A Digital Painting Workflow

This lesson brings everything together into a reliable, professional digital painting workflow. It's the process used, with variations, by concept artists and illustrators. The key idea: solve the big problems first, when changes are cheap, and add detail last.

1. Thumbnails

Make 6–12 small, fast compositions in grayscale (see thumbnails). Use a big hard brush and the lasso tool to block shapes. Pick the strongest one.

2. Sketch

Enlarge the chosen thumbnail and draw the structure on a new layer: perspective, construction, gesture. Keep it loose but accurate. Gather references for anything you're unsure about.

3. Values

Paint the image in grayscale first, or check values constantly with a grayscale layer. Establish the light source, the value groups and the focal point. If it works in black and white, color will be much easier.

4. Color

There are two common approaches:

• Color over grayscale: use layers in Color, Overlay or Multiply mode over the value painting, then paint opaque color on top to fix the inevitable dullness.
• Direct color: start with colored flat shapes (see color harmony), keeping your value plan in mind.

Decide the color of the light and the color of the shadows (see color temperature).

5. Render

Now refine forms: light, shadow, edges, materials. Work from big to small, the whole image at once, zoomed out most of the time. Zoom in only for specific details.

6. Polish

• Sharpen edges at the focal point; soften the rest.
• Add accents: the brightest highlights and darkest darks.
• Small details and textures where they matter.
• Final adjustments: levels, color balance, a subtle overall color layer to unify.
• Flip the canvas one last time and check from a distance.

Speed painting

A great exercise: paint a complete small scene in 30–60 minutes. Time limits force you to focus on big shapes, value and light, which are exactly what make a picture work.