This effect is quite simple to do, and can be achieved quite quickly and is easy to adjust as it\u2019s added in separate layers.<\/p>\n
One important thing to keep in mind when wanting to add glowing elements to your art, is to remember that high contrast is the key to achieve the right effect. Having glowing elements on a bright surface probably won\u2019t work as well as if the surface is darker. For this example, I wanted to paint a fire elemental girl of some sort, and decided to keep her skin fairly dark to get the glowing bits more exaggerated. The soft glow around the cracks makes it all seem more intense and adds realism and atmosphere to the piece. Always use strongly saturated warm colours for fire and glow-effects like this.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/glow_main_image.jpg\")
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It\u2019s quite easy to add glowing details to your characters or graphical elements, and the effect can be very strong act as an attention seeker. Use contrast to achieve the best result.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/glow_second_image.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Spend time on the design of the glowing parts, as this will be the base for several other layers later in the creation process. Can be added to any old painting you\u2019ve got laying around.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
3-step walkthrough<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/glow_step_01_alternative.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Step 1 \u2013 Define the glowing parts<\/h3>\n
Add a new layer and paint cracks and spots that you want to add the glowing effect to. Use a strong saturated orange colour. Make sure to use a hard brush to keep your details as sharp as possible. Then add some variation in intensity using the \u201cdodge tool\u201d set to \u201chighlights\u201d mode. You can of course \u201clock the transparent pixels\u201d and use a normal painting brush set to \u201cLinear Dodge (Add)\u201d for even more effect. Each brush stroke will burn the previous stroke, creating a nice and intense effect.<\/p>\n
Step 2 \u2013 Add surface glow<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/glow_step_02_alternative.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
To make the surfaces around the glowing cracks glow vaguely, add a copy of the layer with the cracks and place it behind. Adjust the colour of the cracks in this layer into a deeper orange, almost red and run it through a \u201cguassian blur\u201d filter set to a fairly high value. Add an orange outline to the cracks before adding the blur if you\u2019re looking for a stronger glow. Set the layer blending mode to \u201chard light\u201d and play around with the layer opacity slider. You can also use the \u201cglow\u201d in the \u201clayer style\u201d set to the same blending effect. The latter works really well if you\u2019re adding more cracks and would like the soft outer glow effect to be added automatically.<\/p>\n
Step 3 \u2013 Add extra glow<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/glow_step_03_alternative.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Again, add a copy of the layer with the glowing cracks, but this time place it at the top of the layer stack, add a smaller amount of \u201cguassian blur\u201d and set the layer blending style to \u201ccolor dodge\u201d. Paint on some glowing light bouncing off appropriate places, either in existing layers or in a new layer set to \u201chard light\u201d layer blending mode.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Painting glow-effects Adding details like glowing effects can be a lot of fun, and the end result can add a lot to your piece. The effect we\u2019ll be doing here can be added to everything from cool looking logos, text, or for effects in your paintings. Remember that overdoing this effect can make your composition confusing and hard to read, so make sure to take your time and place your glowing details carefully and not too scattered throughout your piece.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1],"tags":[52,54,53,56,57,50,51,55],"class_list":["post-12636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tutorials","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-digital","tag-painting","tag-photoshop","tag-theory","tag-tutorial","tag-tutorials","tag-wacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12636"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14107,"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12636\/revisions\/14107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henningludvigsen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}