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35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

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Art is not restricted to any medium, nor is digital painting. Yes, you read that right: “digital painting.” It is a new trend in today’s technologically brilliant world that won’t go away any time soon. Here, we’ve gathered 35 tutorials to inspire you to display your creativity through digital painting. We hope you like this collection. Kindly share your comments about it with us.

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Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Spanish Girl
This tutorial shows you how to make this portrait of a Spanish girl.

1 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of “My Prince”
“The girl in the picture is a young witch with mysterious magic. The baby dragon is her pet. The baby dragon looks up to the sky naively, strains the leash, and wants to fly into an adventure. Overall, I wanted to create a peaceful scene, just like when we are holding our own pets, that makes you feel warm, or even proud.”

14 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Umbrella Sky
Marta Dahlig’s gorgeous “Umbrella Sky” image was unanimously chosen for the cover of Ballistic Publishing’s EXOTIQUE 3. And after submitting it, Marta continued to improve on this exquisite work. Here, she takes us through the process of building on a dream.

11 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

How to Create a Fantasy Mother Nature Scene
“This tutorial is about creating a fantasy scene called ‘Mother Nature.’ We will use well-chosen images, brushes and, most of all, our imagination, in combination with Photoshop techniques, to create an outstanding image.”

2 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Beauty on the Bed
“It was obvious that a female character was an ideal subject. I knew I wanted to create a girl with imposing beauty. I am a huge fan of Lara Swift’s photography, and one particular photograph in my collection really inspired and motivated me to start.”

13 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

How to Create a Sparkling Fantasy Photo Manipulation
“In this tutorial, we’re going to do photo manipulation using different techniques. We’ll adjust each layer and element to make a compact final image. We’ll use multiple photos and a handful of effects to create this work.”

3 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Modeling of the Dinosaur
“When working with ZBrush, I always model something with Z-sphere. It is one of ZBrush’s cool features and enables fast and intuitive modeling of low poly objects. Also, I like that you can constantly check the outcome of your ZSphere form against how it looks when turned into mesh by pressing the ‘A’ key on your keyboard.”

4 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Feathers and Angel Wings
Painting wings is quite similar to painting hair: the first time you do it, it seems impossible, but in fact it’s not, and little tips can help a lot.

5 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Binah
“Binah was a difficult and time-consuming project. It was a great challenge for me, technically and artistically. Binah is the third Sephirah of the tree of life in Cabbala. After reading many texts about the tree of life, I wrote some sentences describing my vision of Binah.”

6 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Jealous Bodyguard
In this tutorial, the artist shows you his preferred method of setting up the image and using Photoshop tools. You’ll see a breakdown of how this image was created.

7 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Digital Portrait -W-
A step-by-step tutorial on creating this digital portrait.

8 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Digitally Paint a Fantasy Tree Scene
“Learn how to make a fantasy scene using only the standard Photoshop brushes. I describe the basics of color and light theory. In this tutorial, you will paint this eye-catching illustration in less than two hours.”

9 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Fantasy Light Effects in Photoshop
Fantasy art scenes are usually handled with a liberal sprinkling of Photoshop plug-in fairy dust. But you don’t have to slavishly follow that route. By creating your own brushes in Adobe Illustrator and using scanned elements with Photoshop, creating otherworldly scenes that are alive with glow effects and shafts of virtual light is a simple process.

10 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making Of Boudicca 3060 A.D.
An engaging tutorial that teaches you how to make this beautiful Boudicca.

12 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Painting fantasy eyes
To paint a realistic-looking eye, one must understand its form. The human eye is a sphere, covered by upper and lower eyelids. Imagining parallel lines passing along the eyes makes it easier to sketch them correctly.

15 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Create Film Sets in Photoshop
Film scenes frequently rely on vast backdrops and fantasy imagery that would be too costly or impractical to actually build or find. This is where matte painting comes in. Visual effects artists are called on to create both simple and elaborate illusions by painting over real images.

16 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Creating Broken Link
This tutorial focuses on making design choices and a bit of theory.

17 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Red Assassin Digital Painting Tutorial
“Here’s how I do my painting. This is a work in progress, so you’ll see the steps I take in creating it. This is a quick sketch over a black background. Then I fill it with colors. I normally place my palette of colors beside the drawing so that I know what the colors will be.”

18 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Do you want to Play with me
“This artwork was created in Photoshop CS2 with a Wacom Intuos 3. I will explain in detail how to make this image. Hope many of you will enjoy.”

19 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Three Lines
In this detailed tutorial, the artist teaches us how to make “artwork of three lines.”

20 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Willpower
“I’ve always found the thought of someone faint and helpless, suddenly being able to fight against the worst of dangers, very appealing. This is the point when everything changes, when the lost decide to escape their fate. In my image, a brave young girl is in a situation she would never believe she’d get into, and then something happens that no one would ever expect!”

21 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

How to Draw a Digital Portrait
In this tutorial, the artist explains how he created this portrait of the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson.

22 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Painting Kadaj
In this detailed and comprehensive tutorial, the artist shows his best techniques for making this portrait of Kadaj.

25 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Painting realistic hands
Painting hands can be very difficult for professional and amateur artists alike. The complexity of their structure makes them one of the hardest parts of the human body to render properly. Painting realistic hands requires two key factors for a satisfying result: a thorough knowledge of anatomy, and a creative choice of skin tone.

26 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Transform a Human into an Abstract Painted Werewolf
“In this tutorial, you will learn how to bring a simple concept to life and give it a fantastic final result. Beside illustrating the human-to-werewolf transformation, we will fill the images with cool painted effects and add some abstraction in the end.”

27 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Angelina Jolie
“After having collected some pictures of the famous actress Angelina Jolie, I decided to use some of them for this creation. Before starting the modeling phase, I took a moment to observe the features of this beautiful actress—above all, her cheekbones, which are very pronounced.”

28 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Cold Sky
The artist teaches us how to make this beautiful “cold sky.”

29 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Skin Painting Tutorial
“I want to clarify that this tutorial is not the correct or only way to paint. It is just my way of painting, and only that. Feel free to follow it entirely or just the part that pleases you. I will be using Photoshop, but the tutorial can be done on any program that has good painting tools.”

30 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Painting Really Old People
“The Internet is full of young, pretty people with large breasts. But believe it or not, people do get old. And wrinkly. And nothing is wrong with that. It can actually be fun and interesting to draw people who don’t have silky smooth skin! This tutorial shares some methods I’ve found for painting wrinkles and some thoughts on how to make a character look old.”

31 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Bronze Dragon
“In this tutorial, we are going to color a dragon portrait. As I always say, it’s impossible to make a good painting without a good sketch. That’s why, if your drawings are not as strong as you’d like, you should buy a sketchbook before picking up Photoshop.”

32 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Spider Harp
“This fantasy is of musician playing the harp on a spider’s web. It was a personal piece and a really big and delicate work. I thank the users of 3Dvf.com and Tdt3D.be for helping my work in progress.”

33 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Making Frodo
A detailed and beautiful tutorial that teaches you to make a great Frodo.

34 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation
In this tutorial, you will learn how to manipulate a fantasy landscape photo.

35 in 35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

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  1. 1
    Vladimir Kramer
    November 13th, 2009 6:01 am

    These are nice, but you didnt include any paintings from Dylan Cole http://www.dylancolestudio.com/, or Alp Altiner. – Truly two of the best.

  2. 2
    Manohar
    November 13th, 2009 6:36 am

    Excellent Tutorials… :)

    Thanks to SM

  3. 3
    Christine
    November 13th, 2009 6:42 am

    Impressive stuff!

  4. 4
    Davide Espertini
    November 13th, 2009 6:45 am

    Great resouce list!!

  5. 5
    Neil Grey
    November 13th, 2009 6:46 am

    These are fantastic, I’ll definitely be taking a deeper look into quite a few of them!

  6. 6
    bs.kishore
    November 13th, 2009 6:46 am

    great & inspiring material…..

  7. 7
    laurie
    November 13th, 2009 6:47 am

    some of these arent paintings, and I dont mind using textures, I do mind using full photo pieces instead of rendering out the items

  8. 8
    Selvam
    November 13th, 2009 7:05 am

    A salute to SM

  9. 9
    pixelbath
    November 13th, 2009 7:51 am

    Except for the ones that are not actually digital painting, but 3d modeling (like Binah, which has been featured in at least 3 different posts), great tutorial list.

  10. 10
    Heather
    November 13th, 2009 8:04 am

    Some of these aren’t paintings and use 3D rendering programs, and some aren’t even tutorials – they’re more like a quick show of different stages of work. A tutorial is a step by step set of instructions on how to recreate an image. There are however some great ‘actual’ painting tutorials here.

  11. 11
    Vlad Gerasimov
    November 13th, 2009 9:05 am

    Great tutorials! You must be a really good painter in order to follow them.
    For more cartoonish tutorials, check out also http://www.vladstudio.com/photoshoptutorials/
    Thanks!

  12. 12
    thee
    November 13th, 2009 9:11 am

    Awesome selection tutorials!

  13. 13
    Jason
    November 13th, 2009 9:40 am

    AWESOME! I can not wait to get a free moment and try my hand at some of these different techniques. Smashing! Simply Smashing!! Keep it up.

  14. 14
    manu
    November 13th, 2009 9:53 am

    Nice tuts.

    90% women, 5% men, rest landscape and things;)

    Wish there was more diversity in the kind of tuts.
    but anyway, nice tuts;)

  15. 15
    Brannan
    November 13th, 2009 10:24 am

    I’m sure the tutorials are great, but ugh! It’s a bunch of schlocky fantasy crap disguised as artwork. I look at it and all I see are pimple-faced, rotund, dice-rolling geeks wasting a bit of time dicking around with Photoshop between planning for their next furry convention.

    • 16
      Gustav
      November 13th, 2009 4:18 pm

      Thank you for saying what needed to be said. These are dull and extremely generic. Except for the Willpower one which is easily the ugliest, stupidest thing I have ever seen, and it’s stupid shit like that that really turns me off of Smashing Magazine (even articles that aren’t my cup of tea aren’t as truly pointless as this).

      Tacky and tasteless– especially “Willpower.”

  16. 17
    Hugo
    November 13th, 2009 10:24 am

    so ugly !

  17. 18
    Nana
    November 13th, 2009 10:57 am

    Very very very nice !!

    Is there by chance, any tutorials that are ” Paint Over Tutorials ” ?

    I’m really looking for some . !

    NICE POST !!

  18. 19
    helaene
    November 13th, 2009 11:26 am

    Enayla at http://www.furiae.com is an excellent digital painter who also provides tutorials. Browse to Gallery –> Tutorials.

  19. 20
    Jewen Soyterkijns
    November 13th, 2009 11:40 am

    Adblock+ is a godsend for the design. Too bad I can’t check out yer sponsors anymore.

  20. 21
    Chase Whiteside
    November 13th, 2009 5:18 pm

    This is just a collection of scant women and dragons–are there more teenage boys here than I realized?

  21. 22
    jhony taibu
    November 13th, 2009 11:46 pm

    Great list here.Its mind blowing i need tutorials for such work.
    Thanks for sharing. There is so much useful information.

    dsi r4

  22. 23
    vladlen
    November 13th, 2009 11:59 pm

    Making Frodo
    real author:
    http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/frodo/frodo.html

    How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation
    real author:
    http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/how-to-create-a-fantasy-landscape-photo-manipulation/

    tutorial.jcwcn.com publish tutorials without permission

  23. 24
    Stryker
    November 14th, 2009 12:49 am

    Also you can look collection of 35 Most Beautiful Making of Girls here: http://www.3dm3.com/forum/f34/35-most-beautiful-making-girls-14513/

    Thanks

  24. 25
    maria
    November 14th, 2009 1:57 am

    It is a bit confusing if you only show artworks of Fantasy Digital Paintings. There are many different styles on digital art. I´ve notice that principiants think only on figurative-fantasy images when talking about digital art.
    Please, try to find out some other styles. See what I mean at http://www.tarifarak.com.

  25. 26
    rainwebs
    November 14th, 2009 3:00 am

    For all the portrait stuff have a look at the amazing Poser and DAZ Studio community. There’s a lot of fun. For an overview have a look at:

    http://blog.rainer.eschen.name/2008/02/14/how-to-humanize-your-web-site-for-free/

  26. 27
    Kevin
    November 14th, 2009 7:20 am

    Incredible as always, although I must say that it IS a little boring that almost everything is fantasy and that the floating tree does not fit in here. It’s unrealistic and too simple.

  27. 28
    Floris Fiedeldij Dop
    November 14th, 2009 12:24 pm

    Argh, now I am going to be on my Wacom tablet all weekend again :p

  28. 29
    kwas antona
    November 14th, 2009 5:04 pm

    shit happends

  29. 30
    Kennett
    November 14th, 2009 7:52 pm

    YES! This is so inspirational its amazing. I was looking for something like this for a long time!

  30. 31
    minanube
    November 17th, 2009 9:58 pm

    wow that was beautiful artwork

  31. 32
    RMK
    November 24th, 2009 1:19 am

    Flat tones, no volumes, no anatomy knowledge, maybe the “artist” might consider reading a bit about colour theory instead of just copying pictures. This article has absolutely no interest.
    (not even talking about the incredibly kitsch themes)

  32. 33
    Active Computech
    December 21st, 2009 11:58 pm

    Excellent Tutorial. I would like to recommend it to my student. We impart online training in web and graphic design applications.

  33. 34
    Multiwp
    February 7th, 2010 1:12 pm

    wow, amazing art works!

  1. 00

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