Please help me improve my art o.o'

[Tenxinori]

How do i color hair o_o (i dunno how so, this is how i colored mine o3o)

[KuroSushi]

I like the background There's plenty hair coloring styles, depending on your own likes and programm wich you're using. Anyway... You could try with this (some basic tips).

First add a gradient over the base color. Using white to lights and some very dark purple color to shades, then blend it all.
Over the gradient add some shades and blend it a little.
Here I added a cell-shading with a darkest color.

To add highlights in second and third step is a good idea. If you say what programm are you using and if you're using pen tablet, maybe I could be more helpful

[Tenxinori]

I like the background There's plenty hair coloring styles, depending on your own likes and programm wich you're using. Anyway... You could try with this (some basic tips).

First add a gradient over the base color. Using white to lights and some very dark purple color to shades, then blend it all.
Over the gradient add some shades and blend it a little.
Here I added a cell-shading with a darkest color.

To add highlights in second and third step is a good idea. If you say what programm are you using and if you're using pen tablet, maybe I could be more helpful

I use wacom pen tablet o.o and paint tool sai O.O

[KuroSushi]

Well, I use both lol so here's some interesting tutorials for hair:

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&secti ... l#/d1ri3jr

http://hitsukuya.deviantart.com/art/Hai ... orial&qo=9

http://dymaraway.deviantart.com/art/Col ... orial&qo=1

http://leejun35.deviantart.com/art/How- ... hair&qo=39

Edit: I don't know you but for blend hair colors I use this watercolor (Color Blending:100, Opacity Mix:100, Presistence:10, Density:100, Smooth Prs: 5%) maybe it could be useful to you.

[mugenjohncel]

OK lets start by saying you should start working on really REALLY large canvas at about 400dpi... there is a reason for this... no matter how un-even or ugly the lineart is even with a large amount of imperfection, once you downsize it, most of them magically disappear...

Now about hair coloring and coloring in general... please keep in mind that my method that I'm about to share to you is "NOT" the best nor was it meant to be the best but rather the fastest method that can produce "ACCEPTABLE" results bringing gratification the fastest... this method is frown by both elitists and purists in the art community and is mostly suitable for animu (anime style) Pfft... whatever... lets start

Step 1:
Prepare your lineart and base coloring in separate layers...


Step 2:
In this particular case... the sole lightsource is the moon. The best way to treat hair or rather the way I treat hair is to NOT treat them as hair but rather large solid blocks of matter and shade them like they were large solid blocks of matter while taking into account the position of the lightsource.


Step 3:
Do the same for the rest of the layers...


Step 4:
Add more background props and such... I just Googled those trees in the background, shopped them till they no longer resemble the parent material and pasted them... do some color adjustments and BAM! Instant Artwork with Coloring in under an hour!!!

The fun thing about this method is that you can easily change the time of the day shading since the shading is ridiculously simple enough that all you needed to do is redo a few strokes in different places...

And here is the final result...

Night time
http://imgur.com/5f33B

Day Time
http://imgur.com/QZaJr


Hope this helps... BTW, your character is cute so Uncle Mugen can't resist doing a fanart of her...

"POOF" (Disappears)

Oh! and in case you needed the PSD file to dissect and study it... http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WRSEN26U

You'll see that both the lineart and the coloring are messy when you look at it up close but if you scale it down... imperfections magically disappear... Lol!

[Tenxinori]

@Kuroshishi : ty for the tutorial links ;o; i will practice >_<

@mugenjohncel : You are AWESOME *O* *zooms in lineart o.o * a moment later* O.O *zooms out* WHOA
I am gonna practice practice practice :'< And thank you for liking my oc :3 (it was result of my doodle in algebra o3o)