Hello everyone. In this tutorial we will learn how to create a fantasy character from start to finish. To do that I will show you my workflow I did to on the Shaman Orcs, however the tips I will share can be used on any other type of character.

 

The tutorial might look complicated a little bit at the beginning, as there are many steps to it. However I try to explain every little bit of the process so I am sure any beginner can follow it too :)

Also the tutorial is mostly on the technical aspect of the character design and it is an example of one of the workflows you can follow while creating your own characters.

0. COLLECTING REFERENCES

This is one of the most important steps. The references will help you to understand the anatomy, correct proportions, lighting, etc. Don't be scared to look at real life photos.

Looking for reference pictures might also help to inspire you even more and add interesting details to your initial idea. Unfortunately many artist overlook this step.

1. SKETCH

Once you have a bit of a clearer idea what you would like to create, you can start with the sketch. Now, with all the references it is going to be much easier to put your ideas on a canvas.

 

I always start with a pretty messy sketch. You don't need to put much details in this step.

 

Note: I usually prefer drawing on a gray canvas. It is much easier on the eyes than the white one.

After that it is time to think about more details. I put the first sketch on a low opacity and on a new layer I start adding more details.

If you feel that your sketch is not detailed enough combine those two layers, put on lower opacity and create another layer on top of it, like in the previous step. You can repeat that process untill you are happy with your sketch.

Tip: Try flipping your drawing to the other side. It will be much easier to spot any mistakes! I do it very often, every couple of minutes. You can do that by clicking Edit > Rotate/Invert Canvas > Flip Horizontal.

Here is how I took my messy sketch to a cleaner one using the same method I just showed. You can still see all the previous sketches with the lower opacity behind.

 

I also added a female version of the shaman orc too.

Now the sketch is ready for a lineart.

 

Note: I personally like to have most of the details in the sketch, so during the lineart I can mostly focus on the lines and not on the designing part, that was already done in the sketch section. But if you are alright with having a messy sketch for the lineart you can move on quicker.

2. LINEART

It's finally time for a lineart. Many people are scared of this part (I used to be one of those too), as usually the lines look a lot worse once you delete the sketch. It's easy to counter that.

 

First step is to combine all the sketch layers together. After that change the opacity of the sketch layer to a very low one (around 10). The sketch should be nearly invisible. That way you will always see you lineart very clear.

I am going to use the Real G-Pen tool to make lineart. I like this specific pen, because it has a nice texture to it that makes it look a bit more non-digital.

Zoom in and start drawing the lineart. Take your time and turn off the visibility of the sketch once in a while to check how your lines are looking.

For problematic areas like e.g. the feather coat of the lady or the skull she is holding I will make a separate layer to not worry about lines going over other areas. After that it is much easier to delete unnecessary lines.

 

In this example I made a separate layer for the skull. This way I only worry about shape of the skull right now. After I am happy with the result I can easily delete the parts of the skull lineart that go over the hand.

If I did all of that on one layer I would have much more trouble to get rid of the skull lineart as I could delete parts of the hand as well by mistake.

After you are happy with the result of the lineart of the problematic areas, you can combine them with the main lineart layer.

This is the final result for the lineart of both characters:

3. COLOR BLOCKING

Before choosing colors for the characters, we will make first a reference layer.

But why should we even do this? Because reference layer is going to help us later with selecting specific parts of the body. You would be able to easily select e.g. shoes or the hair.

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Create a new layer folder below the lineart. It is going to be much easier to manage the layers that way.

 

Once you have that folder selected, the new layers will automatically be inside the new folder.

Now on a new layer in the folder we just created (the folder needs to be below the lineart) we will start selecting parts of the characters. We will separate body, clothes, jewelry etc.

 

Using the wand tool (auto select) with the sub tool called "Refer to all layers" you can start selecting specific parts of the characters.

 

With the selection mode you can specify if by clicking you want to add more selection or not. So remember to always check which selection mode you have on.

With all those settings you should have no problem with selecting all the parts. Remember to not get into details too much. E.g. while selecting the skull I am not separating the skull and the horns for now.

 

So the workflow for now is: select, fill with color using the bucket tool and repeat with next part until every element has been colored.

IMPORTANT: Right now we are not choosing the final colors, we are only masking the separate parts of the body. So do not worry about which colors you use. Try to take colors that are very different from each other in value and saturation. It is going to be easier for the program to recognize the difference between them.

 

Note: What if the auto select tool is not working well? Is the tool not selecting the little corners? You can easily do the same thing by hand. With the pen tool using G-pen just paint those places by hand using the color you selected for this part.

The final result should look like this:

4. COLORS

In a way all the hard work was done in the previous step. Now we do not have to worry about our colors going over the other parts.

 

Click on the layer with the colors we just made. Select it as a reference layer. After that the layer will have this lighthouse icon next to it.

Change the setting on the wand tool (Auto select) to "Selection for referred layers".

Now when you use the wand it is going to select the part of the body that we separated with the colors before.

Using the wand tool you can easily select any parts of the character. What the reference layer does, is that it created a base that now we can use for selection of any element that we want.

 

Create a new layer on top of the reference layer. Use this layer to put the new colors. Select any part you want to work on (e.g. skin) and on a new layer fill it in with a color using the bucket (Fill) tool. If you don't like the first color you selected you can easily change it by selecting the part again and changing it. You can do it at any part of the coloring process.

 

Note: Without the reference layer, you would have to select each part separatly again if you would like to change colors once again later. E.g. the feather coat of the female orc, at first I had to select each feather separatly to create the base color layer (reference layer), but now this is already done and I can only select the block of color that is the feather coat. 1-3 clicks istead of 100.

 

This is how my final colors look like. For now I left out the details like eye color etc.

5. SHADING

We will leave colors for now to work on the shading.

 

First we will create a new layer, that is on top of the color layers. Now we have to select the outline of the characters. To do that easily, select the wand tool with setting "Refer to all layers". Press outside of the character in the empty space.

After that invert the selection. You can do that by pressing the 2 triangles icon on the upper tool bar.

Now only the characters are selected.

Fill the selection with white. If you did not change your background color before to a different color than white, now is the time. I will work with a gray background.

 

It should look like this:

It will be much easier to work on the shadows just with the white background.

 

Choose a warm dark color - I usually would choose a dark purple. This is going to be our shadow color. Create an extra layer just to make a dot with the color you have chosen, as it is going to be very easy to lose that color later.

 

Note: Don't worry about the color too much, it can be easily changed later.

On top of the the white layer, create a new one. This is going to be our shadow layer.

Change the blending mode of that layer to Multiply and put the opacity to around 50.

With the wand tool you can start selecting specific part you want to shade. Depending if you want to shade the whole part (entire feather coat) or each specific element (each separate feather) you need to look which setting you have on a wand tool.

 

So if you want to select a big part put the wand tool as "Selection for referred layes" and if you would like to follow the lineart select "Refer to all layers".

It might be a bit confusing at first, but I'm sure that after few tries you will get it. Once you how to change selection, it will be an easy process.

Pick where the light source is coming from.. For my drawing it is coming from the top left. If you are confused how the light works, look for more references online.

 

Once you selected the part that you want to shade use a hard pen and airbrush to start adding shadows. I always swap between G-pen and soft airbush.

 

Generally for rounded surface you should use more airbrush to make a more rounded effect.

Now just go part by part and add shadows, where you think is necessary.

 

Shading in general is a very difficult task, so don't worry if takes a lot of time. Believe me, once you have all the shades in correct places, your painting will be completely transform.

 

Final shading on my characters:

To apply the shade to the colors, just disable the visibility on the white layer.

 

Just look what a difference the shadows already made!

6. FINAL DETAILS

The characters are mostly painted. Now it is time to add some finer details like the eye color, shine on the jewelry and hair.

OPTIONAL: You can also color your lineart different color for a softer look. First you have to lock the lineart layer. After that you can paint the lineart whichever color you choose.

The same way you can change the shadow color.

The change is very small, but the first picture has a lot softer look. Play around with different colors to get various effects.

That's the final result after adding a little bit of detail and changing slightly the lineart color.

THANK YOU

I hope this tutorial was helpful and that the steps weren't too confusing. Good luck with your fantasy characters :)