Painting from imagination can be tough... where are you meant to put the highlights? And what about the shadows?
The key is understanding how different types of light work.
Luckily, there’s an 8-step “recipe” to painting light from imagination – which I cover in-depth in my program, Illustration From Imagination. And today, I wanted to give you a sneak-peak of one of these lessons!
Today’s lesson is a COMPLETE walkthrough of my rendering process, in which I show you:
- How to break complex shapes down so you can paint even the most difficult objects,
- How to add different light sources completely from imagination,
- Exactly where to place the most important highlights, shadows, and details in every painting,
And much more:
You can download the exercise files mentioned in the video for both Photoshop and other tools right here. Enjoy!
28 'MUST HAVE' BRUSHES FOR PAINTING
Free Download:
- Flowing & life-like hair
- Freckles & beauty spots
- Stubbles & beards of all sizes
- Realistic skin textures
- ABR Brushes (Photoshop & Procreate)
- SUT Brushes (Clip Studio Paint)
Designed to Paint Incredible Portrait Details!

3 thoughts on “How to Paint Anything: The ULTIMATE Guide to Rendering”
I would love to see a more in-depth guide on what brushes to use for different elements of an image. Skin, hair and textures is well covered, but what brushes to use for clouds, particle effects, drops/dew, leaves, details on the ground and so on.
david- please do a video on painting makeup and tattoos!
Hi Renee, we actually have a tutorial on tattoos already: https://paintable.cc/adding-tattoos/