All posts in Values

A lot of people have brought up the fact that when you are using opacity jitter and you put down two brushstrokes, there is an area of overlapping values. People have been asking how to avoid this or how to “fix” it. In this video Daarken talks about how overlapping brushstrokes is just a part…

Using the female standing pose from the previous tutorial, Daarken will show you the principles of painting transparent cloth. It is important to draw the figure underneath your clothing because the body informs what the clothing is doing. Drawing through your shapes will also help ensure that your anatomy lines up correctly when it comes…

In this video Daarken shows how to paint a female standing figure from imagination. This video was requested by a fan, so hopefully some people will find it useful. This is a fairly quick study, so it is filmed in real time and in its entirety.

In this video Daarken shows how to paint a male standing figure from imagination. This video was requested by a fan, so hopefully some people will find it useful. This is a fairly quick study, so it is filmed in real time and in its entirety. In the future Daarken will cover painting male figures…

This is the third and final installment of the Female Bust painting. In this part Daarken talks about adding in the final details to the painting. For those that would like the photo ref that was used for this painting, you can find it here.

This tutorial continues with more still life painting but focuses on rendering an object with a matte surface as opposed to the shiny surface of an apple. This tutorial also shows how to render a high key object. Not all paintings need a lot of contrast. Egg photo ref Homework Create a still life painting…

Still life painting is an important step for any artist as it teaches the importance of form, light, and composition. Basic rendering fundamentals can be learned from still life painting. Even though most people may find the subject matter boring, you will be able to use this knowledge to paint creatures, characters, and virtually everything…

One of the most common questions that people ask is how do you blend in Photoshop? The technique Daarken uses for blending in Photoshop is done simply through varying the pressure on the tablet and from color picking new values. Daarken takes you through the process of blending the planes that were created in the…

Breaking an organic complex form down into shapes can help you understand what the different planes are doing and how they create form. Daarken takes you through the process of doing a study from an Asaro head and explains how planes can help you create paintings from your imagination. Update – I just want to…

Foundations always begin with analysis of form. Analysis of form is usually just a fancy term for a still life drawing class. Learning how to render objects can teach you how to create form and to understand light and how it interacts with objects. The purpose of this tutorial isn’t to learn how to create…