Guild - Step by Step
(A little tutorial about how to paint a picture like Guild by Uwe Jarling)


Many people asked me if I could do a tutorial, and I promised, since a long time, that I will do such a tutorial. Well, that was easier said than done, I really had no clue how to do such a thing.

As I mostly have problems to tell people how I do this or that, I decided to do just some screenshots while working on a piece (as I currently work more and more digital, it was very easy to take just some screens while working on an illustration).

At least seeing is always better than just reading how someone did something ;-)

The work I choose for this tutorial is an illustration I did for a collectable card game by a brand new game company called North-East Games. The title of the illustration is Guild.

I choose this picture cause the way it is created is almost the same as if I would do it with traditional media. The program of my choice therefore is Painter 9, I think it will also work in Photoshop, but as I work with both programs I prefer Painter if it comes to painting cause it just feels more like “real” painting – but that’s just my opinion ;-). For color correction I still use Photoshop. As for the hardware I use – I use a Macintosh G5 and a 22” monitor, the most important thing for me, my Wacom-Intuos-3 graphic tablet.

However if you try to follow this tutorial with traditional color, you have to make sure your color of choice is able to be used as glaze as well as opaque color. Oils or Acrylics would work therefore pretty well.
For digital painting you will need a graphic-tablet and as said a program like Painter, Photoshop or something like that. If you don’t have a graphic tablet, well I know many artists painting with a mouse, but I can’t give you any advice how to paint with a mouse cause it is still a secret to me how those guys do that :-). No seriously, I never would use a mouse when it comes to painting, cause I think it just don’t feel like painting. For me it is necessary to use a graphic tablet, cause that’s the only way to use the pressure sensitive brushes, which give you that natural feeling while painting.

You see, it is not only important to me to achieve a nice illustration with digital media, it is also VERY important to me to have the most natural feeling and joy when it comes to painting a digital picture!

Well, enough said, best will be we just start with the piece ;-)


Ok, here we go - as said this is a commissioned piece, so it usually all starts with an “art description” - In this case I got this:
“For Guild, I envisioned dark, sinister looking buildings with shady characters wandering around.”

All you need now is a little bit fantasy, a pencil (or the digital pencil tool) and than just start scribbling all what comes up to your mind ;-)



After some scribbles (wouldn’t make sense to post them here, cause no one other than me would be able to recognize something at those scribbles – really just some bubbles here and there).
What you see above is the first rough sketch. Sometimes my sketches are much more detailed, this time I feel this is enough…

The sketch is done on a different layer, I duplicate the layer and drop one down to the working plane, the duplicated one I keep till the end, so I am always able to make the layer visible if I need it… (that’s almost the only layer I use in my pictures, I usually don’t need too much layers). But if you use much layers or not, that’s completely up to you ;-)…



Now I add the first shadings, as mostly in a brown tone. Therefore I use the watercolor brushes in painter and wet the whole piece when I am done, this gives a nice structure like an watercolor painting. With traditional media I would have used therefore acrylic washes.

At this stage I sent the piece to the client for approval.
It was approved, so I could go on with it…

Again I duplicated this layer to keep it, maybe I will need it later again, one never can know, that’s btw. a thing you can’t do if you work with traditional media ;-)



ok, just some more washes (digital watercolor) to make the darks darker and a little yellow for the lights…



now it is the moment I use opaque color the first time, starting to work out some lights, using those oil brushes in painter… I still work pretty rough…


See the next page to follow the further progress of this painting --->