The importance of tonal values cannot be understated. The application of light and shadow to a painting is just about the most important thing to get right when it comes to creating an appealing image. Even the most beautifully composed paintings can fall flat if their values are incorrect, so before thinking about adding colour it’s a good idea to get your greyscale base image looking tip-top first.

Many of the world’s greatest digital artists begin their creative process by painting in black and white, leaving it until later to apply colour washes by way of different layer modes. But this technique is by no means exclusive to the digital realm, or even present-day artists for that matter.

Painting in monotone and applying colour later on is an approach that dates way back to the 13th Century. The verdaccio and grisaille techniques were used to lay down a monotone underpainting to which colour would be applied. While grisaille uses grey tones made from mixing black and white, whereas verdaccio appears cooler due to the additional green pigment. The tint achieved when using verdaccio is widely believed to produce more accurate skin tones when the subsequent glazes are applied.

For this image I loosely followed the same process used for a traditional oil painting to create a digital underpainting before adding colour, using verdaccio under my skin tones and grisaille under the rest of the image.

Light source Using a single light source is a good way to exaggerate facial features. This is also a convenient way to paint as it eliminates many of the complexities that arise when having to paint a subject affected by multiple sources.

Rim light A subtler secondary light source can help define the edges of figures and objects. The soft light coming from the windows on the right provide an opportunity to add some rim lighting and define the rat’s silhouette more clearly.

Vague background elements For a scene with a figure as the main focus, it is not always necessary to work lots of detail into the surroundings. Working in silhouette with a slight colour wash gives the vague impression of plants in front of the window.

Eyes Traditional portraits usually show the subject looking directly at the viewer, with the eyes and eyebrows being the facial features most responsible for conveying the subject’s emotion. It is therefore worth taking the time to make the eyes bold.

Boost values When nearing the completion of an image, a good final step is to give the values a boost. Adding a little more strength to the light and shadow can bring a painting to life in the later stages. This is easily done with an Overlay layer.

Achieving the desired skin colour is a really tricky process when creating portraits, but here’s a quick trick for assembling a basic palette that you can refer to time and time again.

Choose a midtone

Choosing a midtone will depend on the light source you plan. For standard scenes, it’s safest to go with a typical beige.

Highlights and shadows

When picking highlights and shadows, remember that their hue should differ from the hue of your midtone.

Enrich your palette

After you have chosen the highlight and shadow colours, eye drop them. With those colours selected, apply some strokes on top.

Finalise colour choices

Review all the colours you created and choose the boldest combinations that strongly differ from each other.

A beautiful way to finish off an antique-style map is by adding torn edges. There are plenty of free paper textures available online or you could scan some torn paper.

Open the paper texture file, Select All>Copy and paste it onto your document.

Set the blend mode to Multiply and line up the edges so they fit with the edges of your document.

Choose the Eraser tool with a Heavy Scatter Flow tip and set the Opacity to about 60%.

Erase sections of the paper texture and repeat each step until you have a faded, torn effect across the image.

Turn to ancient stories and myths the next time you want inspiration for your characters. To get you started, we have three demons here, all inspired by Asian tales.

The monster cat

This old tom has lived so long his tail has begun to split. Now he can shape shift into human form, create zombies by leaping over corpses and knock everything off the shelf by flying. Known as the bakeneko, he has become a demon cat. Choose the Soft Bristle Watercolor tool and paint lots of finely hatched lines to portray fur, but focus on the sinuous curves that grace the feline form. Hold down the Shift key for perfect horizontal and vertical lines for the lantern – he doesn’t need one as he glows in the dark, but he likes to drink the lamp oil. Block in the cream, green, purple and red under the inks, and use a Multiply layer for the shadows again.

The lantern spook

When in Japan, don’t let objects sit around for over a hundred years or they might become possessed. The chochinobake is a spirit that haunts a paper lantern. Ink this ghoul with finer lines than the other monsters. Block in the flats and shadows as before and use the shadows in the creases of the paper to give depth to his head. That juicy eye is inspired by the artwork of the videogame Okami and is painted with the Soft Airbrush tool, as is the tongue. The blood is actually paint that has run and the eyeball hairs are merely shredded paper.

Nine-tailed fox

This villainous kitsune-tsuke is very old and powerful, as evinced by her nine long tails. She is inked over a sketch with the Scratchboard Rake tool on a new layer set to Multiply. Hundreds of little lines simulate the look of stylised fur seen in old Japanese artwork. Create a new layer beneath the ink and paint with dull cream for the shadow layer. Duplicate the layer, lock its transparency and Flood Fill with a lighter cream. Set it to Overlay and use the Eraser tool to carve out shadows on the body and tails. Create a new layer and paint those fun red markings.

It can be really difficult to paint convincing ice – what should be a solid but transparent matter can quickly end up as anything but.

Here’s a quick guide to giving the impression of ice, concentrating on the lighting and texture.

Start with line art

Start with some basic line art to set the composition and define the forms you’ll paint later. This stage isn’t mandatory, but helps you separate the problems of construction and lighting. Create a basic background colour to lay the foundations for your colour palette.

Block in basic lighting

Block in the basic forms of the figure with a simple Hard Round brush. Get the basic feel for ice at this stage before doing any fancy texture work. Think of all the forms as simply as possible; as basic cylinders, spheres and so on. Don’t overcomplicate things.

Introduce textures

Start introducing some basic textures on top of the smooth surfaces. Paint studies from photos if you do not know how to depict the different materials in your piece yet. The point is to get enough variation to the surfaces in order to give you a good grounding when it comes to painting in the details.

Reflections and highlights

Start painting reflections and highlights. Think of the light source and how the light is behaving with the materials. Make colour adjustments if necessary. The shadows don’t get very dark as light is bouncing around all over the place and also penetrating the surfaces and illuminating them from the inside.

The finishing details

Paint lots of small cracks and other details to finalise the effect. Try to get enough variation in the different surfaces. Don’t be afraid to change the design even at a late stage if you feel like something isn’t working the way you want. Make the final level and colour adjustments to punch up the tones, and that’s it!

A good winged beast will liven up any fantasy scene and issue 39 of Fantasy Artist includes a special selection of tips for drawing winged mythical beasts.

We have included a taster below for drawing a hippogriff – read the rest by picking up a copy from your local shop, online or digitally.

In medieval literature the hippogriff is the symbol of impossibility and love. It has the head, claws (on its forelegs) and wings of an eagle and the body of a horse.

The hippogriff is said to be fast, strong and intelligent, and is usually the pet of a wizard or the heraldic device of a knight.

Like the centaur and pegasus, the main issue when making a beautiful hippogriff is merging the two different animals in a believable way.

Make sure the claw-arms of the eagle aren’t too short compared to the hind legs, and attach the wings properly to the body. After the anatomy is in order, go crazy with the feathers!

A steampunk image can live or die by the quality of the painted metal – if it is dull or unrealistic then the overall image will lose its impact.

Issue 39 of Fantasy Artist includes a useful tutorial for painting a robot on a rampage and covers many essential techniques you need for stunning steampunk. We’ve included one below, for more pick up issue 39 in the shops, online or digitally.

Painting metals

A good way of keeping metallic objects consistent throughout your scene is to first create a couple of references for yourself. Create a new layer, keeping it separate from the others, and then paint a small sphere, a cube and perhaps a cylinder too. Highlights, suggested reflections and colours can then be painted onto these simple building block shapes, depending on the lighting requirements of your scene. Now you have a reference layer to refer to and pick colour from.

In addition to the obvious drawing techniques needed for successful manga images, you can also take a little tip from the world of colour.

Study your colour wheel. The complementary colour to blue is yellow/orange, so if you place these together then it will really pop out. You should also keep in mind cultural colours: red, for example, is a more traditional Chinese colour than orange, so that is how we chose the hunter’s robe colours in this particular image. All these little planned out details do add up in the long run.

Discover how this image was created in issue 39 of Fantasy Artist. On sale in the shops, online or digitally.

Fairytales offer rich pickings for anyone looking for inspiration for their next image and issue 39 of Fantasy Artist has a great collection of tips for drawing better fairytale characters. And since we are in the season of the witch, we thought we’d share some advice on making your witches the wickedest witches in the west.

To see the other tips, pick up issue 39 of Fantasy Artist, on sale in your local shop, online or digitally.

The wicked witch

This character is immediately identifiable as the antagonist of the story. The wicked witch stands out for her evil look that clearly shows she is plotting something. She wears dark clothing like all the wicked witches that can be found in fairytales.

The magic spell

Here, the wicked witch is using all her powers and strength to cast a spell against her opponent. In her face you can read the effort she is making to launch the attack. Her clothes and mantle are floating in the air to accentuate the power of magic.

The witch in flight

This sketch shows the wicked witch flying on her enchanted broomstick, speeding off somewhere to commit mischief. Her clothes and mantle are almost worn out by the high speed, highlighted by directional lines and little-defined contours.

Join Matt Kohr of Ctrl+Paint as he reveals the secrets of creating fantastic concept art quickly and easily. You’ll learn how to prepare your initial sketches for colour treatments, use the Pen tool to create and select paths, create masks and use those masks with a range of adjustments to create a set of design iterations within minutes. This is a must-have skill for industry professionals looking to streamline workflows, and incredibly handy for anyone who is brainstorming thumbnail sketches.

You can enjoy the complete video lesson when you purchase issue 39 of Fantasy Artist, available in the shops, online or digitally.