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09 10 11 12 13 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Sculptor © Simon Dominic
contents

Custom Brushes
Orga n ic C u s tom Bru sh e s from Ink, Water & Sa lt E x p er iments
Bri an Re c kt e n wa l d 12
Ho w to C r e at e Bru sh e s from your Pets
Carlo s C a bre r a 16
C u s tom Bru sh e s
Daark e n 20
C r e at i ng C u s tom Bru sh e s to Save Time
M ar c Bru ne t 26
C u s tom Bru sh e s f or Sk i n
Mél a nie De lon 30
Cre at ing a Bru sh from S cr atch in P hoto shop
Mike Corrie r o 34

Speed Painting
Tor n a d o Mo v i ng To wa r ds Farmhouse
Carlo s C a bre r a 40
S te a m - Pow er ed M e c h a n ica l Destro yer
Danie l L j u ng g r e n 44
A li en Hot Air Ba l loon s
E m r a h E lm a sl i 48
A l i en Hot A i r Ba l lo on s
Nat ha nie l We st 50
F or e st Fir e
Le ven t e Pe t e rf f y 54
Sh i p Hit by Tor p edo
Le ven t e Pe t e rf f y 58
Once a T h r iv ing C it y, No w Deserted a nd Ta ken Over by Vegetation
Ser g S o u l e i m a n 62

Matte Painting
Rena issa nc e
M ar co Ba u rie de l 68
Fi nding Un k now n Ka dat h
Ser ge y M u sin 74
Se ason C h a ng e : A W in t er Sc ene
Tiberi u s Viri s 78
P yrot e c h n ic s: Fir e a n d Smoke
Tiberi u s Viri s 84
M att e Pa in t ing T ip s & T r ick s
Tiberi u s Viri s 88

Creatures
Bi r d C atc h er
M at t Di xon 94
Cre at ur e C onc ep t De sig n 1 0 1
Mike Corrie r o 100
Cre at ur e De sig n for Low Atmo sp her ic C onditions
Pa scal R a i m ba u lt 112
Pai n t ing An im a l Fur
Richa rd Til bu ry 118
Pai n t ing An im a l E y e s
Stepha nie R Lof t i s 122

Chapter 02 6
 contents

Humans
Ho w to Pa int Blonde a nd Red H a ir
128 Anne Po g oda
Ho w To Pa int L ip s W orth K issing
132 Anne Po g oda
M a le P ortr a it
136 Daar k e n
Pa inting Rea listic Skin
144 E m r ah E lm a sl i
T he H um a n Fa ce
148 Ny k ol ai Al e k s ande r
Pa inting the H um a n E ye
160 R ic h ar d Til b u ry

Environments
Sa nd stor m
166 C ar lo s C abr e r a
T wister
170 C ar lo s C abr e r a
Rain Storm
174 C ar lo s C abr e r a
Sno wstor m
178 C ar lo s C abr e r a
Heat Waves
182 C ar lo s C abr e r a
Another Rainy Day
186 Daar k e n
Painting a Water Surface/Waves
192 R ic h ar d Til b u ry

Scifi & Fantasy

Pa inting Ar mo ur - E urop ea n K night
198 Daar k e n
P l a nets a nd Sta r field s
204 C he e M ing W ong
P ier D u t y
218 G r av e n Tu ng

Complete Projects
Funfa ir
226 Danie l a Uhl ig
C r eating a 2 D I m a ge from sc r atc h
232 Dav id R e voy
M a king Of “K eep A Sha r p E ye”
240 R on C r abb

250 The Gallery

7 Chapter 02
Terra-stoma © Dr. Chee Ming Wong

Compiled by the 3DTotal Team

Tom Greenway Lynette Clee Chris Perrins Richard Tilbury Matthew Lewis Introduction
Digital painting is huge! It’s a modern, creative
medium that is growing rapidly and is being used
in so many industries and by so many individuals –
hobbyists and professionals alike. This book is just a
slice of what’s out there in the digital painting world,
but within this “slice” we aim to offer a comprehensive
cross-section of tips and techniques from some of
All works are copyright © 2009 by the credited artist, their representative or copyright holders. the most accomplished digital artists in the industry
Every effort has been made to locate copyright holders of materials included in this book in order to obtain their permis-
sion to publish it. If you need to contact us, the details are: today. We cover a wide variety of popular subjects,
dam@3dtotal.com
from aliens, creatures and humans through to robots,
3DTotal.com Ltd, 1 Shaw Street, 3rd Floor, Worcester, WR1 3QQ, United Kingdom cityscapes and natural environments, including

viii
weather effects and many more. The styles we cover
vary from speed painting, offering a more traditional
impressionistic style, through to setting up the many
custom brushes that can provide precise, technical and
often time-saving techniques.

Speaking of traditional media it is important to remember

that digital painting is becoming more widely accepted
and highly regarded as the techniques and resulting
imagery advance. Long gone is the time of sceptics who
regarded painting with the aid of hardware and software
as cheating; the artist still needs to be just as talented
as ever before to produce the breathtaking work you can
see throughout these pages. However, with the benefits
that digital painting offers, such as increased speed,
freedom to experiment, efficient workflows and ease of
sharing work with online communities, more and more
artists are discovering and embracing this incredible
medium. And with guides such as this book, we strive
for everyone interested in digital art to be the best they
possibly can be by learning from the masters’ tutorials,
whilst being inspired by their gallery images.

Tom Greenway
Manager Director, 3DTotal

Free Resources
Some of our Digital Painting Techniques tutorial artists
have kindly supplied, where appropriate and possible,
free resources to accompany their tutorials for you to
download to follow along with their teachings. You will find
free custom brushes donated by Carlos Cabrera, Mélanie
Delon, Mike Corriero, Daarken and Nykolai Aleksander,
and on top of these 3DTotal are also providing a base
painting to accompany some of our environment tutorials
by Carlos Cabrera, as well as a photo (plate) for the
matte painting tutorials by Tiberius Viris.

All you need to do to access these free resources is to

visit the new 3DTotal micro site at www.focalpress.com/
digitalartmasters, go to the Books section, and there you
will find information on how to download the files. Simply
look out for the ‘free resources’ logo on articles within
this book that have files for you to download from www.
focalpress.com/digitalartmasters!

ix
custom brushes
Any artist will tell you that the link between their thoughts and ideas
and the actual paintings they produce are the tools they wield. From a
traditional standpoint these have been the canvas and more principally
the brushes. These are no less important in a digital context; the increas-
ing array of brushes available and the freedom to create customized
versions is paramount to the quality of digital painting today. This chapter
provides an insight into the value of using custom brushes, and shows
how they can be created from scratch and tailored to suit your subject
matter.
custom brushes

© Br i a n R e c k t e n wa l d

Organic Custom Brushes from Ink,

Wat e r & S a lt E x p e r i m e n t s
By Br i a n R e c k t e n wa l d
S of t wa r e U se d : Photo shop

Introduction
Like a lot of other digital artists out there,
creating custom brushes is not only a key
step in creating the art, but a heck of a lot
of fun all in itself! The default Photoshop
brushes are quite awesome, and I use them
frequently, especially in the blocking phase, but
I always end up integrating one or two custom
brushes as well, for control and a personal
touch. I’ve created custom brushes from just
about anything I can find, including pictures,
textures, doodles and digital scribbles. But
my preference is to add an organic feel to my

© Br i a n R e c k t e n wa l d
Fig.01

brushes, so 90 percent of my custom brushes come from high-resolution

scans made up of crazy experiments with ink, water and salt on drawing
paper (Fig.01).

Step 01
Here I pull different selections from the scanned image and mess with
them using Levels, Filters and painting over them with other brushes
until I get an ideal base image for a new custom brush (Fig.02).
Fig.02

Chapter 01 12
 custom brushes

Step 02
In this example, I’m going to create a brush
for use with the Smudge tool. I want a more
stippled pattern, like a dry brush would give,
to help add texture as I blend. After bringing
contrast into the image by clamping the Levels,
I begin experimenting with some filters to
further pronounce the shapes (Fig.03).

Step 03
Then I duplicate the original texture a few times
and place them on top of the filtered version.
Finally, I play with different blending modes
until there’s a good texture/shape balance
(Fig.04).
Fig.03

Step 04
Once I have my base brush, I flatten my layers
and possibly resize the image. It’s better to
save your brush at the highest native resolution
possible. However, the higher you go, the
slower the drawing performance. To save this
image off as a brush, go to Edit > Define Brush
Preset, and hit OK after giving it an appropriate
name (Fig.05). Now you can access this brush
at any time in the Brushes window.

Step 05
It’s now time to set up the Smudge tool
brush settings for use with our new brush.
We’ll be able to pull a lot of mileage from this
Fig.04

brush simply by adjusting the Shape Dynamics, Scattering, and Other

Dynamics settings, without having to swap out a new brush image.
Another important value to adjust and tinker with as you go is the
Strength setting. An example of this brush in action starts with a canvas
of broad brushstrokes (a default round brush with strength and hardness
of 100) and then a Cutout filter applied (Fig.06).

Fig.05 Fig.06

13 Chapter 01
custom brushes

Fig.07

Step 06
I now select the Smudge tool and load our
new brush image (Fig.07). For rapid, first pass
blending I want speed and spread ability, so
at this stage I’ll use a smaller brush size with
just the Shape Dynamics and Other Dynamics
settings adjusted (Fig.08a – 08b). Fig.08a

Step 07 – Final
At this stage I’m constantly changing the
strength and sometimes turning off the Other
Dynamics setting. After some cross-hatching
to bring out some tonal gradation, I change my

Fig.08b

Fig.09b

brush settings to bring a softer, yet still textural, quality to the strokes
by turning on the Scattering (Fig.09a – 09b). The rule of thumb here is
that the higher the scatter, the softer the blending. Also, the higher the
strength, the more the texture will come through. Adjusting the brush
accordingly is also important at this stage.

To show you an example of our new brush in action, the custom brush
made in this tutorial, and the variations mentioned, have been used
exclusively in creating this painting of an old woman (Fig.10).
Fig.09a

Chapter 01 14
 Fig.10

© Br i a n R e c k t e n wa l d