01: The mission
Your mission today if you choose to accept it: Paint a face. Right away this was scaring me. My inks were like place holders and I knew they would look horrible if they were part of the final picture. However I dug right in because this is all I had to work with.

I originally inked the picture in Adobe Illustrator. This means the inks were in vector art format. Vector art may be blown up to any size for print. So when I imported the inks into photoshop I could bring them in any size. My standard work size for posters and people is 18in wide and 24in tall at 200 dpi. That way the image can be used for books and posters.

I brought the inks in on their own layer so I could color underneath.

02: Starting
I started off by adding a single flat grey color underneath the inks. This is what I would airbrush on. I left some area outside of the inks in case I brushed hair flowing this way and that.

Right away I started blocking in base shadows on the face with the burn tool set from 10-20%. I brush everything very light as I can always contrast the image later bringing out strong tones etc.

Special Note:
The dodge, burn and saturation tools have three settings: Shadows, Highlights and Midtones. When brushing in details I always use Midtones as using Highlights will more often then not blow out the image later on. Subtle is better as later on when you contrast the image you will see your work pop out.

I started brushing around the hair line, cheek bones, eye sockets, under the bottom lip, off the side of the nose and part of the jaw lines that would meet the beard. Basically the major shadow areas. I also did some light brushing in the beard area but not much.

03: Finer Dark Detail
Now I started adding in detail with a smaller brush still set on burn 10%. Cutting in detail all over the face I also mocked in larger areas of the beard with fine lines.

04: Highlights
Since I had a good base structure which somewhat defined where all parts of the face and beard would be I started adding in highlights. Selecting the dodge tool which made areas light I set it the same as the burn tool going from 10-30%.

I started working in the areas inbetween the dark areas. This would create simple highlights all over. At first I used a wider brush and then kept narrowing the brush creating slightly tighter and sharper highlights from the top of the face to the bottom of the beard.

05: Details Galore
Again I went in with the dodge tool and started painting in even finer details than before. Zooming in extremely close I added details to the lips bringing out the highlights on them and then went over the whole face with a fine tooth comb light brushing in little highlights that would add nice texture when the picture was done.

You can see at the top of his hair very light scratching highlights.

06: Yet Even More Detail
Again going over the whole face from top to bottom I kept brushing in very minute strokes and lines all over his face, adding more to his hair as well getting those fine hairs in.

I also came back witht he burn tool adding in more subtle shadows and strengthening the earlier ones. (Notice the dark strokes on the left side of the forehead).

A somewhat sketchy style makes little texture marks when the picture is done. If you paint ultra smooth the end result will look rather plastic in nature.

In this stage I also roughly blocked in the eyes so I could tackle them in the future.

Also faintly around his upper lip I started working in his mustache that would later connect to his beard.

07: Large and In Charge
I started going over the picture with a rather large dodge brush. I painted in key areas like his cheeks and forehead where I thought large portions of light would reflect.

Going back to the beard and mustache and eyebrows I worked in finer details with a much smaller dodge brush.

When doing such a large picture you have to keep in mind how large it will be when you print it. If the hair detail is razor thin like in real life it may not show up at all in a 8.5x11 book.

So that means spacing the hair a bit more than usual and making the highlights really strong, you can see it when the head is only 1in tall in a printed book.

Now, if this was a cover image for a book that only showed his face that would be quite different as you could then see very fine face detail since the head would be 9-10in.

08: Zoom Zoom
Zooming in once again I added subtle brushed highlights all over the face. I then returned to his eyebrows and mustache adding in finer highlight details brining out individual hairs.

09: Getting There
Turning off the inks I was happy that the face was standing on its own. This is a large preview picture of what has been done so far.

10: Eraser Spacer
The inks had played their part keeping me in line so to speak. Now I turned the inks back on and faded them subtely into the painting.

Since the inks were on their own layer it was a simple matter of selecting the eraser tool at 30-50% and lightly erasing them down. Such hard inks are fine for other areas of the picture but the face is such a small area with plenty of detail that hard black inks would look horrible over it.

12: Adding Color
Adding color is rather a weird process because of the way I work. I start off by simply adding straight color to the grayscale image.

As you can see to the right I brought up color balance adding red, yellow and a little magenta for slight skin tone.

14: Contrast
Bringing up the Levels Window I played with sliders until I felt that I got a good contrast on the picture. Not horribly dark and not so light that tons of areas have solid white bleeding through.

This is why I paint so light from the begining. Photoshop is great for manipulating what? Images. That means since I painted so light from the begining I had a plethora of contrasting options. If i had painted hard and contrasted form the begining it would be hard to go any other way.

I like working this way as it lets me carefully adjust everything I do and as the picture comes together I can make sure it all works in relation to the rest.

However I had a slight problem. The beard needed further contrasting from the rest of the face.

16: Edgy
Instead of simply erasing around the head I dithered in and out making little edges so when you see the final image its not perfectly smooth around the entire head. This would give the end image of little clumps of hair moving in and out etc.

17: Hedgy
Again dithering all around the hair erasing excess canvas. I decided to dither and erase the beard slightly more than the hair on his head. This would give a subtle look that the hair was becoming thinner and thinner as his beard moved along towards the bottom.

18: Canvas Be-Gone
This is the end result of erasing the excess canvas from his hair. Also note I painted in neck/shoulder muscles on both sides of his beard.

19: Diamond Shine
I needed to finish the eyes and bring them out from the dark deep eye sockets.

I added a hard shine with the dodge tool, setting the tool from midtones to highlights. To add the shine you first have to hit the area with the dodge tool on shadows. This brings hard dark shadows to a lighter scale. Then set the dodge tool to highlights and hit the small area where you want a sheen to shine. Or you could just use the paint brush and using a light color could simply paint the shine on ;)

next I used the saturate tool and set it to desaturate. I hit the area that goes around the eyes taking it from beige to white. I carefully went over the white ares with the dodge tool making fine edges where the white in the eyes end.

20: Result of The Eye
The eyes didn't come out too bad but I would revisit them later as the whites in the eyes were uneven when comparing the two.

21: Masky
Now it was time to finish the beard concerning both contrasting and changing the color.

Going into quick mask mode (hitting Q on the keyboard) I then filled in the entire area with the red masking color hitting Alt+Delete. This makes everything masked with a light red color.

Using the eraser I erased the skin parts on his head. This way the only part of his head under the red masking was his hair and beard.

When satisfied I had his hair under the mask I hit Q once again coming out of the mask. (Note I forgot his eyebrows, I would have to come back and get those later by themselves)

22: Seperation
Coming out of the mask left the face selected and not the beard. Hitting ctrl+shift+I, I inverted the masking selection so now his beard and hair were selected.

I then hit ctrl+J which then copied the selected contents onto a new layer. This meant his hair and bear were now on a layer above the rest of his face so they could be manipulated and contrasted by themselves.

23: Lack of Color
Opening Levels and moving the bottom right slider I made the beard darker. Even though the beard looks colorless it actually has a fine amount of red/brown in it from the above image. When contrasting the beard it will bring out that color hard and sharp making it just right.

24: End of The End
After carefully contrasting the beard using levels once again I went over the picture adding little details here and there. Adding shadows to the beard and hair, contrasting other parts so they would stand out in the small version of the art.

Note: I went back and fixed the eys, added color to the pupils, touched up the white area once again. Also I fixed the eyebrows adding a lot more yellow to them then contrasting them on their own layer just like I did with the hair.

25: That's A Wrap
In the end this is how I "paint" my art. I start with a pencil sketch, scan it then take it to inks on computer. The inks are very open and do not depect shadows etc. The inks serve me as overall guides and give strength to the picture in the end.

The picture to the right shows the process from pencils to color. Bottom right shows his pants leg detail.

I apply the same process to every part of the picture over and over again. In the end you can do fun stuff like adding shadows and various lighting going over his body or add a background and blend him into it.