• Pencil Shading

  • Digital Basic Coloring

  • Digital Skin Coloring

  • Digital Hair Coloring

  • Digital Lips Coloring

  • Blushing Highlights

  • Clean-Up Drawings

  • Fixing Color Scans


    ART TIPS

  • General Tips

  • Face Proportions

  • Color Theory

  • Elements of Design


    PHOTO EFFECTS

  • Change Eye Color

  • Serene Angelic

  • Elegant Smoke

  • Burnt Memories

  • Melancholy Woes

  • Psychedelic

  • Atmospheric



    • BASIC DIGITAL COLORING IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP




    This is a really simple and easy coloring technique. You can use this exact method when coloring lineart, and even realistic portraits! Like the one I'm about to do. A lot of people don't really think about digitally coloring their pencil portraits, but it ends up with it's own unique effect because you have that added pencil shading along with your airbrushing.

    An example would the header right up here. The portrait of Daisuke of Kagerou was done by the exact same technique I'm about to show you.

    To learn how to first clean up your drawing, detour to Cleaning-Up Drawings.

    INTRODUCTION

    Adobe Photoshop 7.0 - is the version that I use, but everything I do here can apply to any version of Photoshop.

    General Photoshop Knowledge - hopefully you atleast know the names of the tools and where they are. I won't explain something like where to find your layers, or what are layers for that matter.

    No Tablet Needed - all my digital coloring is done with a mouse. I don't use any fancy tablets or some other neat device. So nope, you don't need a tablet to follow along with these tutorials. If your mouse control is decent, everything should work fine. This is basic coloring after all.

    Big, Big Drawings - always, always, whenever you're coloring something, keep your image big! Don't shrink it down, because keeping a high resolution makes things much easier, and clearer too. The Reita drawing that I'm about to color is around 1020 x 1393 pixels. And don't be afraid to zoom in! It's easier to work in a close-up area.

    Got that? Great, now let's move along.




    The first and most important step is to change your layer option to Multiply. To do this, go to your Layers window/box and where it says "Normal," click and scroll down to "Multiply," as shown on your right.

    You won't see your drawing change at all, but what the Multiply option does it make the white parts of the picture transperant so that anything you color under it will show through.

    Lock your outline layer, then create a new layer underneath it. This is where you're going to color.

    Now you're going to use the airbrush
    (Opacity = 100%), and color your basic areas with a solid color.

    All your shading and highlighting will build off that base color. Right now, I'm mostly focusing on the face and hair.

    Don't worry about coloring within the lines, because you can always go back and erase all the extra mess.

    Now's the time to add on your shading, using your airbrush with a low opacity, maybe somewhere between 20% - 30%.

    First slather on your middle shade. Then, keep on building off that with darker shades each time. The more shadow you put in, the more realistic it'll become, especially in a gradient (dark to light, light to dark).

    A good way to give your shading more shape is by using the Smudge tool. It's great for getting into corners and crevices, as well as getting thick to thin lines, and it's what I used to shade the strands of hair. Once you think you have enough shading, add the white highlights. Use a fairly large brush with low opacity, maybe 20% or less and dab.




    In this particular picture, there are colored highlights in blue and purple, so I'll be adding those right now.

    Use the same soft airbrush technique here as well, tracing ever-so-slightly along the edges of his arms and neck.

    He may look a little strange right now, but it'll come together in the end.

    Next I just did simple airbrushing to get the eyes, lips and noseband.

    For the pupils, since his eyes in my drawing were pitch black, no color would show if I were to color underneath the layer. So what I did was color on top of the outline. Now you've got a slightly visible blue iris.

    After, I slathered on some blue shadow for the outfit. When it comes to coloring white outfits, it works best that you shade with a color that isn't completely grey, but maybe grey with a blue tint, or any other color you'd like.

    I'll mention again the smudge tool. It's what I used to get the shading to be not as "round" but stretched to fit the contours of the folds. The prime Pressure that I like to use is between 80% - 90%.

    Then, I added my darker shades, and a bit of that purple highlight to match with the rest of the lighting. We're pretty much done here now.

    This was a really simple background. Airbrushed on, then used the burn tool with an exposure of around 35%. What the burn tool does is makes your existing color darker. Usually keep the Range at "Midtones" but also try playing around with the other options. Dab that on the area that you want darkered, then go back with your smudge tool to smooth things out.

    The Dodge tool is the opposite to the burn tool. It makes things lighter. Again, keep the Range at "Midtones" unless you want a metallic shine.

    And we're done! Once you get the hang of it, coloring like this will barely take any time at all.




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