Digital Painting – Paint a Bear in Photoshop | Katie Krell | Skillshare
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Digital Painting – Paint a Bear in Photoshop

teacher avatar Katie Krell, Artist, Designer, Animal Lover

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      INTRODUCTION

      1:58

    • 2.

      Getting Started

      13:44

    • 3.

      Blocking in Color – Underpainting

      9:44

    • 4.

      Painting Fur

      17:10

    • 5.

      Painting Rocks and Foliage

      18:57

    • 6.

      Painting a Background and Final Detail

      18:05

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About This Class

ABOUT THIS CLASS

Are you interested in painting digitally but want to refine your skills? Are you a skilled digital painter who just enjoys watching another artists process? In this class I will take you through my entire digital painting process as I show you how I paint a Kodiak Bear in Photoshop using a drawing tablet.


In my class I go in-depth showing you planning, sketching, blocking in color, and adding details like fur, rocks, and foliage. Painting animals can sometimes seem intimidating, ‘how do i paint fur??’ ‘that background looks so detailed, how do I even begin!’ In this class I’ll be showing you easy ways to tackle common obstacles new digital painters face and how to easily achieve the look you want!
There are many resources I’ll be making available for you to download to make your digital painting process easier including the free brushes I use in the class, (as well as where to purchase some of my favorite inexpensive ones) textures to overlay on your painting, free reference photos to use for your painting, and other tips along the way!


This class is great for beginner to intermediate artists who have a handle on traditional art but want to take it digital. It’s also great for skilled artists that may want to sit back and see another way of working.. there are so many different ways to paint and unique artist workflows!


For this class you will need access to Adobe Photoshop and a general understanding of how it works (I won't be going over how to use the program). If you don’t have this yet, you can download a free trial at Adobe.com!

This class will be easier for you if you've dabbled in digital painting before so you have a basic knowledge of it, but feel like you want to refine your digital painting skills.

You will also need a drawing tablet. The one I am using in this class is a Wacom Cintiq 22 HD but don’t feel like you need such a huge one! a smaller tablet like an Intuos would do just fine! There are many brands aside from Wacom, like Huion, XP-Pen and Bamboo at a wide range of prices depending on how serious you are about continuing digital art. You can also use something like an iPad with apple pencil, with the app Procreate, but just know that some of the tips, techniques, and brushes i use in the class are only compatable with Photoshop.


I can’t wait to see what you make! I’ll be available to answer any questions you have along the way, and offer feedback if you want it! Let’s paint!

Meet Your Teacher

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Katie Krell

Artist, Designer, Animal Lover

Teacher

Hey, it's me, Katie! I'm a designer and freelance artist in Rochester, Minnesota.

As a teacher on Skillshare, my goal is to share with others all the artist secrets I've learned working with various mediums and help those with a passion for creating... to create! It can be frustrating when you don't know where to start, or if you're going through an artistic slump and need some inspiration! Hopefully the classes I'm teaching offer just the help you need to get back at it, or try something new!

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Level: Intermediate

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Transcripts

1. INTRODUCTION: Hi, it's me, Katie. I'm an artist and designer in Minnesota and welcome to my neck sculpture class, Theo. Digital painting is so much fun. There are so many different ways you could make a painting look. And that's why I'm really excited to bring you this next class. I'm gonna take you through my entire workflow for creating a painting and photo shop and really go through my entire process, giving you insights, different tips. Different resource is to really make a painting that you're proud of. First, I'll go over finding a good reference image and then editing that reference image to fit your vision a little better. I tended thing Brushes are very important for a painting. They can determine the whole look. So in this class, I'll go over the ones that I use as well as giving you those resource is to download on your own. If you want to use the same ones that I dio, I'm gonna be taking you through my whole process for this painting from the sketching phase and adding in elements toe blocking in color and adding those final details that so if you want to give digital painting and try to take this class and paint along with me, let's get started 2. Getting Started: Hey, so we made it. Welcome to the class. We are going to just jump right in and start out with the image that I'm gonna be painting today, which is this one. This is a photo that I found online through a website called Shutter Stock. Shutter stock is full of different stock images that you can purchase and use however you want. So I went through here and killed all these bearers and picked one that I liked the best, which was this one. You could also use other websites like picks. Obey is a good free one. It has stock images that you can download for free. Um, just do a quick tons of great options here. You don't have to paint a bear with me. You can do any other animal that has for will still apply to what I'm going to kind of go over, Um, a fox That would be a good one, or tiger or whatever you want. So you can kind of hunt around and find, um, a source image that you would want to paint. That's a good one. You could also try Pinterest and just search, you know, bears or whatever to find a good reference here as well. But you kind of have to be careful if you're not purchasing an image or using a royalty free image can kind of run into some issues of copyright if you're not giving credit to the photographer, you know. But if you're using it more as a jumping off point and kind of changing it up and adding things and editing things, then it kind of is a gray area where it's more your work in less direct depiction of an actual photograph. So just, you know, kind of do. Do you? You do you and, uh, All right, let's let's get rolling here. So here's my image. Um, I This is a great image. He's right in the center, which is a nice competition, but I wanted to change it up and make it a little bit more dramatic. So I went with a different layout. I want a vertical layout, so I made mine a little bit different late, wise, and I kind of added more greenery up here to kind of a long without a little bit more. And then, as you can see here, I kind of beefed up this bear a little bit. He was looking kind of a younger hungry, so I kind of beef him up a little bit And, um, fudge that photo shop a little, but that'll work out good. When I start rendering it, I'm gonna go over how I would go about painting for And, um, you know, it can be kind of intimidating to some people. You know, you don't have to paint every single strand of hair this one is a good example of just like clumps of for. So I'm gonna really go into that kind of show you how I tackle for and then different rocks , different textures to make up these rocks. There's got there's a lot of good rushes out there that can help you achieve rock textures and stuffs all going over that as well and then show you how I do some fully agent, how I treat backgrounds and stuff. So it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be great. So yeah, let's Ah, let's get started. Okay, So I have gone through all my rushes, and I have whittled them down into a list that I am going to use for this meeting. So as you can see, I've kind of created my own custom folder called Bear Painting that I've kind of organized my favorites into that I think will be good for the one that I'm doing today. So it's pretty standard brushes in here. Ah, hard round in a soft, round, airbrushed type. These two are pretty much, um, I don't know. Basic brushes that seem to come in handy at least at one point in a painting of mine. So I kept those, um I have ah, hard pencil type brush, which is good for sketching. Um, another pencil type brush. I love the texture of this, um, another the same. This is kind of the same. This brush, which has a little bit more uniqueness to the opacity. And I really love the texture in this one. So I'll probably used that a lot for probably the rocks. This one also has unique texture to it. I think this is, uh, your blazes brush, I think. But if you bring it down pretty small, um can kind of get some wispy looking might be good for for So think I'll try that out. Another rough drawing this is kind of similar, a little bit rougher than the previous one this could be. Could be good for hair or fur clumps. Um, I will use it, but might come in handy for you Springs here and there. You can see, you know, by bringing it down really small. It kind of makes a different mark versus if it's bigger, has a totally different look to it. So that's one thing to keep in mind, to kind of familiarize yourself with your brushes and kind of how they behave. And then I really like this texture kind of follows your pen and again, some of these brushes are only available to the Creative cloud and photo shop. If you have an older version of photo shop, some of these brushes won't be compatible. So keep that in mind. Also as well. I don't and I'm not sure other programs I know coral paint. I'm not really sure from there with that one. It also this tutorial is mainly about Photoshopped, I guess. Okay, what else we got? Splatter Rush. This is good for little textures. Might be. I thought this would be good for those little invisible like little plies or specks of dust that we're kind of in my reference, Um, and then we have some foliage brushes here. Um, there was a lot of foliage in my piece, and I thought this might come in a little handy, make my life a little bit easier, their foliage. But they're kind of more abstract, so it has, like a foliage type shape to it, which I like, Um, and I can kind of manipulate that leader by using masks and stuff in kind of get that looking more like foliage. So I thought that was a good one. Here's another one, a little bit of a different shape, but I think he's a really good for foliage, especially in that back room where it's a little bit more ambiguous. You can't necessarily make out like actual leaves. It's more like a clumps and patterns, so that some of those to work with this one was interesting. I thought might be good for, like, some sort of background or like texture on rock. Maybe, And these last ones are all like, um, Faughey type textures that are really, like thes three or both, like a fog type and then this one really loved this one. What follows your pen scribbles in a I thought that would be cool to do some sort of design . Now that that's I can't really give you this precept that I've made because of this grouping. I guess that I've made because some of these brushes again I paid for. But I will link the ones that I have paid for in my description. And I again I'll be sure to give you this one, because this is a really good one. Pressure. Those were free. So Okay, let's get started. All right. Also, um, I have some. Yeah, well, I have some textures that I've downloaded either all just free textures. And I just found on the web. Um, it really helps to me at least to put a texture in kind of a back room color in your canvas to start. So you're not painting on a here? Painting on a white surface kind of, um is a little jarring and kind of, you know, it was a little intimidating as well, So I like to start by putting a texture down. Okay, so here, my reverence, you can kind of see I'm just gonna blood this with some mid mid tone ish color here. Just a little these layers just to kind of give myself a base of something to work with. That's kind of weird color. I don't know that one. Okay. And then I'm gonna throw some textures on there just to see what that looks like. All right, So I have some textures in there. Kind of just We set this to multiply and bring down little capacity just to give myself just a base to work off of. So I'm not just staring it out Stark white, you know, canvas, which is sometimes intimidating. Okay, so I am just gonna leave this one top, I think for now, and start sketching this out. So I'm gonna go on a layer on top and just start with black. Doesn't matter and start with my sketching pencil. So when I start, um, I'm just worried about generalizing in shapes and four an oval. Some circles, you know, the general shape. This is kind of what I dio, um, just to kind of give myself a starting point. It's got a big but all right, so I'm gonna kind of move at a faster pace here. So I don't bore you guys. So just keep watching as I kind of noodle this around, you know, check back in with you once I'm done with this sketch. - Now that I kind of have the general shapes sketched out, I'm to start going in and adding more fine detail to the rest of the bear and kind of give myself a little bit more toe work off, even though this sketch are under drawing is probably not even gonna be visible on the final painting. Um, just helps me to kind of see where everything's going and if I have the proportions. Right? Okay. So zoom out a little bit, Could see a kind of made his back side a little bit bigger than what I had originally drawn . Beginning was kind of around here, so I noticed that he was a little lacking there, so I fixed that just racing a little bit more. Probably make a and then kind of tryingto suggest these areas. Um, where his muscles are kind of been hearing in his arm. Okay, that kind of wraps it up for the sketching stage of it in the next video, I'm gonna start blocking in some color and kind of adding in some background elements as well. 3. Blocking in Color – Underpainting: Okay, now I have all my sketch laid out, and I added a little bit more to the background just to give myself a little hint of fourth's going on back there. Not really necessary. But I just kind of got a little carried away. So now what I'm gonna do is start adding in the color was gonna block in some color. It doesn't have to be precise or even not accurate. At this point. We're just gonna start out with some color. So I'm gonna add a new layer underneath my Leinart, and I'm gonna set my line ERT to multiply so that it allows the colors that I'm adding to show up behind the liner. Basically, And a lot of that liner probably won't even be visible in the final painting. But, um, it's good to have it there, so I could kind of tell, you know where to add the color. And then I'm just going to start by going in and laying some flat color, just like Mentone values in a color pick on my reference photo to kind of get a general color that I might want and then just add some mid tone you don't want it to be too dark, and you don't want to be too light because the idea behind it is that you know, wants to get your mid tones down. Then you can kind of push and pull by adding darks here and then lightening up various and then just keep kind of It's almost like, um, sculpting in a way that you just kind of bringing off the form, um, with lights and dark. So it's good to start with the mid tone to kind of give yourself an area where you can darken it down and also lighten it back up. So that's what I'm gonna start doing here. It might also help to kind of see better. Um, what you're painting if you turn off those, um, texture layers, you can really see You know how I guess what color you're using better. But I tend to just leave those texture layers on. Um, doesn't really bother me too much, but if you're having a hard time judging what color you're using, I might even just tone down. Maybe the opacity level of your, um, textured layers just help. You kind of see what you're doing in the beginning a little bit better, but I'm just gonna kind of keep blocking this in, and I'll go on to the rocks and kind of give a mid tone value to those. And then I'll kind of roughly add in some color to the background. I used the color picker a lot when I'm painting just toe poorly, quickly grabbed the color that I'm needing from my reference image. Usually most of the time, it's just really quick to just go in and grab that color versus having to go into your color palettes and, you know, hunt for that perfect color every time. So get familiar with your color picker and it will really save you a lot of time. Now I am starting going with a new brush and just kind of add some darker shadow areas to the rocks just to differentiate it a little bit and give it a little bit more volume. Now I'm gonna get into painting, um, a little bit more detail into the background, still pretty much just color blocking. I'm not trying, Teoh. Add intricate foliage detail here. I'm just kind of squinting my eyes a little bit to help. You kind of see shapes of color and not necessarily form of objects. Um, kind of helps me and I'm a racing. A little bit of that liner that I had drawn in the background ended up just being too confusing and just unnecessary. So I'm gonna kind of get rid of most of that here. So I can really just let the color blocking kind of take shape and not be obstructed by that liner. So, yeah, if you're having a hard time seeing the forms and blocks of color, it really does help to squint your eyes a little bit to kind of just kind of blurred that out even further and just hope you see where the color should go. And I'm just adding in, um, just chunks of shadow and trying to deepen this up a lot so that I have range of value where I'm then able to go back in and lighten up areas and really help to give the background to rock sinfully ege form in like a Tanja bility to them. So you really need to start from a dark place, a darker place to be able to, then punching highlights and lighter tones to really give anything really form. So and that's true whether you're painting traditionally or you know, digitally. So a lot of the same techniques can be carried on to digital work as well. And I'm just kind of scribbling this brush in not being too precise, really not trying to be a slave to my reference at all in trying to get the general gist of it, I guess, but definitely be creative and kind of let things happen more organically rather than trying to, like, meticulously replicate what my reference photo looks like. And I'm just kind of tapping in since watches here where I can see the foliage is, you know, kind of spotty. And there's a lot of little dark recesses, and I'm just trying pick up on some of that. So I have, you know, kind of that value to jump off from. So I'm just going to keep working on that same layer in the beginning is with this blocking and face. I'm gonna toned down this drawing a little bit just so I can kind of see what values air looking like. And just like I did with the background I'm gonna keep going in and just kind of color picking different areas of shadow that I can see in this bear. So we've got kind of a darker brown over here. We have a kind of a rusty orangish, you know, in some spots. And I'm gonna kind of lay in that to I'm not gonna worry about any of this brightness that's going to kind of come in in the end stages. Um, but I want to get all of this darkness in, like I said, so that I have a starting point for my highlights to kind of show up. And that's when I'll start getting really kind of New Delhi with the clumps of fertile commercial. You how I go about that. So I'm just gonna kind of start laying in some of these rusty colors. Um, what brush should I use for this? I think no money use. Um, we'll try this one. You like that? I really like that one. The opacity on it is too stark. You see that? I don't really think one. These cloud ones, it might be nice. This is a texture. Ones or not. That one in the next lesson. I'm gonna go over finally adding those details into the bear and really bringing him to life, showing you how I paid for in foliage and rock texture. So let's get into it. 4. Painting Fur: Yea OK who are finally ready to get started painting the for on the Bear. This is really going to tie it all together and really make it start looking like a bear. So this painting for is probably seems a little intimidating. Um, but I have a couple of tips that hopefully will make it less scary. And once you get into it, get into the groove of painting for Trust me, it's easy. It's not intimidating at all. You just kind of got to know a few basic things, um, one being that you really want to take note of the direction of the for. That's probably the biggest thing mistakes a lot of people make when they're starting out. Painting is not following the direction of the for in making their lines to uniform to, um, Blackie too predictable. So if you're drawing on the Lions in the same direction, it's gonna look really flat, and it's not gonna look like the bear has muscle and form, and it's not gonna look realistic. So what I like to do is just take a little bit of time to, um, look over your reference and just kind of take note of how the hair is falling on the subject in this case, the there. And you know, if your whatever animal you're drawing, it's gonna be the same concept. You know, hair has a follicle, it comes from the skin and it flows around the body. So just take note of that and also take note of the length of for so around the bear's head it and eyes and stuff and knows those hairs are really tiny, and they're shorter in their less. Um, they're not really in thicker clumps. So that's gonna be a different stroke than the hair around his neck or his back, which is a lot longer and fluffy here and in clumpy er so I guess just kind of, um, look over your reference and take note of all the different types and variations of For that your subject has next would be to take note of the the shadows and lightness and just the different tonal values that you have in the for. So the whole point of the under our painting under painting is, um to kind of give dimension to the for um, how to explain this? Because when I'm drawing. When I'm painting the clumps of fur, I'm leaving a little bit of space in between the clumps of metal. I'm not trying to just paint everything on top of each other and, like, completely destroy what I've painted underneath the for. I kind of want that to show through a little to kind of give help, give dimension and form. So you kind of see that as I'm painting along here that you can kind of see that under painting. And if I'm going along and I'm noticing that it's just not dark enough underneath and my for isn't really showing up, Um, I'll go in underneath that for later that I have started, and I'll just darken that up or I'll change the color a little bit. Or I'll even maybe change the color of the further. I'm drawing on that separate layer to make it a little lighter, to stand over a lot more. So you really was have to kind of play around with it, um, and just kind of see what showing up, because there's never a point. You know, of no return. There's never can never mess up so bad that you can't fix it because digital art there's no wasting of paper. There's no wasting of paint. It's just all a big experiment. And it's, ah, lot of fun to start into because you really can learn a lot about you know, the program for one and just how to paint because there's so many different ways to paint that you know my way might not be the best way for you. And maybe by watching this class, you kind of figure out new ways and new techniques that maybe you enjoy more. So I've been painting the for kind of with a little bit of a lighter tone than the mid tone of that initial color. Blocking is a little bit later than that, but I'm kind of going in now with a little bit even lighter tone. Um, I just gradually keep pushing and pulling the with values a little bit lighter, a little bit darker to add some contrast and form. By adding these letter tones, you can really start to see it just adds so much more dimension, and it just looks way fluffy. Er, um and even though it's not completely matching my reference, and I'm gonna go back in and kind of add some glazing to that already. Just it just looks so much more fluffy. So here again, I'm switching back to that Ah, little bit darker tone. But it's still again shows up against that background layer. And I'm just following the direction of the for, you know, crying, creating some wispy clumps of for trying to have them. Very. You know, this faras direction, but still still maintaining that original for a pattern of how it's kind of flowing over the body. But you can see here by the ear, and as we start getting up towards the shoulder, the for kind of has a little bit of a sporadic pattern. It's not really like it is, and the rest of the body, it's kind of a little bit chunkier. It's like it's protruding towards the camera. - Okay , now I'm going in, and I'm adding an overlay layer on top of everything, and this is gonna act as my glazing layer so very similar to traditional painting. And when you add glazing, you kind of its main. It's a transparent layer. Basically, that's just adding translucent layer of color over the top it's really hard to explain overlay. It's kind of like a mixture of multiply and screen blending moans in that it preserves the lightness in the darkness of everything underneath it. But it kind of adds this like glowy kind of lightness to it that I really like. So I tend to add that on top of my for layers to kind of help to glaze some more color into it and kind of unify some areas and, um, give it more dimension on top. So, like I said before, I you know I'll go back in and add some darker or varying colors underneath that for earlier, and that will kind of give ah, contrast underneath that for shining through. But and then I'll also go on top of the for earlier with that overlay layer to kind of give it more depth of like a glowing nous to it. So here's a good example. You can kind of see a little bit better of how I kind of draw the for in or a paint the for . Rather, I guess, um, it's just all on varying pressure, so I'm kind of trying to taper that line off as I pull away with my pen and it kind of just tapers that line off and gives it a little wispy kind of look to it, and it really looks like clump a for So I kind of do these and varying wits and different, um, different brush sizes to accomplish different looks. And I kind of try to make them not all, you know, to uniform. I kind of want to vary them a little bit while still keeping in the direction of the furnace. Kind of wanna whisp some out a little bit differently, so it kind of looks less predictable. Now I'm going in, and it's just kind of darkening up those back legs a little bit in that front leg, I guess, actually, all the legs just talking him up a little bit to kind of match my reference. Just I picked a bigger brush, one that's a little bit more painterly, and I'm just starting those up. And then I'm gonna go back in and kind of finish out, adding that for on top of those legs, and then comes the fun part of kind of harmonizing everything. Um, I like to add layers of multiply to kind of give a a deeper shadow on top of that earlier and also layers of overlay again to add more glazing. And it's just I keep going back and forth with this kind of method to darken areas in. Add more, um, richness to it with the overlay, that kind of glowy light. Um, and I just keep doing this back and forth, count, checking out my reference, making sure it's being accurate to that and and, yeah, just kind of pushing and pulling, trying to bring out that form a little bit more, highlight areas of his muscle and, you know, kind of make everything cohesive. Incan See here I'm just brushing a darker. It's a dark brown color, but since it's set to overly, really, um, I don't know has this luminosity to it. It really makes it a lot richer, and I think it really hopes to make it look more like that reference. So I'm just going to kind of keep um, messing around with different layers here and pushing back those dark colors and adding that warm thinness and light with the overly layers kind of asked my last step after the painting is pretty much finalized. Well, the bear part anyway. I like to do one final or a couple final layers of just final like detail. Punchy highlights. So sometimes only this on overlay layer to give it kind of like a glowy light, like a room light kind of. And then I'll also go in with just a regular, normal layer. That is just kind of the brightest bright color that I see in my reference, and I'm just kind of adding that into the brightest areas that I see. So that kind of is like a final find, a little touch that really makes everything pop and kind of come to life. So around the edges, especially with that light, is kind of hitting that for kind of creates almost like a rim light. I think that really helps to make it look three d and like it's, you know, popping out of that background. And some of these areas that kind of helped to give it more of a roundness around his muscles kind of hopes to pop that out as well. And then kind of like the tips of the for clumps are catching light, a little bit differently than the areas that are kind of more in shadow, tops of his ears and his head. I'll have, like a real brightness to him, so and that kind of wraps it up. So in the next video, I'm gonna kind of go over the rocks and the foliage, and then we will be all done. 5. Painting Rocks and Foliage: No, I pretty much have a my bear where I think I want it to be. It's not exactly like my reference, but I think I am liking it so far, so I'm gonna leave it. I might add some more details, final details at the end, but for now, I think I'm gonna move on. Oh, my editors feed in pretty quick, um, planning and kind of covering them with, you know, some greenery in this, you know, shadow of the rock. So right now, they're not looking too great, but we'll get there. So I'm gonna start on the rock now and kind of use in texture rushes and integrate some of that foliage in the corner kind of over here, So All right. I'm gonna kind of group my bare layers together so that I can stay a little bit more organized, and over the top of that, I'm going to start working on the rock. So I wanna look through. My brush is a little bit and kind of see which ones by want to use. All right. So don't try this one out a little bit. Kind of change my color here, see what I could do with this. And I'm like, loosely looking at my reference. But I kind of want to play around and have fun with what kind of textures I can make and how it can kind of make this rock look a little bit interesting. So I'm not really paying too close attention to the reference at this point. Was kind of winging it with this brush, cause I kind of like its texture. Another one, huh? This one. See what that looks like? Maybe trying darker color here. Minha color pick. Oh, yeah, that's kind of a cool texture. So I'm gonna kind of overlay some of this just in some spots to kind of give it a little bit of grit. Wow, that was interesting. In this beginning stage, a lot like with the bear is all about just kind of getting some basic, um, basic color and texture down to kind of build off of like I plan on. I'm really building this up, and I want this part to be pretty dark because I need, um a darkish background for the foliage to kind of pop out of so background of that is gonna be pretty dark seemed up there, so not worried too much about form. This point was kinda having fun with these brushes in this one, it's a little bit smoother. I do want to make sure that I'm going dark enough so that I have the ability to pop out. You know those highlights? Just one kind of add some of this light back into it. Look going to start adding some of this grass That's kind of peeking out through the cracks of the rock here, um, kind of the same technique in the same brush that I used on the for of the bear. Just making the blades a little bit longer and thinner and just kind of swapping them out and kind of crazy direction so it doesn't look too like uniform or predictable. Um, just sticking with this one color here. Nothing fancy, just kind of getting Cem weeds and grass drawn in, and now kind of add and similar variation darkness under those blades to kind of make some of those areas pop a little bit, darkening these crevices a little. Now I'm just going in with a lighter green to kind of add some variation. Make it look like some sun kissed blades of grass popping out here, softening that out a little bit. You racing that? So it's not so intense. And now I'm gonna kind of ad some kind of modeled lightness texture over the top to kind of blended together a little bit more so it doesn't look so perfect. Like the strings of further blades of grass roots so, like defined. So I kind of kind of modelling that up a little bit to make it look a little bit more like painterly kind of and then just kind of adding some more chunks here and there with that foliage brush in the pack. And then, um, no, I'm gonna move on toes. That grass clubs, that's Oh, and don't worry about this little foliage. Um, thing that kind of popped up out of nowhere, I end up going in and kind of changing that a little bit. I pretty much read paint the whole thing, so I'll go over that live here. But now I'm kind of just using the same method, just adding longer, swishy blades of grass kind of behind him on that rock and kind of using that foliage brush to kind of add a little bit of, um, texture. Kind of like, uh, ambiguous kind of grass. Clumps is a base to kind of paint over the top of, and that's not really showing up, some to go a little bit lighter. I'm not worried about the grass overlapping the bear. At this point, I'm gonna go back in and kind of erase that so you won't see it overlapping the bear. And I like to give the blades of grass like some character by kind of break in some of them off. You can see some of the more like bending. It's kind of like they're broken a little bit kind, like my reference kind of shows. It just makes it look more natural. All the blades aren't like perfect kind of going in every which way, direction and varying tones up a little. Here and there, Adam Multiply layer to kind of bring some shadow and depth into it. Multiply layer always makes it darker. Case you're wondering, um, it's helpful for shadows, so you don't lose the detail that you painted, but you want to dark and everything off free. Throw multiply later on there and then got some more variation happening here. Lastly, just adding in a few like highlights to the grass blades that you know me. The tops of the blades are kind of catching light A little bit kind of helps to break them apart and kind of add a little bit of interest. A little sun kissed glow. Okay, so now let's get back to that kind of the Bush little thing in the foreground. So I ended up downloading some more foliage brushes and these brushes you're sticking with that background. I'll get to that, too. I kind of film to this a little bit out of order. But, um so the brush is that I had, um we're OK, but not quite what I wanted for this piece. So I downloaded some that are a little bit. They're kind of abstract and that they're kind of just like wispy, suggestive leave shapes, very painterly. And that's kind of what I wanted to go for. So I'm kind of messing around with those making sure again, uh, said it a couple of times here that my background that I start with is always a lot darker , so that the brighter leaves are, you know, have something to stand out against. So I've kind of got a base layer down abstract leaf Penis going on, and I'm gonna kind of brush on some leaves over the top. Um, starting with some stems I couldn't see there was a couple stems that kind of shoot out in the leaves kind of protrude out of there. I'm just gonna draw these in kind of what? I think I'm getting the same brush that I used for the for, um, and just kind of varying the shapes a lot. The previous bush that I drew, I just thought, looked to illustration. He looked almost to, like, cartoony in a way and didn't match the rest of the painting, which is very realistic and kind of almost painterly. So I'm just taking the time to really draw in some leaves that are, they just look more realistic. You know what I mean? They're not, like a typical cliche leave shape of like oval with a pointed tip. That's not what all these look like. If you pay attention to your reference and really notice the, you know, intricacies of the foliage that you're painting from you can really start to notice all the different shapes and how the leaves are protruding in the different angles. How light is bouncing off of them. So just take the time to look at your reference and make sure that you're accurately representing you know, the foliage if you have any. Um, so yeah, I'm just going to take some time here to painting some leaves and, um, go through with the space color here and just add most of the leaves and then kind of add a couple more layers to get some variation of darkness and kind of it was a little bit more. Okay, so I've got those mainly painted in, and I've kind of gone back over the top, using a masked layer that kind of clips, everything that I'm painting onto the layer below it. And I'm just adding brightness to it, you know, kind of having that light hit those tops of the leaves. Kind of like my reference and just adding a little bit more contrast in dimension. I sound like a broken record, but I keep that's just my style of painting, you know, um, really creating contrast through a darker under layers and then kind of building on that those lighter tones to kind of build up that form. So that's just what I'm doing here. Something about with Bear, um, saving my lightness, my lighter colors for the end to kind of add a pop of, you know, contrast to it. And I'm just stating that mask is one of my favorite things to do is masking layers that you don't paint over the lines, basically of what you've painted underneath that layer. So it's just kind of a handy tool. And again, I'm just using different texture brushes just to kind of give this some final detail. Kind of hitting those stem with little highlight to kind of pop fills out a little bit more and for the most part, from my I love it more contrast. But yeah, it's looking pretty good here, all right, that about does it for the rocks in the foreground foliage. In the next lesson, I'm gonna take you through high pain to that background and show you how I got that bear to really pop out. All right, so let's jump into it 6. Painting a Background and Final Detail: Alright, guys, let's get started with a background. So I'm gonna just start by making a new group with a background music I did for the bear and for the rocks just to keep everything organized. And I'm gonna go back in and find that liner layer that I drew the background into. I really wish I hadn't done that, but I'm not kind of go and erase that. All right? Now I'm gonna go in and kind of, um, refined a little bit more of that, just blocked in background, and I'm gonna add a little bit more detailed to it. So the big thing with the background here is that I am planning on having it kind of blurred out like it is. The photo kind of has a blurred, but I'm gonna blurt maybe a little bit more, so that gives me a lot of freedom in this backer. Look, I'm not worried about it at all because any of these details are probably not going to be too noticeable just because of how I'm gonna blurt out. So I'm just gonna kind of lame or darkness in here just to kind of punch that back a little bit that room to amber highlights. And I'm just taking a bunch of different textures, brushes and just kind of trying to mimic what I see in my references for us the darky, the dark, shadowy rock figures and from that darker foliage. So I'm gonna kind of give this a once over and add more contrast to it. And now I'm going back in with one of those foliage brushes that I've been using kind of in that bush part, which is back to the old Bush at this point. Because, like I told you before, I filmed this a little out of order. So just adding in some, um, little foliage patterns where I see them and notice them in my reference and not too precise with it, just kind of wanna get something downs have somethingto work off of in This brush is so nice. I just love the painterly quality that it has its not to like Stam P Li looking. It's got a little bit of abstract nous to it. So I really love this brush and I was gonna go in and kind of add a little bit more variation in color kind of see some areas in the rock where it's a little bit more yellowy Auburn. Just gonna kind of add some wispy grassy areas with a different brush to soften those back a little bit. And now I'm gonna kind of go in and darkened the areas up that are kind of behind. What I've just painted are actually is this on top of it and he really tell, Well, it's kind of sandwiched in between the layers that I've kind of been working with. Just look at more variation again, and I can I'm starting to notice that mine was looking a little too flat. So I really want to punch some of those darker areas back into it. - I kind of want to get a little bit more detail in there. I feel like it's looking to, um, two modeled a little bit, so I'm just drawing in some some shapes of leaves that can kind of notice in my reference and trying to get a little bit more detail to add some more interest to it. So I'm destroying these little leaves in here and there, adding in some more grassy areas, kind of like we have on that rock kind of by the bear's feet just to kind of help tie that in a little bit better to the background. - Gonna see some mistakes. Air where I need to improve things. So I'm going back in underneath kind of stimulus liner layers, adding more darkness in just trying to pick up on my reference what I'm eating to do as far as dark and light, - adding a multiply layer to kind of help given overall darkness tone to it. And then I'll kind of help, um, make the bear stand out a little bit more from the background because I was always in those leaves that were next to his back were kind of the same total value. They're a little bit to let of a green, and he was kind of blending into it. So making that a little bit darker and now I really like that brush that I was using. So I'm gonna go back into those rocks and add this brush texture into that mix. Okay, so I think that's pretty much all I want to do to the background. Um, I think it's looking like I wanted to look, so I'm gonna duplicate that, just in case I want to make changes or edits to it later. And then I'm gonna flatten that emerged, emerged all those layers I have grouped into one layer, and I'm going to blur that. And the blur that I use is a shaped blur and, um, just play around with the different shapes that you can use in the Blur. It gives a little bit of a different look. Ah, there's, You know, you can kind of see in these strands of grass here a different look that it kind of gives. It's pretty interesting, and I kind of want to make it as realistic as I can, as far as like how actual camera would blur it. I don't want to just put a Gaussian blur on it because I think that kind of looks a little bit fake. So I want to just mess around with these different shape, blurs and see which one I like best. And I think I'm gonna end up going with the check mark weirdly enough, at 14 and that gives me a pretty good blurred level. I think so. It's not too blurry, but it's not you know there's in too much detail in the background either gonna go with this one, and I'll just kind of paint that in trying, varying the brush size, trying to be a little bit sporadic and not to, um, patterned or, I don't know, trying to make it look organic like it's not like a straight line of fog. It's kind of seeping up, clouding over. It's a chunkier and opaque in some areas and kind of feathers out in other areas. So just kind of playing around that now , I think I'm gonna kind of edit that background a little bit. I'm gonna address the colors, um, and try and make it a little bit warmer because those greens are a little bit too cool. I kind of want to warm it up just so it kind of matches a little bit better to the bear because the bear is so warm. I don't know. I just prefer a warmer green, I guess looks good. And, yeah, I think I'm gonna edit that fog a little bit. I don't really like the fall in the foreground, so I'm gonna change that around. Okay. So last final details here, minha kinda edit the color of the foreground grass a little bit in the bush kind of warm and that up a little So it matches and I'm gonna add another layer of soft lights. Um, just kind of similar to overlay and using. Ah, warm, yellowish. Tony, I'm just gonna kind of brush over that foliage in the bottom of the peace a little bit, just to kind of, um, Mormon that up. Also, this is a little bit a little bit on that moss area on the rock and final touches are a couple little dust specks or like little tiny flies. I don't know why, but I love adding these, especially if the background is blurry. It just gives it. I don't know how to explain it. It's just like the focal range of it is just so cool. So I always kind of had those in all right. And lastly, I'm gonna do a final overlay layer on my bare just to kind of around the edges a little bit , just to kind of give that a final little glow like the light is just kissing. It's for just ever so softly. I don't know, Overlay gets me. I always gotta lay similarly on there. So just painting on a lighter color here and I'm just gonna cycle through some blending modes is just See what I like better, darker looks a lot better. I think it kind of helps to contrast the focus area and kind of draw your eye to the bear. So I think I like that darker is better for sure. Yeah. That darkness really hopes to pull your I right to the focus area, which is the bear. All right. One final layer when I add a little soft ingredient to the bottom and said that too Linear burn, that's a good one. And then just soften that down a little bit and yeah, I think that's it. Really love how this turned out. Guys, I am so glad that you took this class. I hope that was a help to you. I hope you learn something. I hope you had fun watching me. I hope you weren't too annoyed by all the annoying things that I say. And then the one last thing is signing your piece. Got to make sure you sign it. I just got married a couple months ago, and I still haven't changed my name. And I don't know if I will on my art, but for now, I'm still using my maiden name. All right, That is it. Guys. Thank you so much for sticking around to the end. It was kind of long, but I hope that I was you know, that I went into enough detail about the process and that you learned something or had fun watching. Um I can't wait to see what you guys have painted. Ah, so if you did paint something, definitely be sure to stick it in that project area so I can check it out. And if you have any questions at all, I would be more than happy to answer them. And yeah, thanks so much. See you later.