Head Tutorial by Desdemona
3. Eyes and
eyebrows
I start by making a seperate layer for the eyes (choose
Layers -> new raster layer) and name that layer Eyes. Now I draw the
outline of the eye using a dark color and a paintbrush size 1. I draw the
iris and pupil and fill out the rest with a whitish color (not too
bright). This will be a rough drawn eye. Then I set the opacity of the
paintbrush to 20 and draw along the outline of the eye to give a smoother
impression and also under the top lashes for shadow. Then I use the
Retouch - Soften tool with a low opacity around the outline and iris to
soften the lines and blend the colors.
The shape and
size of the eye and how much you soften will depend on the look you want,
so just try different styles. Get inspiration from checking out other
heads.
When you've finished one eye, just select the eye using the
Selection tool, copy and paste it (Edit -> paste -> as new
selection) and flip it (Image -> mirror).
Before I do the
brows I check the position of the eyes by pasting a maxis face as a new
layer. I drag that layer in the Layer Palette so it goes underneath the
eyes I've just made. Well, it looks like they're placed OK...
Then I just make that layer invisible again, I can use it
for the right positioning of the mouth later if I want to.
The eyebrow I do
pretty much the same way: I make a seperate layer called Eyebrows. First I
do a rough outline, then smoothen it along the edges using a brush with
low opacity and finally soften it a bit. I only do one eye brow as well,
and then copy, paste and mirror it when I'm done.
The next thing I
do is some makeup and shading around the eyes. Again, the color, shape and
intensity of the makeup and shading is what makes that face unique, so
just try out different things.
Ok, I make a new layer, draw some
eyelids and shading with a dark brownish color using a brush with low
opacity. The parts I want to be darkest I go over several times with the
brush.
Then I choose a color (or just dark brown) for the makeup,
lowers the brush opacity even more but increases the size. I do the
makeup, and again I go over the areas I want to be darkest several times.
(At this point I found out that I was drawing on top of the eyes (doh!),
so I moved the makeup layer down by dragging it in the Layer
Palette.)
When I'm happy with the make up I do the copy, paste and
mirror thing.
And now my head
looks like this:
