Tag: Portrait Paintings

Couple Portrait Painting

Posted on

I’m a Wedding Painter?

A professional photographer once told me that being a wedding photographer ranks the lowest on the totem pole for photography. If that’s true, will being a wedding portrait painter make me the lowest of painters? Haha. Okay, seriously, no disrespect for wedding photographers. They do great work. I think it’s just that being a wedding photographer has a relatively low entry requirement, therefore, you get the amateurs as well as professionals. Anyhow, back to painting. This painting was done at a request from a father who wanted to give a painted portrait of his daughter and future son-in-law as a little surprise wedding gift to them. He owns a custom wrapping and printing company so naturally this would be printed. I hope everything went great and I’m curious how this painting was received by the bride and groom.

Soft Airbrushing at High Resolution

This was a much more involved painting. Usually with my limited time, I spend roughly 2 hours for any kind of work on my own. Since the painting was to be printed, I had to work at a much larger resolution. This took me about 8 hours to paint. The final resolution was almost 4000 pixels wide. Ultimately, this was a good test for me because I was curious how the larger resolution would affect my soft airbrushing technique. As it turns out, the affects were minimal. Working at a larger resolution just meant using a larger brush, which in Photoshop is never an issue. But at larger resolution, more time was spent on the details, which was to be expected. I’m glad my technique has survived the test of high resolution.

Painting Hair and Details

The most challenging part was her hair and the details on her dress. I get impatient with too much details. I don’t have ADD, it’s just that I don’t like too much repetition=). But I’m glad I got through it. The fun part was making the composition come together. Like fading some areas out to focus the eye, and sharpening certain edges to draw attention to the area. That’s the art part that I enjoy most. Because without that, it’s just a copy of a photo. Well, hope you like this, and do check out the video below for the painting process. Until next time, -Wei

Portrait Painting Video

Pretty Girl Portrait Painting

Posted on

Soft Airbrushing a Pretty Face

This is my latest portrait painting using the soft airbrushing technique. I’ve consecutively painted about 5 or 6 of these types of paintings and usually I would have been bored already. But somehow I’m drawn to this painting technique. Because the painting process goes from large details to smaller and smaller details, it feels like the portrait is emerging from the grey background that I start with. It’s a neat feeling. Just check out the speed painting video below.

There are endless ways of creating digital paintings. Before this soft airbrushing technique, I tend to paint with hard edges and then use the smudge tool to blend the two areas. That works well too, but feels mechanical at times. I like this free-flowing airbrush technique better, especially for portrait paintings.

I’m learning something new every time I do a painting using this technique. Once I have the technique nailed down, I’ll create a more professional and instructional video for this soft airbrushing technique for anyone interested in learning to paint this way. It’s a simple painting process and I think you can pick it up with ease. There are just some major points that needs to kept in mind when painting this way. I’ll talk more about that later on. But for now, I’ll just show you the captures of my painting process.

Sexy Girl Portrait Painting Video