Tutorial: How to Draw a Realistic Portrait

Imagination is the greatest form of flattery and for a designer; it doubles up as a way to pay homage to legends, icons and inspirations. Illustrator Shesh Kiran created the caricature portrait of flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. He explains how.

Step 1

Started the rough sketching with new file of 300 dpi resolution. I used the tablet pen for this sketch with the various brush sizes from 25 to 30.

Step 2

Create a new layer below the sketch layers and filled it with black colour. Kept the fill opacity to 62% which makes the rough sketch partially visual.

Step 3

Added a new layer and started filling the flat skin colour in this layer. Also added another layer for colouring the clothes.

Step 4

Used new traditional texture brushes to detail the hair, eyes and skin tone. Airbrushes were used to bring shades and highlights of skin.

Step 5

Further worked on the skin using 'transform' from the brush presets to lighten the skin and to create the softer tones using airbrush.

Step 6

From the reference image collected the cloth colour palette to bring the real life feel. With the airbrush started detailing the clothes with the selected colour palette.

Step 7

Gave a final touch to artwork using various opacity and 'flow' on hands, fluet and background as per the requirment to bring the depth and lighting. Hence arrive at the final portrait artwork.