Human Noses - A Study

A while back I started a poll which asked what human subject I ought to study for improvement purposes.  Noses and eyes tied, so here's the first half of a study I've started on human noses!

You can see in nose number one, the skin doesn't look quite as realistic.  It's really smooth, the colors are dull, and the edges of the nostrils are a little too hard.  This is because I was using a basic round brush set without any scattering or other settings altered on it.  The skin looks artificial here.

For noses two and three, I used a brush set I found at www.obsidiandawn.com -- it's wonderful!  You can see how the skin takes on a more realistic texture in 2 & 3.  You can also see that I started adding reds and yellows to my skin tones for those noses, and that also helped make them look realistic.  I was always afraid to use too much red or yellow when painting skin, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Photoshop CS4
Brush set from ObsidianDawn
Monoproce Digital Tablet & Pen

Roughly 1 hour was spent on noses 1 & 2, but only 30mins or so on Nose 3

I'll be creating three more noses as part of this study, so keep your eyes peeled for that!