Lightwyrm Tutorials
These tutorials are mostly on digital painting using Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter. They are designed for both beginners and intermediate artists that want to speed up their learning process. That being said, advanced artists might find them entertaining or, they might contain helpful reminders. If you want to get more in depth help from the authors, visit our discussion forums. Please post any tutorial suggestions on the forums aswell.
We attempt to update these tutorials once a week, on a Wednesday. But that doesn't always happen. If you have a tutorial you wish to submit, contact us.
Written by Boris Kourtoukov
Yet another good tutorial from Deviant Art. This portrait was done by Harbek. She provides some great tips for creating a portrait in Photoshop and you can clearly see the main stages of the painting. Note the way detail is applied to the image, with the brush size gradually going from large to small allowing for a much more realistic look.
Written by Boris Kourtoukov
A good tutorial shared by Aivre on Deviant Art. Aivre provides some good tips and concepts for getting started with photoshop as a digital painting tool, she also provides some good ideas about sketching in the program and how to establish some basic principles right in your sketch.
Written by Boris Kourtoukov
A good tutorial shared by Kayouvirus on Deviant Art. This is a good basic work flow to follow if you don't have one yet. Start with the lines, block in the colors, and move on to the depth work. A good visual demonstration.
Written by Chenthooran N
Another fantastic walkthrough by Chenthooran. Here he shows the steps he took to create his entry for the 'Mutation nation' challenge at Art Order. You can see the importance of creating thumbnails prior to starting your piece. And you can also see the progression of rendering from background to foreground that is very important as well. Don't forget to visit Chens blog the artificers lab to get more insight into his art.
Written by David Tran
A new walkthrough by David Tran. Some different subject matter then what we usually present. He showed a lot more steps then we usually go for so you can hopefully get a better grasp over his work flow. If you want to get some advice and help from us just join up and ask!
Written by Artamari
A neat tutorial on creating a portrait in Adobe Photoshop. It is done by a member of Deviant art, you can find her account here: Artamari on DA. This tutorial is in two parts, and it goes through the steps for starting a portrait in grey scale then finalizing it with colour. You can find the original submissions here and here. Don't forget to say thanks to Artamari!
Written by Char Reed
An awesome tutorial by CharReed.com. This is an Art Rage tutorial, describing some of the features and uses of the tool. That being said all the principles can be applied to most other digital painting tools out there. A fantastic tutorial all in all.
Written by Boris Kourtoukov
A walkthrough graciously shared by Frost Concepts on Deviant Art. I really like this piece because it shows an interesting technique that can help create unique images. You can see it applied in the second step. A very clever way of creating detail.
Written by SmolderngRemains
An awesome expression tutorial by SmolderngRemains on deviant art. You can find [and fave] the original here. Big thanks goes out to them for making it! You will gain some great tips on how to breathe life to your characters and how to best convey certain feelings.
Written by Chenthooran N
A new walk through by Chen. As usual I will say 'as usual use this for inspiration and as a possible work flow.' This image was done for an Art Order contest that had a very specific character theme.
This type of image is called a vignette because it is painted with printing in mind. WotC use this in their books and manuals very often to make the illustrations fit the pages more seamlessly.
Chen started the image in gray scale but found that it was much more effective to work in colour rather then using multiple layers set to color on top of the Gray value layer.
Written by Chenthooran N
How is everyone doing this fine monday morning? As, somewhat, usual here are some process steps for another image by Chen. Hopefully some inspiration and ideas for the coming week. Chen creates his digital paintings almost exclusively in Corel Painter but lately he has joined the trend of starting his sketches in Photoshop. If you want to know where this character is from take a look at this Wiki entry: Cu Chulainn. As always feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions. He will be happy to answer them!
