Hello everyone, today I tried something new. I usually paint the eyes of my characters according to the reference photos I use, but I learnt a nice trick during my personal studies yesterday. I've seen this effect before but have never tried it myself, and this effect really is simply. But first, let me share my finished piece
For the eyes, I painted the rim around the iris a lighter color and added two side highlights. This instantly made it have that glowy look I've been craving for a while now. I also added stronger highlights on the nose and lips. I actually have two final versions ; the one above and another one before I did the final blending. I've been moving back and forth and it's not easy to decide on my favorite because I also do like the harder edges around this version, it seems to give the girl more character.
Now to the steps. I started as always with an outline and filled in the base colors by painting with my paintbrush 3 on autodesk sketchbook
I then began to clean my lines and further refine my sketch by adding shadows and highlights and also working in the multiply and soft glow modes
I cleaned up the eyebrows because they looked too thick and irregular and duplicated the image several times before setting the final layer to soft light.
And still more refining until I got to the image I have used as my final piece.
Thanks for stopping by!