Painting a Manhwa-Inspired Portrait: Gold, Loose Washes, and an Honest Lesson in Color

Hi, I'm Valerie Englehart, and this time I did a profile portrait study inspired by a manhwa I've been reading, which is a Korean webtoon or comic. The character is originally drawn in a comic book style, and my goal was to translate that into my own loose style, while still keeping realistic proportions.

Meet the Character

This particular character is royalty, described as the Exalted Sun. With a description like that, I knew I wanted colors that felt like sunlight, so I reached for quinacridone gold and Aussie red gold right from the start.

I began with the face profile, shaping out the nose, brow, lips, and chin. His hair is white, so rather than treating it as anything detailed, I just dragged pigment upward to build a soft hair shape.

Choosing Green for the Shadows

Normally I'd reach for purple or blue in the shadows of a portrait, but this time I went with a light green instead. I've seen other artists use green in portraits before, and I was curious whether I could make it work for myself. I used my size eight brush for the majority of this piece, lifting a few highlights along the way, like on the lip and near the nose where the eye would go, then placing green into the shadow areas and softening around the white hair.

At one point some paint drifted away from the lip in a way I didn't love, so I just pressed and lifted it with a paper towel before it dried, and it was an easy fix.

Bold Color for a Bold Outfit

His outfit needed to be visually strong, since the reference had some really bold shapes and colors, and I didn't want a pale, timid face paired with a loud costume. So I added red into the cheek and went bolder with the green in the shadow, later layering in a bluish-green teal around the eye area.

Red sitting right next to green can get muddy fast, so I had to be careful there.

Building the Turban and Outfit

For the turban, I started with my darkest color first, Cosmic Sound by Rockwell Art, which is comparable to something like indigo or Payne's gray. If I'd wanted a granulating effect, lunar blue would have worked beautifully too.

Since I wanted this whole piece to feel loose and sunlit, I intentionally left gaps, places where the paint isn't fully resolved. I wanted it to feel like you only caught a glimpse of him as he passed by, rather than a fully rendered, tidy portrait.

I stuck to whatever colors were already on my palette and didn't squeeze out anything new, working entirely wet into wet. That first layer took the longest, but it's essentially the skeleton of the whole piece. It can be discouraging while you're in the middle of it, if it's not looking the way you pictured, but it really is just the first wash. More gets built on top, so it's worth pushing through that early, messy stage.

I dropped some quinacridone gold up into the turban too, to keep that sunlight theme going.

Loose, Confident Strokes for the Outfit

For his outfit, I didn't want any part of him to touch the edges of the painting. I wanted it to feel like it fades away at the border, so I worked in bold, confident strokes: block of color, stroke, block of color, stroke, with some dry brushing mixed in for texture, plus more gold layered throughout.

He has a brooch in the reference image, and since I liked how ornamented he is, I lifted some paint to carve out that shape and let the excess water drip and bloom into little cauliflower textures. I wanted this piece to feel dreamy, so I welcomed that kind of texture rather than avoiding it. I also made sure to connect shapes, like letting the drape of cloth bleed down into the shoulder so they fused together naturally.

Lifting for Softness

Once that first wash was basically done, I moved into lifting pigment from a few areas, very softly. Lifting only works the way you want if you time it right. Too early, and the paint just seeps back into the spot. You need to wait until it's in that damp stage, and use a brush that's damp rather than bone dry.

For the fur stole, I used staccato, short, jagged brush marks to allude to the texture without making it too strong or defined.

Paying Attention to Value

I have a habit of reaching for really rich, dark pigment because I love color, but that can work against the natural luminosity watercolor is so good at. For the stole, which is a light beige tone, I pulled from colors already in the surrounding area instead, a bluish-green called Poseidon, with a little Aussie red gold dropped in for warmth. When you're painting something light or white, reflecting the colors around it works better than reaching for something new.

I also thought in terms of detail placement. Since this is a loose painting, not every area needs the same level of finish. The stole sits on the far side of his shoulder, softer and further away, so I only needed to suggest that it exists rather than fully render it.

Details, Gold, and a Moment of Reflection

Once everything dried, it was time to shape things up. I added a hard line to separate the drape of cloth on his face from the rest of his face, which helped clarify that one is fabric and one is skin, while still keeping the color bleed from the first wash that reads as a soft shadow and reflection.

I used Poseidon again for a piece of jewelry, an earring, and then brought out my favorite gold watercolor, Daniel Smith Iridescent Aztec Gold, to paint a loose filigree pattern with an inexpensive small brush. I intentionally messed some of it up here and there, since having part of the fabric render in fine detail while everything else stays loose would create a visual disconnect. A little imperfection there actually adds more personality and information.

While painting, I had a moment worth sharing honestly. The character, Shuraka, is described as having command over plants and can make flowers bloom, which I love. In the scene I was referencing, he's shown next to other characters from a northern country with very pale, ivory-toned skin, and in comparing values, my color choices made visual sense in context. But once I finished and looked at the piece on its own, away from that comparison, I realized I'd essentially painted him lighter than he should be, since Shuraka is a person of color, and this was my first time painting him.

That was a genuine learning moment for me. At that late stage in a painting, though, introducing new colors to correct it would have risked making the skin look clownish, fluorescent, or muddy and overworked, since skin tones get tricky fast the more you rework them. So my takeaway is simple: I'll be painting him again, with a different color approach from the start.

Small Final Touches

I added white ink beads trailing down from the turban along his face, using a small brush and a slight wiggle motion to get that beaded texture, going over it a couple of times since white ink tends to fade a bit as it dries. Then I added small gold circular shapes as beads as well.

For the nostril, I used a warm dark color, something like a red or brown rather than black or purple, since real skin has warmth and blood beneath it. Watercolor dries paler, so it always looks a little more intense going down than it ends up.

I also used my Daniel Smith iridescent gold watercolor ground for texture on a large pendant, though I ended up scraping most of it back off with a paper towel when I didn't love the effect, then repainted it with plain gold paint and an inexpensive angled flat brush instead. I like the contrast of something metal and structured against an otherwise loose painting, but I kept it from getting too neat, since it's not the focal point.

For the eye, I skipped white paint for the sclera and kept the overall size fairly large, since eyes carry a lot of visual weight and comic characters are often drawn with expressive, oversized eyes. Without using a reference image for the eye itself, I had to judge size and placement by feel. I also avoided black or heavy dark values there, since this painting is meant to feel like a glimpse or a memory of him rather than a fully detailed likeness. No pupil, no eyelashes, just enough information to be believable.

A Quick Recommendation

If you're curious about the source material, the manhwa is called Blossoms of the White Night, and it just wrapped its first season. I'm genuinely in love with it, the world-building, culture, and religions in it are so well done. I will say it's not safe for work and gets fairly political and bloody, so if something like Game of Thrones was too much for you in terms of violence, this probably isn't for you. But if you're fine with some blood and spice, I'd recommend checking it out.