Messing with blend modes gave my digital portraits a cool glow

I was drawing a friend's portrait and the skin tones looked flat. So I played with the overlay blend mode on a new layer. I added a soft orange color to the cheeks and nose. It made the face look warm and alive without being fake. Now I use this trick for all my character art. It adds depth in just a few clicks. Try it on a duplicate layer to see if you like the effect. How do you handle skin tones in your work?

4 comments

4 Comments

laurag641mo ago

Cool glow" huh. My last attempt at that looked like my character had a bad sunburn or was standing too close to a nuclear reactor. The blush on the nose just made him look like he had a permanent cold. I keep the original layer visible just to stop myself from creating a glowing orange pumpkin person.

-2

jamiecampbell1mo ago

Actually used to think you needed to crank the glow up to make it visible. Seeing your pumpkin person description makes me rethink my whole approach.

tara_stone421mo ago

Man that whole "fixing it until it's broken" thing happens everywhere though. I see it all the time when people try to touch up a small paint chip on their house and end up with this weird obvious blob because they kept adding more to blend it. The original mistake was tiny but the fix screams at you.

pat_harris29d ago

Wait, you can actually see the glow effect? I always thought it was just something @jamiecampbell and other artists could notice. That paint chip example is perfect, I've made that exact mistake trying to fix a tiny scratch on my car door.