Digital Painting Process - Jorah the Andal

How to paint a digital portrait of Jorah Mormont

Stage 1

I used a reference photo from a paused frame, and began by doing a rough sketch.

Stage 2

I begin the painting process by blocking in the main skin color

Stage 3

Basic shadows and highlights are defined. I use the burn and dodge tool to roughly establish the light and dark areas. I also add some varying hues to the skin and block in the main hair color

Stage 4

Further defining shadows and highlights. In this picture, there is some heavy backlighting, so the front of the face is quite shaded. I use the burn and dodge tool again with some Paintbrush also to further define these shapes and give volume to the face and armor

Stage 5

A little bit of Levels corrections before using the Paintbrush to smoothen out the colors. I add purples, blues and greens to give life to the skin. I alternate between the Paintbrush and the color picker tool to choose intermediary colors while color blending.

Stage 6 - Final Result

Some final color correction and a little bit of highlights around the edges and I'm done.