Obama Painting

This is a digital painting that I did of Obama during his run for the presidency. It turned out better than I was expecting after being away from Photoshop for so long. I started out just exploring with layers and different brushes. 

The layers used in this painting:

1. Reference

2. Outline

3. Under Painting

4. Oranges

5. Yellows

6. Reds & Blacks

7. Hair Noise

8. Stubble

9. Highlights

FINAL VERSION ABOVE ----^

REFERENCE

First I cannot stress enough the importance of good reference.  It this case I picked a good photo to start with.... If I were to do this again I would have a whole folder of reference.  You can never gather enough GOOD reference.

OUTLINE

Next I sketched out a rough outline of features such as tonal differences and structures the basic form to use as a guide.

 

UNDER PAINTING

At this point I wanted to create the basic underlying tones in a cool color pallet.  Textural qualities were a must. Basic shadows were constructed.

ORANGES

I started to look at the colors in Obama's skin. Black skin is actually very difficult to paint. There are so many subtle color variations.  I picked three basic colors to represent his skin tones: Orange, Yellow, and Red.  Moving from a broad brush in the Under Painting I moved to more mid size brushes.  These tones are considered the mid range hues and values of the painting.  Notice the colors start to flatten.   Note to self - You could put in more of a range in values for the hue Orange.   

YELLOWS

I used yellow next to lighten up some areas. This layer was set to Overlay.  No yellow layer shown individually because it doesn't show up well on white.

RED & BLACKS

I used reds to blend it all together.....  I still wasn't getting the contrast I needed to I started adding a large range of values.  Note to self - Next painting do this within each color layer.

HAIR NOISE

His hair wasn't looking to good at this point so I decided to add a noise layer for the hair.

STUBBLE

The brushes at this stage were pretty small.  I realized that I needed to add some details to the skin to bring a little more life.  Fine hair and stubble were added.  Note - there is actually more detail in this layer than can be seen in the image of the left on a white background.

  

HIGHLIGHTS

Now for the part is missing from to many works... the oils in the skin will catch the light sources and create highlights.  No single highlight layer shown because it doesn't show up very well on white.

LAYER BREAKDOWN MOVIE