Fluid Verve

Digital Portrait – Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky

This was the first digital portrait I created in Adobe Photoshop with the help of a mouse (no tablets). I drew and painted it (from scratch) using Photoshop tools only, i.e. pencil, brush, smudge, and dodge/burn.

Digital Art forum rated this portrait as a standout (click here to view>>). 

Here is the brief process:

Step 1 - Used the pencil tool to draw an outline sketch for reference and then painted in grayscale using the brush tool and created the tones.

Step 2 - Used the smudge tool to create smooth tonal variations. Used the dodge & burn tools to improvise as I smudged. 

Step 3 - Used airbrush to paint in color mode over the finished gray tones. 

Step 4 - Created hair using brush and a bit of sharpen tool. 

Step 5 - Created clothes the same way and added a bit of filters to create texture. 

For a detailed tutorial visit Daniel “Wade” Hammonds site. I’ll share two more digital portraits that I created based on this technique. 

About the muse, well…whom else could I choose but my crush at that time!