crit- check the size of the head relative to the body. It seems about half as large as it should be to me.

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thornwolf In reply to Blackmane [2008-05-11 20:11:21 +0000 UTC]

Yar, someone already said that :3 I'm still practicing with anatomy, I really just wanted to color something.

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Novawuff In reply to thornwolf [2008-05-12 04:57:30 +0000 UTC]

i noticed the same thing...
but honestly, I think it's probably harder to understand good color theory than to get your anatomy right you get this kinda thing down, small heads is an easy fix

great job, btw :}

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thornwolf In reply to Novawuff [2008-05-12 07:25:06 +0000 UTC]

To tell you the truth I noticed a lot of things "off" but I was so determined to just have something I could color. I almost didn't make this tutorial because I was so sick of it. Would have probably been better to color someone elses drawing XD

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Novawuff In reply to thornwolf [2008-05-13 04:56:35 +0000 UTC]

OH WELL... i suck at anatomy AND color! it's a double fail! at least you can do color :}

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thornwolf In reply to Novawuff [2008-05-13 06:23:26 +0000 UTC]

pish tosh! you are not bad at color/anatomy D: how daaaaare you say that *gasp gasp gasp*

...goodness is this one big ego stroking thread or what? ;9

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Novawuff In reply to thornwolf [2008-05-14 04:23:25 +0000 UTC]

lol
...and what's so bad about that?

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Blackmane In reply to thornwolf [2008-05-11 20:46:19 +0000 UTC]

That's how it goes sometimes Good luck!

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rakura [2008-05-11 19:00:02 +0000 UTC]

hmm I should try this on one of my projects.
runs about.

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