How to Achieve a Painterly Style

How to Achieve a Painterly Style

Among different art styles, styles with clean lineart and painterly styles are two of the most common. In styles with clean lineart, shapes are very sharp and distinguishable, as it’s very clear where an object starts and ends. Lineart creates an illustrative look, similar to that of cartoons. In comparison, a painterly style appears more dynamic, as it utilizes textures and soft edges. It can be difficult to go from solely lines, which show clear forms, to a painterly look, but don’t worry; in this article, we will be exploring various ways you can adopt a painterly style!

Through showing you the final color palette and shapes, painting can improve your workflow. It provides more flexibility compared to relying on a solid layer of lineart, allowing you to zoom out without worrying about details. Additionally, there are many ways to paint and achieve a painterly style. So, it’s up to you to experiment and decide which workflow works best with your preferences!

Now, here’s a guide on how to work on your paintings!

Before doing any rendering or adding detail, we must first add a base to determine the overall direction of the piece. There's many ways to establish a base, whether you're going from a rough sketch, lineart, or color blocking. Each listed method has its own advantages and disadvantages.

A sketch is a quick freehand drawing technique that allows you to capture the idea of the subject without a lot of refinement. They’re generally loose and unfinished, since it's a tool for planning and exploration.

Rough sketching includes quickly placed lines to establish your idea with minimal corrections such as erasing or undoing. By using a rough sketch, you’re able to sketch quickly and visualize the idea quicker. This allows you to mark down ideas more efficiently. However, utilizing a rougher sketch requires more time spent on rendering. Shapes can also be harder to read, as there’s a wider range of where the edge is.

Clean sketches are refined sketches, where more time is utilized to erase and refine the lines so the forms are more readable. A clean sketch requires you to spend more time making the lines clearer, which allows you to start with a sketch that's far more understandable to read without making assumptions of what the line represents.

While sketching is for capturing the essence of the subject as quickly as possible, lineart involves creating the clearest forms with distinct straight or curved lines. Lineart emphasizes the shapes and forms much clearer without the use of shading or gradients, allowing for the most clarity and readability before colors and values are applied. By mixing lineart and painting, it can be easier to render as the shapes are more visible and readable compared to using sketch lines.

Color blocking is aligning large, solid blocks of colors to create geometric compositions without the use of patterns and textures. By color blocking, you’re able to look at the bigger picture and work from big to small. Additionally, color blocking removes the need to cover up sketch lines when rendering.

After establishing a base, the first step when rendering is planning out the lighting and values. Similar to establishing a base, there are many ways to add lighting. Lighting is the physical illumination from a source that casts shadows, which creates form and value refers to the relative lightness or darkness in a piece. To learn more about lighting, check out Lighting 1 and Lighting 2!

Shadows are dark shapes or areas that are produced when light is blocked. They are a fundamental building block, creating the illusion of depth and 3D space. Shadows are generally categorized into core shadows, which appear on the object itself, and cast shadows, where an object blocks light from a surrounding surface. The simplest way to add shadows is through using the Multiply layer mode.

When adding shadow, the main focus is to make the shapes readable even without relying on lines and colors to dictate the shapes and forms. Without lineart and clear lines between objects, this pushes value to become the most readable element in your piece. Marking down the main shadows allows you to see the illustration much more clearly and create contrast.

By creating clear shadow and light, you can see the bigger picture with only two values. This allows you to work from big forms down to smaller forms without losing the overall shadow and light structure! To learn the basics of value, check out this article.

Color variation is the strategic usage of the difference of hues, values and saturation levels to create contrast and diversity. Alternating the hue and saturation can give the viewer more visual interest and guide the viewers eyes. Colors are secondary to values, but by alternating the colors, you can create an image more interesting and captivating for the viewer. To learn more about color theory, check out this article.

One of the most important tools to utilize when painting is the eyedropper tool/color picker tool. This tool allows you to select colors already on the canvas. By utilizing this tool, you can create gradients, which can soften an edge or help blend your colors smoothly.

Another tool that can make your painting process easier is the lasso tool. This tool allows you to select a certain area of your canvas!

By selecting an area with the lasso tool, you’re able to draw within that area only. This allows you to create hard and soft edges with just the lasso and an airbrush.

You can also use the invert lasso tool, which allows you to draw only in the area outside of where you selected. The invert lasso tool allows you to work on the environment outside of the subject (typically background elements).

Finally, by using lasso for moving a section of your drawing or by using transformations, you can edit via grids and allows you a wider range of how to edit your art such as stretching, squeezing, or altering a section with grids that works differently from liquify.

After you implement a base, refining the details allows you to have a clearer picture. To render, make sure to turn the opacity of your sketch layer down (if applicable), so you rely more on the colors and shapes. It can also help to change the color of your lineart to make it more cohesive with the other colors and values present in the piece. For an easier time with transformations and color alternations you can merge all layers or create a duplicate.

Rendering can be from making the skin smoother; color dropping, airbrushing, or blurring for a soft edge, to adding textures such as metal; sharp contrasts with lasso and hard edges. It can be difficult to manage using hard and soft edges but utilizing tools such as lasso and color dropping can make it far easier. To learn more about rendering, watch this video!

There are no set guidelines as to how to achieve a painterly artstyle however the several techniques explored throughout this article, it’ll help you explore the possibilities behind painting! The more you experiment with your process, the more natural it’ll feel to rely on these tools and techniques. So go pick up your brush and start painting!!