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shingworks — Coloring Walkthrough
Published: 2010-09-26 16:16:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 161634; Favourites: 6068; Downloads: 3111
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Dang so this is the biggest file ever, haha.
This is a quick (?) walkthrough of how I did the colors for the most recent page , using the first panel as an example.
I was going for a more general overview here, more of my thought process than a set of instructions of how to color like I do. Personally I don't think you should color the way I do, I take kind of a long time and anyways, everyone should develop their own style.
If you're one of those people who NEEDS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW what settings and such I use, here is a list for you:
- fill tool
- gradient tool
- default round brush
- default soft brush
- dropper tool
As of March is use Photoshop CS4, and as of last month I use a Wacom Cintiq (before that I was using an Intuos 3)/
I don't use fancy brushes or settings in Photoshop other than messing with opacity and pressure.
And my final color file for this page had these layers:
- Frame + Text
- Lines
- Soli Shading
- Soli Base Color
- Room Details (several layers flattened into one file)
- Room Shadows
- Room
- Base
Google Sketchup, a free and simple 3-D modeling program, is available here .
Hope that satisfies your curiosity
The Meek (c) me
My other tutorials:
Pose tutorial
Expression tutorial
Hand tutorial
Foot tutorial
Ladies tutorial
Fellas tutorial
Face tutorial
Commission Tutorial
Related content
Comments: 527
I was just about to start colouring my new comic and this is extremely helpful because I do have an insane background to colour. Thank you so much for the tips and the wonderful walkthrough. Your tutorials are always so extremely helpful!
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Whoa this is really helpful! I never would have thought to use sketchup in that way... Which is probably silly, but oh well.
Please don't stop being awesome~ : D
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my mind has been both blown and rebuilt
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advice from the master! thanks so much!
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Chinchillaaaaaa~ Must be so awesome to have your own personal meme.
I'll admit, I'm curious about the comment about lineart. Seven layers?! must be why yours turn out nice and coherent, and mine like a ruddy, pixelly blob.
Or, you know, practice. That probably has something to do with it.
But I do have one question... You mentioned using sketchup, and I have seen other artists take snapshots of models when in one of the viewing modes, and then draw on that. Do you do this, or use the model for reference only, and draw it yourself?
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If you're having a problem with pixels, that might mean you're working too small. I work at gigantic sizes now, usually 300-600dpi and on canvasses with a minimum of 1000x1000 px. Everything looks better scaled down, but nothing looks better scaled up. Use a larger canvas next time and see if you notice a lineart difference.
I "trace" over a model that I take a screencap of. But as you can tell, I'm not tracing directly... otherwise, everything would come out like squares and stuff XD I use the shapes as a guide to draw the real shapes over, like the chair behind the door... on sketchup it looks like rectangles and cylinders, but when drawn it has a triangular shape and stuffing falling out and etc etc
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''google everything'' x'''DDD
Google. It save the world a lot xD
Lovely pic *___________*
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Yes, I am pretty useless without it XD
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Really insightful and helpful tutorial. Your use of the more simple tools of photoshop makes me evaluate if I'm just making my digital paintings too complicated execution wise by trying to use fancy tools and settings and such. And doing the background first--a concept that makes total sense but I totally ignore! Thanks a lot for this awesome tutorial.
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I think people tend to ignore it because bgs are boring as all hell. But the end product justifies the extra suffering, so I follow the rules XD
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This was really helpful and easy to follow.
I see that studying pays off! |D (in terms of the applied didactics here)
Oh yeah, and besides it's really interesting to see which pattern you follow when creating a scenery. The chinchilla also blends in lovely!
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Chinchillas are masters of disguise... you probably have one in your room right now and you don't even know it.
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Very insightful, definitely a brilliant display of color concepts and lighting work.
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*0* ... thanks a lot. this helps ♥♥
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This is so fantastic! I am all kinds of in love with your colouring, and will definitely be tooling around with some of this stuff on my own. Thanks so much for sharing!
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one of the best tutorials that I ever see.
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This has got to be my most favorite tutorial so far <3
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Thanks for spending time on this. I like seeing how other artists do things. c:
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Chinchilla, of course! NOW MY ART WILL RIVAL THAT OF THE GREATEST ARTISTS. BUAHAHAHA.
Seriously, though. Awesome tutorial.
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chinchilla scared me. I actually went back to see if it was there the whole time xD
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Arrrgh your brilliance sickens me.
Every time you do something new it reminds me that I still have such a long way to go. xD
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THIS
WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE ; x ;
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Ooooh, trying out Sketchup now!
Fffffs your tutorials are always so full of wisdom. I'm going to save this and practice your technique a few times!
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Extremely useful! I've almost forgotten about sketchup, I really should use it as a BG aid.
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Wow. This really helps with my issue of doing backgrounds. I'm terrible at developing backgrounds. Drawing, not so much, but coming up with a convincing background is a weakness for me.
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I love SketchUp, such a great tool to learn and utilize... and hey, it's free. Thanks for the tutorial.
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In your layer overview you say "Room" is that the one with the hightlights (the gradient brown)? Because I got a little confused there.
Otherwise this is brilliant!!! Definitely looking into sketch up! Sounds like a really useful tool <3
Thanks for all the tips in this! Very useful!
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Yes, "room" actually starts off the same as "Base" (I just copy pasted the base and renamed it). The base I keep there so when I color outside the lines, I can select+inverse and delete the stuff that fell out.
So Room starts out as plain green. I painted the dark on top of it, which means that the plain green is showing through some parts where I did not put shadows. That means I can go under the shadow layer and enhance the Room layer with another color.
The more "natural way" to do this is to paint the room all light to begin with, then put shadows on top of it. Here I did it kind of backwards because I only need that strong yellow light in a few places, so it is good to keep the other light (the plain green) as my true base and just enhance it in certain spots.
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AWESOME tutorial! I never even thought about using Sketchup before to create a scene I can reuse.
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Mind = blown. I mean, I was blown away by this panel when I read it, but getting to see your process is such a treat.
Definitely going to check out this Sketchup thing...as someone whose only experience with modeling was in Maya (gasdflkasdjffjfkl;askdjfd) it's music to my ears to hear "3D program" and "simple" go together in a sentence.
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It is soo simple. For most things, like drawing a room. But the best part is that you can get more complex if you really want to, like you can do domes and... I don't know, roller coasters, or whatever stuff with curves. The only thing it's not really good for is organic shapes, but that is the stuff we probably don't need modeling help with XD
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Coloring backgrounds always seems so intimidating, but this makes it seem a lot simpler. Also, using SketchUp to build models of stuff is an awesome idea.
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yessss thank you so much, this is super helpful
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Excellent tutorial.
So... this means there is a new page at "the Meek" right?
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My favorite step is the last one :'D
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Even though when I use watercolor I'm working transparently, and thus am restricted to working light-to-dark, I'm completely with you on holding off applying the colors to the main characters and objects in the scene until you've been messing with everything else a while. I always end up painting the sky, the subtle shadows and a lot of the background before I ever get around to laying down color on the focus/foreground of a painting. I find that it really helps me make better color mixing choices when I can react to the forming scene!
Awesome tutorial, as always!
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Thank you! Yes, I hate myself for, in the past, coloring a character and then slapping a (blown up texture) bg on it :C What the heck??
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Ah, awesome to see how you handled this.
[Did you say you just discovered this method of coloring a scene like this?] because if so, that's great XD this is the way you should color complex scenes like this, especially those with strong light sources. In my work, I always do all of the shadows on a separate layer, in grayscale. They're above a layer of flats. After I get the shadows as I like, and even tint them the way I like [using the "Color" blending modifier,] I flatten the shadows and flats together to prep for final details. Just before I merge the layers under the line art, I save the file as a copy with "RAW" suffixed, that way I know the layers are still intact SOMEwhere in case I need them again.
I don't ALWAYS flatten the shading and flats, but most times I will because it helps 1) eyedropping colors and 2) helps me keep a more natural-esque media approach to it [like painting.] My older work had so many god damn layers [30+ per picture] it slowed down my workflow and actually harmed the final quality since the image became too complex to really refine effectively.
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Yeah, the more I color the more my brain tries to make it easier on me. I haven't colored a strong light source/ dark room kind of thing in a while but I liked it, it is loads more simple to me than coloring a single strong overhead light source (my weakness, and of course, the bulk of this chapter).
I've tried the grayscale toning thing. Honestly I hate it. Also I'm one of those people who colors by accident on the wrong layer and that always happens when I work in b/w (you can see I colored some of the wood by accident in the light source panel, haha). For me its easier to use the basic color (dark green) as a shadow, then go back and tint that. Its like grayscale! Only in color. haha
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this is awesome! love the google sketchup incorporated into it...i have the program just need to figure out how to use it more. :/
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It's great as a "sketch" for your final product, but I definitely wouldn't recommend like copy pasting it into your art directly. It's super simple to use, you should give it a shot
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