Thistle Arts

Semi realistic male eye tutorial in Clip Studio Paint

Added 2020-01-22 11:07:10 +0000 UTC

How to draw a semi-realistic male eye.

INDEX:

1. Brushes and custom brush settings.

2. Structure and basic shapes

3. Painting process and color choices

Blocking in basic colors
Hard and soft edges balance, blending
Details and adding texture
Lighting the eye

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to draw a semi-realistic male eye, using Clip Studio Paint and basic brushes which can be found by default, with the exception of one custom brush I made for myself by changing some of the settings. I will provide you with all the needed adjustments to make one of your own.

1. Brushes and settings.

These are the brushes I use for most of my artistic purposes.

Dense watercolor is great for dropping in color and creating the basic under-painting. It can have a hard edge or softer edge depending on pen pressure, and also mixes colors together quite nicely. I use it for the primary color blocking and painting.
Transparent watercolor brush is very convenient for blending and creating smooth transitions of color, along with soft edges.
Opaque watercolor works similarly to dense watercolor, but has a harder edge and works well with small details, such as little hairs, eyelashes, etc.
This Gouache brush is the hardest in my list and has the most texture. I use it for adding sharp and edgy highlights, reducing the brush size to a very small one.
My custom sketch brush is basically the dense watercolor brush with a few adjustments that make it work nicely for sketching. On this screenshot, you can see the adjustments needed to create this brush. First you duplicate the dense watercolor brush, rename it as “sketchbrush” or whatever name suits you, and then adjust it according to this screenshot. Don’t forget to save the result!

I also occasionally use Dry gouache brush to create skin texture and add some interest and variety, so the surface of my object does not look too smooth and artificial.

I use a gray background for this study since it helps to see colors as they are and works well as a neutral base for my artwork.

2. Structure and basic shapes.

Even though my finished work is going to be line-less and painterly, I still prefer to start with a linear sketch. It helps me to get the anatomy and shapes right.

I start with the most simple forms. Basically an eye is a sphere inserted into an eye socket and covered with folds of flesh. So I first draw the circle which will be our future eye and a line that connects the tear duct and the outer corner of the eye.

Of course male eyes (as well as female) come in all shapes and sizes, and there is no single definition of male eye anatomy. But here we are working with what I should call an “average male eye” or sort of a stereotypical white male eye, simply to know those basics to begin with.

A male eye tends to have less oval shapes and more angular shapes. Quite often in males the eyes seem more narrow and have heavier eyelids. Also, they tend to be set deeper into the eye socket and the eyebrows are closer to the eye than in women.

Also, the eyelashes tend to be shorter and have less volume (there are of course some gorgeous exceptions to this statement ;-)

It’s better to sketch the eye exaggerating the angular shapes a bit. Once we paint it, it won’t look like that, the angles will soften but it helps to keep it organic with a more masculine look.

At stage 2 I only mark the position of the iris and the general shape of the eye.

At stage 3 I start to refine my sketch, adding the shapes of the upper and lower eyelids. It’s very important to keep in mind that the flesh of the eyelids has volume and we can see it both on lower and upper eyelids as shown in the picture.

The upper eyelashes look as if they curl up from the inner edge of the eyelid though it’s technically not like this, that’s an optical illusion created by the angle we look upon them.

The lower eyelashes are better exposed to our view and it’s essential to draw them growing from the outer edge of the eyelid.

So we have our sketch. As you can see I roughly sketched in the eyebrow so our study has a more finished look. As they say – eyebrows are the frame of the eye.

Don’t worry about making it very clean or nice, since we are only using it as a guideline and will end up painting without it. But make sure to have it on a separate layer to be able to switch it on and off in case you need to use it as your reference. Its purpose is to have all basic shapes and proportions right and be clean enough for you to not get lost with your drawing.

3. Painting process and color choices.

In this study we will be painting a fair-skinned male in a daylight environment.

Daylight, in general, is slightly yellowish and warm yet we also have some blue color coming from the sky, so the local color of the skin which is a peachy–yellowish beige alternates between relatively warm and cool versions of itself. Using only warm colors might make the skin look dull and waxy so I suggest using temperature variations to achieve a realistic and vibrant look.

Highlights are very light in value so they naturally get cooler related to the other colors.

Also, deep shadows need relatively warm colors since the local color of the flesh is warm. That’s why I don’t use any saturated blues or purples in shadows, in this particular palette.

The same is with eye color. Even though the lighted area is relatively warmer than the shadowed one, I still use a pretty warm-ish blue for the shadows since it tends to be closer to muted greenish-blue, not violet-inclining blue. The highlights in the eye are almost purely white – which means ultimately cooler than all the other colors.

I use the same palette (brown, beige and a bit more orangy brown) for the eyebrows, only more saturated than the skin to make it look natural.

Before I start the coloring process, I create the color layer under the sketch layer and that’s where I will be painting.

I begin with roughly blocking in the basic colors – peachy beige, bluish greys in the white of an eye (don’t make it purely white, it looks unnatural), some browns on the eyebrows and some darker reddish-browns in the shadows. I still have my sketch on and it helps me to paint according to the structure. I do that using the Dense watercolor brush, varying its size from 70-100 to 15-25 depending on the size of the area I am working with.
When I am done blocking in colors I mute the layer with the sketch and get a very rough and basic idea of where my colors are. If some shapes are lost, I unmute the sketch layer and add details, still working underneath the lines.
For example, I repeat the contour of the eyelids but with a more reddish-brown and with a dense watercolor brush. It is softer than my sketch brush and drags some color, so it doesn’t look as sharp.
When I am happy enough with the shapes and colors I've blocked in so I can work without my sketch, I mute it again and start adding details and depth. I add some more saturated reds in the corners of the eye and the tear ducts, I make shadows more prominent. Also at this stage, I start blending, switching from dense watercolor brush to transparent watercolor brush. The trick is to use the lighter version of the colors you want to blend and gently mix them together creating a smooth transition of color. While doing this, keep in mind that it’s important to make the strokes varied, and follow the shapes of the object you’re painting.
Most part of my painting process is, in fact, switching between these two brushes (dense watercolor and transparent watercolor) until I achieve a satisfying balance between soft and hard edges. Generally, edges are sharper in deep shadow and near the highlights and softer in mid-tones and half-shadows.
After that, I work on the iris roughly painting the stripes of color. They don’t really have to be accurate at this stage but have some color and tone variety getting relatively warmer towards the light source and cooler towards the shadows. After I am done with that I apply my “paint and blend” method described above to achieve a realistic look.
At the final stage I add highlights, also blending in the highlight colors into the parts of the skin that are lighted the most so they don’t stand out too strongly. As you can see I cooled down some of the areas, by blending in greenish blues and cool pinks. This is where the skin is the most lighted and shiny and it also catches some bluish light from the sky. So the color gets cooler and lighter in tone.
I switch to thin gouache brush reducing its size to 10-15 and add the brightest highlights in the iris, in the tear duct on the rim of the eyeball and the eyelid. I blend them in just a tiny little bit with the transparent watercolor brush so they don’t look too artificial.

Then I switch to opaque watercolor brush, also small size. And paint the hairs of the eyebrows and eyelashes. I showed the direction of the strokes I used to create a realistic hair pattern. Keep in mind that men tend to have less prominent eyelashes. So I work lightly, only suggesting them. Especially the lower ones.

Then I take the dry gouache brush and add some texture using the lighter versions of local colors. I use this method to avoid a too “digital” and too “blendy” look. Especially when it comes to painting males, whose skins are often rougher and have more texture on their own.

I also add some white highlights with the dry gouache brush, which creates an illusion of pores.

The final adjustment that I make is some lighting effects. It’s very easy to make using blending modes in CSP.
I make another layer on top of my painting, and switch it to “add glow mode”. It will lighten things up!
I take a transparent watercolor brush and apply a very light bluish-green color to the most lighted part of the iris. So it creates a glowing kind of effect. Be careful not to overuse it, or it will look unnatural.