The "Disrobe.JPG" image shows a 3-dimentional view, with all the layers pulled apart to simpler components.

First of all.. I need to say, this is not the end all, BE all of painting. Every artist will develop his or her own style, and that is a good thing.. But for new artists out there, this is a fairly easy to follow process that I think is very effective for painting realistic masses of bulging flesh. :)

The Disrobe.JPG file was made exclusively in Photoshop v3.0.. Nothing else used.. There was no warping or morphing. Not that this is a bad thing.. When needed, I'll warp an image.. But if I can get away with it, I enjoy painting it more.

If you don't have photoshop, any other "good" paint/image processing program should be able to handle these types of operations.

In the DisrobeLayers.JPG file, you can see the image seperated into different layers. Each layer (except the background layer) has a transparency key image along with it. Whether your program calls it a key, or a mask, (I've even seen "frisket") or whatever.. It's basically a greyscale image that accompanies the colour data. The grey isn't seen. Rather, the grey determines what parts of the colour is and is not seen. Black will be opaque, white will be transparent, or vice-versa.

An additional note, I flipped the layers around in the 3D image. Believe me, it was much clearer to see this way.. But in reality, the dress bits where at the top of the stack, the breast stuff in the middle, and of course, the background layer at the bottom..

Any element I choose to add usually has 4 layers. Each with it's own key/mask. In the dress, the base colour is black. This makes things simple. With a black base there's no need for shading, so the dress just has the two layers.. The base colour, and the hilights.

The flesh parts I painted have a base colour layer, shading layer, HARD shading layer (always black coloured), and the HiLites layer.

The skin colour is usually pretty easy.. Use the colour-picking tool and just grab a good representitive flesh colour from the background image that isn't darkened by shading or bleached out with lighting. Use this colour and fill the breast layer with it.. Just fill it all up. One colour. Then add a mask, and paint the mask to the shape of the beast. In the case of Disrobe, there were four shapes. The left and right cleavage, and the bits sticking out on the sides.

On top of that, add another layer.. Now in photoshop, there's a vital feature that lets you child a layer to the previous layer.. This lets you paint to your heart's delight in the layer, wherever you like, and it will not escape the boundaries defined by it's parent layer's mask image. This new layer is for the breast shading. Just fill it with one solid colour. A darker colour, but don't just take the breast base colour and lower it's value. Shaded skin colour tends to get redder or browner.. or? All depending on the complexion of the skin and the lighting of the scene. You can usually just pick a good shade colour from the picture.. But then take this picked colour and sometimes you'll need to "purify" it.. Open up the palette so you can adjust it with the colour sliders or whatever. Darken it some.. Redden it more.. Whatever. Since you'll just be filling the entire layer with this colour, it's a snap to change the colour at any time.

We've just added the "Breast Shading" layer and farted around with the colour (If needed). Now add the transparency mask for it. This time, we are not painting solid shapes. This time we will use the airbrush tool and pull the paint flow way down so the changes we make are more subtle. Just play with this setting till you're comfortable with it.. In the course of my painting I'm constantly raising and lowering the flow control depending on the situation.

Paint shadows along the contours of the shape. Obviously if the light source is coming from one side, the shading will all fall on the other side.. Sometimes the lighting is more complex, and you will need to look at other parts of the skin and try to match the effect with your airbrush. Once you know what your doing, this process actually just flies by.. Very simple and quick to do. It's painting the shapes in the base layer and painting nipples that take up all the time. :)

So we've got our shading.. Looking good! but it's not convincingly real yet.. That's okay.. Add another (child) layer. This time for HARD shading. This is where skin is it's darkest. Like in deep cleavage.. But then again, it all depends on the lighting of the background scene. Fill this layer with the blackest black you can muster.. I'm talkin' zeroes accrost the board. Add a transparency mask and go to it.. Usually, the parts you paint here will only fall upon areas that are most heavily shaded in the previous layer (Breast Shading). This time we are adding this second coat of shade to really give it some depth appeal.

A side note here.. You may notice on my paintings I like to use "reflected light." This is not light that comes from the lights in the scene, but light that "bounces" off a light surface and S-L-I-G-H-T-L-Y illuminates a surface that would normally be cast into total darkness. The way I do this is first paint all the HARD shading, then change the colour (from black to white or the other way around), and ever-so-slightly, with the very edge of the airbrush circle-of-influence, trace the blackened edges where reflected light will hit it.. This is SO very effective.. I love it to death.. But I have to be careful to keep it so subtle so that it looks like it belongs in the scene with the background image.

Anyway.. On to the next layer.. This time for Breast HiLites. Fill it all up with one solid colour. Most of the time, it's more "yellowed" than the breast base colour. But you'll do best by grapping a colour of the screen and purifying it.. This time making it more lighter. You can always tell any certain layer to be slightly transparent if you like.. Or just refill the layer with another colour if you're not happy with it down the road. But I'm getting ahead of myself.. Fill the Breast HiLites layer with this new colour, and make a mask for it.. By now you're probably skipping ahead of me and you're already started. It's fun, no? Something I typically do... Once the higlights are all painted and I'm pleased as punch, I'll pick PURE WHITE, and paint on the colour layer (not the mask) of the Breast HiLites layer and add an extra hot white spot (We technical people call it specular hilights) where the light would be hitting it most directly.

Okay! That's BASCIALLY it.. Four layers... Base layer, Shading, HARD shading, and HiLites.. I use these layer formats for clothing too.. In the case of Disrobe it's a black base, so it's not needed.. I think I mentioned this already. :) But anyway.. Remember, practice makes perfect.. Take your time and experiment. It's a very rewarding experience when you see it all taking shape. For nipples, you can make them all seperate layers, or you can paint them into the colour layers of the breast layers.

A final note.. Remember, each section of flesh should be a seperate layer.. Just like The 4 breast areas of my painting were each different layers.. Each with their own shading, hard shading and hilites layers.. This REALLY frees you up to use broad strokes with a LARGE airbrush.

Another final note.. To add a more realistic "texture" to the dress and skin, I added an ever-so-slight noise filter to the transparency mask of the Breast Shading layers. Then I added a slight gaussian blur on top of the noise. It's very pleasing, and it doesn't look so sterile when it's done. Happy painting!!!

Forgot to mention this important little bit..

When painting the sharp edged (But hopefully anti-aliased) shapes of the key-mask of the Breast Base layer, I've found this sequence is very helpfull..

Pick the black or white colour.. Whichever paints opacity.. Use the pencil tool in photoshop.. This paints with no transparency. Pick a big, fat size and paint the basic shape of the breast (or whatever you're masking). Then choose the opposite colour for painting AWAY the data you just revealed.. Use the line tool with a thickness of 10 or so. Then use it to "shave" away the rough edges of the shape.. The line tool will leave a nice, clean anti-aliased edge. Go over it several times, shaving off any "corners" making it smoother and rounder with each pass. This is for a convex shape.. Like a boob.. For a concave shape, you'll probably do just the opposite.. Using the line tool first, then filling in the rest with the pencil.

In case you don't know, anti-aliasing is using multiple colours instead of just 2. It's an automatic thing that makes the image appear to have higher resolution than it actually has. It reduces the "stair-step" look that we perfectionists hate so much.

This tutorial is very old and there are some modifications to the process I've added over time and experience:

The Hard Shading colour is rarely pure black. It's usually near black, but similar to the colour of the shading layer -usually a little more red. While I still do the thing with filling each colour layer with one solid colour, I occasionally paint in the colour layer. For example, I'll add pure black to the hard shading colour for certain parts that I know are sealed off from all ambient or reflected light. Ignore all that talk of shape-shaving. I now use paths to paint the shape of a base layer. Saves lots of time.. Learn paths.. They are your friends.

Sometimes I add the noise filter the transparency mask of a shading layer, sometimes I'll add it to the colour part of a layer. While this is effective, I'm still not totally pleased with the realism it created. When I think of a better mouse trap, I'll fill you in.

The "Nurse Bosoms: Special Edition" page on my gallery also talks more about my most recent techniques. Good luck!

Here is the image that was created at full size. Click Me

Vitamin "C"