How to Paint Gemstones [Part 2]

• Part 1 •

Pear Cut Gems

Now let's take a look at faceted gems. Facets (those geometric hard edges) make light bounce around: gems are cut this way to enhance their reflective properties. The movement of light inside an object is called refraction, and we're going to be drawing a lot of it.

The pear is a popular gem cut found in jewellery, a variation on the traditional round gem. However, you can use this guide to draw any faceted gem that's seen from above.

Let's get angular

1. After drawing the pear shape, use a gem cut diagram to draw the shape of the facets. Here I use No. 8 as my guide.

2. I turn the facets into shapes so I can easily select them later.

3. I lock the transparency and give each set of facets a unique gradient. Like the cabochon, I use lighter colours at the bottom of the gem.

3. Faceted gems have specular highlights too. Find the facet that faces your light source and make it the colour of your light.

4. Random spots of light and dark are everywhere in faceted gems. Add more mini gradients inside each shape.

5. Now it's time to create all those little details of refracted light. I make copies of my original gemstone, decrease their size, spin them, change the colours, and make a big collage of mini facets inside my main pear. I also add a medium Gaussian blur, because internal gem reflections are often fuzzy. You can do this any way you like: the point is to make lots of geometry.

6. I set this layer's mode to 'Overlay' and decrease its opacity.

7. I repeat this process several times to get lots of detail. I experiment with different layer modes and choose whatever gives the most interesting effect. Make sure your specular highlight is still visible.

8. Final details: I bring back any facets that are getting lost and add some gradients to the whole shape with a soft brush. This helps the gem glow and feel unified.

And we're done!

Next, the mother of all gems: the diamond.

• PART 3 •