Make-Up
Doing makeup can be anywhere from extremely easy to extremely frustrating. One of the most important things that you want to make sure is that your picture does not look obviously photoshopped. Now, if that is the look you are going for... have fun with that. But if you are trying to make the person look decent, as if that makeup was originally in the picture, then you need to be careful.
Below, I have listed the types of makeup I used on the picture of Uma Thurman I used in the skin tutorial. I used one kind per picture, so feel free to combine things.
I hope that these lessons help you. THere is no need to follow the directions to the letter; play around with stuff. Sometimes, things look better depending on how you do it. Don't hesitate to be creative (as always!)
Blush
- When putting blush on a person in the image, you need to be most careful about two things.
- Your blush is where you want it to go. If you are going for a natural look (which most of you will be) then you need to put it where you would put it on your face. For Uma, I put the blush on and under her cheekbones.
- Don't overpower the blush, unless that is what you want. You'll just make the person look odd.
- I used the airbrush tool set to a setting below 10% opacity. I used "Soft Light" as the Mode for the brush but you can try "Normal" or "Hue," depending on which one you think looks better.
Eye shadow as Liner
This kind of makeup has recently (I think) become popular - the colored eyeliner, using a fat eye shadow pencil. This gives the same look.
A few things to note:
- Don't go crazy with it. Your person will end up looking dead (unless, as always, that is the look your are going for.)
- A little bit on the bottom and top works the best, and make it the thickest around the outer edge of the eye.
- I used a color that contrasted with her eyes in order to bring out the green. One thing you can do to get the best contrasting color is make a small scribble of the eye color in a new layer, and then select Image > Adjust > Invert. Use that color as the shadow.
- In order to put it on, I used the airbrush tool made about 2 or 3 pixels in diameter, and set the brush mode to Soft Light. Keep going over the color until it reaches the level you want.
Liner
This one is pretty much just like the Eye shadow as Liner technique, except that you need to be more careful because you are dealing with darker colors.
- I used the airbrush tool, with the Mode set to Soft Light and the opacity very low. If you are feeling gutsy, set the brush mode to Normal.
- On Uma, I put more eyeliner around the outer bit of her eyes to bring them out.
- Make sure you are careful around the whites of the eyes.
- It is probably not a good idea to use the Line tool for this because you picture will look extremely photoshopped.
Mascara/Fake Eyelashes
This is extremely hard to do without making your picture look terrible. There are also several right and wrong ways to do this. Obviously, you do not want to use the Pencil tool to draw in each lash, nor the Brush tool. Be very careful about using the Line tool - which is what I used here. Make a bunch of lines from the lid out, following the other eyelashes. Eyelashes traditionally do not point straight up, and they are also curved a bit. Make sure that you are creating all these lines in a new layer on top of the one with the face.
After you have the lines set, take the smudge tool and smudge them away from the eye. This is supposed to take away the obvious pixilation of the lines. If you made your too big, use the Eraser tool set to a Hardness of 0% and a low Opacity to erase the edges.
Be extremely careful about the bottom lashes. For Uma, I just did the outer edges. Remember also that there is a space between the eye itself and the lash - this part is the thin bit of skin on the lid. Try not to gloss over it.
Shadowing the Eyes
Another thing you could try, instead of adding heavy eyeliner, is to put a shadow on the eyes. Have you ever noticed that when you draw a picture of someone, realistically, there is always something missing, no matter how much they look like what you wanted? For me, I never really put a shadow on the eyes themselves, making all my drawings look like the eyes were bulging out. Try setting the airbrush mode to Normal and, just under the upper lid, draw a line all the way across. This gives the person a sort of sultry eye effect.
For Uma, I added a bit of eye shadow that was the same color as her eyes. I did this using the airbrush tool, set to a low opacity and the mode set to Soft Light. Afterwards, I set the mode to Overlay and went over it to make it darker. For shiny shadow, use Overlay and Hue for the airbrush modes.
I hope that tutorial gave some useful tips!