Digital Painting in Grayscale

Digital Painting Fundamentals

Digital Painting Fundamentals(36 Lessons)
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The Greyscale Painting Process

Digital Painting in Grayscale

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Digital Painting in Grayscale

103K
Mark as Completed
Course In Progress

Now that you've seen me do it, it's your turn to practice working from a reference to understand how shapes and values work in real life! 

Start with a clean drawing, do a value block-in, and then build up your painting working from general to specific details.

You're more than welcome to find your own reference, but I've also provided three references that can be found in the downloads tab for this lesson. There is an easy reference, an intermediate reference for those who'd like to try clothing a figure and painting fabric, and a hard reference with lots of costume details and fun material challenges. 

Submit your assignments here
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Newest
Clairaut
Here's my attempt, I think I was a bit confused and put the sketch and the painting on two different layers but then decided it would be easier to just merge those two layers. I usually stick to traditional inks and pencils so I'm finding this pretty helpful for learning painting in general. I think I won't use such a textured brush for the subject next time, although I do think it gives it some charm, I just feel like it makes the shadows look lighter, despite using just straight up black. I guess I need to experiment with the brush settings.
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James Paris
Took me around 2h I think, it's a bit too dark, I realise now that my drawing tablet and my monitor have way different brightness !
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crobinso24
Here is my painting. I feel like my rendering needs a lot of work. I mostly do concepts so I'm not used to taking things to a finished state
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Becca =
Phew... Might have been about 10 hours I think? I've done a bit of digital painting over the years but never down to the fundamentals where I can do it without someone guiding me. Hopefully through this course I'll gain a bit of confidence and hopefully some speed as well. Being slow is my biggest crutch. Also need to figure out how to effectively do those small details. I wracked my brain trying to find that gritty brush you were using because I really liked it. Ended up just locking a grass texture on everything. I just want to be good with value and colour finally... TToTT, what good is drawing a figure if you can't make it look nice, y'know? Proud of myself for doing it though! I always feel like I'm running out of time, so doing this feels good, just gotta... speed up.
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neiriin
As a beginner on digital painting, i'm happy how it ended up but i stopped this one here because i was getting frustrated with the brush, rather than the picture. I am using clip studio and sometimes the brush would make the color darker than the one i picked if i was painting over shadow or midtones (i think the brush was smearing the color i selected with the one under it when i painted?) Any advice on that would be greatly appreciated, should i try to paint simple objects, like apples os boxes under real light to try to get to grips with the brushes?
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Tim Millea
Yoni reference first ever digital painting!
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loes roos
Check the proportions. It seems you focused too much on the head so it has become larger. Do as stan suggest turn the reference upside down while you are still in the outline drawing phase. Even when going digital, the outline sketch and gesture and shapes is all to find the proportions.
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Justin ONeill
Great effort taking that step into digital! One of the nicest features of digital is how easy it is to flip the canvas. This can help you spot challenges like proportion. This can really help you get a-head of the game. digital also makes it easier to correct some mistakes by using tools like liquify, to adjust the size of various parts without too much effort. aside from proportions double check your angles. They’re mostly prey good, but his right leg is too low and his groin is mia. great stuff, keep it going!
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Tim Millea
Some additional cleanup
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tokoro
Hi! I recently got into digital drawing after being on a traditional drawing hiatus for 12 years (back when I was 21). I'm happy with how this one turned out but I'm looking for some constructive feedback, so please fire away! I think what I'm struggling with the most is finding a style. I'd love to be able to do less strokes in general and keep things simple/stylized. I love how Jon's drawing's muscles are so nicely defined too, it feels like mine are missing a bit of volume!
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Jesper Axelsson
Hi @tokoro, nice drawing! You might appreciate reading this comment https://www.proko.com/s/J38K Hope this helps :)
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Memori 0
Hi guys, this is my attempt at this one. I think it started out great, but I ran into too many problems later on. I had trouble with the face and thought there would be no point in trying to finish the rest of the painting (spent ~2.5 hours on this). I will do the second one next week maybe that one will be better, any feedback on this one would be much appreciated.
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Jesper Axelsson
Hi @Memori 0, nice painting! I think you did a good job capturing the pose, and the knee closest to us feels really solid! - I think improving the values is what would strengthen this painting the most. I think you would benefit from practicing value studies. If you feel like that's something for you, check out Dorian Iten's video How to Organize Values. You can get it for free in the Proko Course Sampler. You can try using 5 values right away, but I found it difficult to control, as I wrote in this reply https://www.proko.com/s/PX9q. Start with 2 value studies, and when you feel like you have a good grasp it, move on to 3, then 4 then 5. Hope this helps :) Let me know if you have any questions!
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Alessio Amato
These are my grayscale works for the assignment
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Alessio Amato
Here are the references
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hyki
8mo
Finally done with these assignments! Here are my attempts.
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morelock
Look solid. The eyepatch made me smile
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Alessio Amato
I feel like i'm too foused on similarity, and details, I would like to make simpler images but with more character, get away from academicism
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tokoro
Hey, your drawing looks really nice! I seem to be having the same problem, finding it hard to keep my drawings simple with less, more meaningful strokes.
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Hans Butler
Hi Jon, really loving this course, I have a question regarding what brush you are using in the 'Grey scale Painting process tutorial? I downloaded the brushes just trying to find the name.
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tokoro
I would also like to know this. Can't seem to find the brush used in the video.
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gavinobrien32
My attempt at the second lesson, used the flat thick brush for block in and flat thin brush for details.
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gavinobrien32
Made an attempt at the first demo
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Kristelle
Here is my assignment submission. I am not sure if I hit the right balance of simplified yet detailed. As far as values, it was hard for me to decide what I wanted the focus to be on. I wanted the shiny bits to be shiny and subtly lead the eye from the shiny crown down along the shiny trim. And I wanted the far ends of her dress to be less in focus so they’re a bit lower contrast. I did get a bit lost as to what values to make the background. I wasn’t sure how to keep the suggestion of a background without going into more detail
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Sasha Yu
I tried to be quick with this and treat it like a study or a practice. I usually spend way too long on details and end up with too much information everywhere. This was my attempt to focus my details and direct the viewers gaze. Does this balance ambiguity v. information? Does it read clearly? Is it okay? Thank you!
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xeixas118
first attempt, the neck is long and maybe i did go a bit to hard on the shadows but overwall pretty good I think
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Julie Bille
Here are my two attempts so far!
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Kristelle
Woah! Loving the detail on the feathered costume one!
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jasonj33
Had to use a little color but I'm happy
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Mori Luna
I’ve been following Prokos Draftsman and remembered that I can buy courses with my adult money. I’ve been grinding my nose into digital painting so I would love to see how I can improve.
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Jesper Axelsson
Hi @Mori Luna, nice painting! Cool shape design! - I think you would really appreciate taking the Figure Drawing Fundamentals  course, as you learn digital painting. The things you learn in the figure course, especially structure, will strengthen your paintings. - I did a paintover where I did an attempt to match the values more with the reference. If you want to improve your understanding of values, this post might help: https://www.proko.com/s/PX9q Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!
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2D Art Lead at Hi-Rez Studios
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