Lighting Workshop – Light Through Painting (Iluminação – Luz através da Pintura) by Mike Azevedo

This workshop is about getting more mileage out of light, color, and reference analysis so your paintings stop looking stuck in the same mood every time. It focuses on building different lighting situations, reading references properly, and turning those observations into loose, useful studies for games and illustration work.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Paint scenes with more varied lighting and color situations instead of repeating the same look.
• Analyze reference images to understand how light behaves before starting a painting.
• Practice observational studies and turn them into loose color sketches for production-style artwork.

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic familiarity with digital painting tools and an interest in illustration, game art, or painted scene work.
• Tools: Photoshop or similar painting software; a pressure-sensitive pen tablet is strongly recommended for this kind of workflow.
• Hardware: A computer capable of running digital painting software smoothly, plus a stable internet connection for online access to the workshop platform.

📝 Description

This one is built for artists who already open a canvas and paint, but keep ending up with the same safe lighting setup. Instead of throwing random color on top, the workshop leans on reference analysis, observation studies, and practical scene breakdowns so you can see why an image works before trying to copy the mood.

The material centers on painting different environments and situations with more control over light, atmosphere, and color contrast. That matters a lot in concept art, where a quick sketch still needs to read clearly and sell time of day, weather, and mood without over-rendering everything.

It also feels useful for artists doing portfolio studies, game keyframes, or illustration warmups, because the focus is not on polished tricks. The real value is learning how to spot monotony, pull clearer information from references, and make stronger choices earlier in the painting process.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Artists who already know the basics of painting software and want stronger control over lighting and color variation.
• Students aiming at games, film-related visual development, or illustration work where fast color studies and readable mood sketches matter.
• Painters who keep getting repetitive results and need a cleaner method for studying and applying reference.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Mike Azevedo is a concept artist and illustrator from Osasco, Brazil, and he is the founder of MAR Studio.

According to ICS, he has worked with clients including Riot Games, Valve, Blizzard, NCsoft, Tencent, Supercell, and Guerrilla, and he has been teaching at ICS since 2013.

Another profile describes him as a São Paulo-based illustrator and concept artist whose client list also includes Games Workshop, Direwolf, and Applibot, reinforcing his background in commercial entertainment art.

🏁 Final Result

• A solid set of lighting studies or painted scene sketches that show clearer mood control, better reference breakdown, and less repetitive use of color and light across your portfolio pieces.