In this tutorial I will teach you how to paint an eye in Photoshop. I strongly recommend using a graphics tablet, as it will make the whole process much smoother, and give much more professional results.

	Step 1: I started with a hand-drawn sketch. Due to my lack of a scanner, I took a quick photo of the sketch using a digital camera - hence the relatively bad quality of the picture in my example. That said, rough outlines should be sufficient enough to allow us to complete this little painting. You should, however, make sure that enough of the source image is visible to give your eye its characteristic shape.
	Step 2: Start to paint some thick strokes around the eye using the Brush Tool. A standard brush will be sufficient here, but you can experiment with different brush settings if you wish. I made some brighter strokes to indicate where my light source will originate.
	Step 3: I added a few more tones. I do not really spend too much time worrying about the colour at this stage, as it will change in the end anyway. I also strengthened some of the defining lines.
	Step 4: I added a few more lines to better define the shape of my eye.
	Step 5: In this step I cleaned up the annoying background, and painted the eyeball. This is quite easy, but keep in mind that it is an eyeball, so you will have to shade accordingly - the further you get from the pupil, the darker should it be.
	Step 6: Now comes the most difficult part - the iris. First, Fill it with a solid colour and then, using a small brush, make short strokes from the pupil outwards. Change your colour a few times to reflect the appearance of a real eye (a photograph will help lots). This step determines how realistic your eye will look. The more numerous and the smaller your lines, the more realistic the end result will look. Zooming in is a good idea.
	Step 7: You might want to smoothen the iris a bit.  The technique is down to individual preference - you can smudge it, or, like I did, over-paint it a little. I also added a few outer highlights, darkened the pupil, and gave the edge of the iris a little shine.
	Step 8: We now need to shade our eye to give it a more realistic hue. The shading will also add plasticity, and can help to define the emotion expressed by the eye. If you want to keep it easy, you can complete this step with the Dodge Tool and/or Burn Tool, but the best way to work is to add more layers and paint the highlights and shadows separately.
	Step 9: And this is the final result, after some colour tweaking and some more work on the details. I hope this tutorial has been useful and inspiring.  If you have any questions or suggestions, do not hesitate to drop me a mail at daniel@dp-world.net

- Tutorial written by Daniel Alekow

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