Continuing with the aforementioned methods, I proceeded to smooth out the brush strokes, add stronger highlights and further detail to the hair. I also started adding creases to the eyes and fining out the eye lashes and eye brows using the smudge and burn tools with a single pixel brush on low pressure.
1. Basic undetailed eye.
2. Highlight added to tip of eye lid with dodge tool. Definition of eye lashes made with smudge tool.
3. The brows and eye lashes fined down. Creases added to eye lid. Touch of purple added with airbrush on color mode.
Turning my attention to the man’s face, I began applying subtle colours, using the airbrush on color mode (between 2-5% pressure).
I decided to apply a faint blush of red to the most prominent areas, such as the nose, cheeks and chin, in order to give the man’s face a little vibrancy and feeling. I then added traces of purple and green to add variation to the monochrome skin, and to help give the overall image a unique appearance. (Note: I often get ideas for colouring by studying fantasy art.)
Also using the airbrush in color mode, I applied a touch of make-up to the woman’s eye lids.
Once the colours were applied I frequently used the eye dropper tool to select and apply these to other areas of the picture - i.e. the purple on the man's face was also used to colour parts of his hair. This helped to maintain a consistent colour-scheme for the overall picture.
At this stage, I decided that the image as a whole needed to be darker, and so, using the Image/Adjust/Variations pull down, I quickly darkened the shadows.
To create the texture and stubble around the man’s chin, I zoomed into the image and 'pixelled' these details by hand, as demonstrated in the following stages:
1. Basic smooth area.
2. I applied small blobs with the dodge tool and a small soft brush.
3. Smoothed the blobs with the smudge and blur tools and a soft brush. Touches of shadow were added between the blobs with the burn tool.
4. Added faint highlights and shadows.
5. Began applying stubble, working over the dark areas using the burn tool and the smallest spatter brush on 20% exposure.
6. Added light pixels with the dodge tool, using the spatter brush and small hard brushes. Added shadows adjacent to these light dots and darkened the edges of chin with burn tool and soft brushes to give a rounded appearance.
The burn tool and spatter brushes were used for the man’s neck and strands of hair were pulled over the top using the smudge tool and small hard brushes. The finer strands were created with a 1 pixel brush on 5-10% pressure.
I then decided that the shading of the face looked too smooth and plastic, so I decided to indulge in a little hands-on stippling - a technique familiar to most 8-16bit artists. This helped to give the skin a sweaty and porous appearance.
1. Basic airbrushed area.
2. Light and dark areas stippled using dodge and burn tools.
3. Additional pixels and blobs added.
4. Smaller light and dark pixels added with burn and dodge on higher exposure.
At this point I will draw your attention to the left eye of the female, where I encountered a small difficulty. When trying to paint the hair directly over the eye, the eye and the hair ran together (as shown in the first example). Unable to 'undo' this, I decided to refer back to a previous stage as a background layer and use the eraser tool to restore the eye (example 2). I then added a new layer and began painting the hair over the eye.
1. First attempt - the hair and the eye blended together.
2. Eraser tool used to restore the eye.
3. New layer added, onto which I airbrushed rough strokes.
4. Started to fine out the hair, smudging the dark shades into the light with a 1 pixel brush.
5. Highlights added to hair. More fine strands.
6. Layer flattened and more flayed hairs added. Applied fine highlights using dodge tool.
Turning back to the woman, I realized that the skin needed to be much softer and smoother than the man’s, yet it still looked too plastic. I began by adding shades of red, purple and green (using the airbrush on color mode) and then decided to stipple the skin, keeping it lighter and less erratic than I did with the man.
1. Smooth (plastic looking) area.
2. Light stippling with dodge tool.
3. Random darker spots added.
4. Outline of chin area darkened with burn tool and soft brush to give a more rounded appearance.
When applying the darker spots, they reminded me of freckles and I noticed how they gave the skin a more natural appearance, so I decided to apply these freckles elsewhere - primarily over areas where freckles are most common, like the nose, chin, cheeks and arm (freckles are less common on the forehead, neck or the eye area).
（Freckles dotted over the skin using burn tool, varying between 10-60% exposure.）
