Fundamentals of Digital Painting (Fundamentos de Pintura Digital) by Mike Azevedo

This course is a focused, practical deep-dive into the core principles of realistic digital painting. Instead of just watching demos, you’ll work through structured exercises designed to build a rock-solid foundation in values, color theory, and brushwork. The goal is simple: give you the technical understanding to paint anything you can imagine with confidence.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Analyze and synthesize tonal values for realistic lighting.
• Apply color theory based on physics, context, and cultural meaning.
• Control brushwork and edges to create different styles and finishes.
• Structure effective compositions using thumbnails and sketches.
• Combine all fundamentals to create a finished color sketch from imagination.

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic familiarity with digital painting software (like Photoshop) and a desire to learn the fundamentals.
• Tools: A drawing tablet is essential for this course.
• Hardware: A computer capable of running digital painting software.

📝 Description

This isn’t a “paint-along” course. It’s a structured program to train your eye and hand. Mike Azevedo breaks down the intimidating world of realistic painting into digestible, repeatable exercises. You’ll start by learning to see the world in terms of values—the backbone of any believable image. From there, you’ll move into the physics and psychology of color, understanding how light interacts with surfaces and how to use color to tell a story.

The course then tackles brushwork and edges, teaching you how the quality of your strokes can define a style and bring a painting to life. Finally, you’ll learn to structure your ideas through composition and thumbnailing. The entire journey culminates in a final project where you apply everything you’ve learned to create a character from scratch, purely from your imagination. It’s a rigorous, rewarding process that will change how you approach every painting.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Digital artists who feel stuck and want to solidify their understanding of the fundamentals.
• Illustrators and concept artists looking to improve their ability to paint realistic subjects from imagination.
• Students who prefer a self-paced, structured curriculum with clear exercises over live feedback.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Mike Azevedo is a professional Concept Artist and Illustrator from Osasco, Brazil. With a client list that reads like a who’s who of the games industry—including Riot Games, Valve, Blizzard, NCsoft, Tencent, Supercell, and Guerrilla Games—he brings a wealth of real-world experience to his teaching. He is the creator of MAR Studio and has been a professor at ICS since 2013, known for his clear, methodical approach to teaching complex artistic concepts.

🏁 Final Result

• A portfolio-ready color sketch of a character, demonstrating a solid grasp of values, color, and composition.
• A deeper, more intuitive understanding of the core principles that underpin all realistic digital painting.