Keira Knightly Tutorial

So this is how I do 90% of my stuff

1) get a good reference image
2)change the lighting and the shading to what i want it to look like. I then save this image and bring it up on my 2nd monitor, you can leave it as a background layer but then theres the temptation to trace it, and thats pointless if you want to improove as an artist. I also like to keep the image up on screen so i can compare my colours, Im colour blind so I find it useful
3)Make a sketch
4)Put down a base for the hair using a thick brush
5)Fill in the detailing on the hair
6)I paint the Eyes, Nose and mouth in next, the rest of the face is basically padding if you can get these features right the rest is easy
7)Make sure works with the hair so you can see where the shadows fall
8)Fill in the rest of the face
9)I always put the sketch over the face to see how far off I am
here it just needed the hair tweaking near her chin
10)finish it off, add any last minute highlights (I will normally drop in a gradient for a background here, if theres something in the back ground like on my Ryan Dunn piece [link] i paint that first, Duh )

All of it was done in Photoshop cs5 takes about 4 hours start to finish