I need a piece of advice

[platonicheart]

I want to bring life to my drawings by coloring it, but i find it difficult to do so. I am currently using Adobe Photoshop CS4 and still, I cannot shade properly, and even choose the right color combination for my drawings. Anyone who could help me solve my BIG BIG problem??

[Auro-Cyanide]

? Do you have an example of what you are talking about?

[Alera]

To solve your problem you just need to PRACTICE! It can't happen from just one day. You might need years to master a colouring technique.

And if this is your first time using PS- then you'll need to learn the basics first. The main things of the program. Then start developing a technique. Try looking for tutorials- they are always a great help.

[dstarsboy]

Go to deviant art and then search for "color tutorial" and you'll find a ton of helpful stuff.

[YuukiCrossPudding]

Try tutorial on youtube too!
There's some good tutorial there...
well and In my case, I can't color well too, I think the wrong part of me is laziness xD
and yeah! practice! practice! it's important!
advice, critics and suggestions too, try to post your art sometime?

hmm....and try to pay attention from ppl drawing and coloring?
I'm still improving too, so let's do our best!!
practice makes perfect!
and nothing is perfect so that mean we must practice everytime xD *my crazy philosophy don't think about it XP

[Greeny]

The simplest technique has four steps.

Step 1: Get your line-art on a seperate layer with transparency.

Step 2: Draw the base colour under it, every different colour preferably on a seperate layer.
This will allow you to change each colour individually later with the colour tools if you want to.

Step 3: Shadows. There are two ways to do this, in my opinion. Either you make several new layers
and draw your darker colors onto each one, or, and this may require some experimenting, you
use a single layer for all shadows, and rather than a color, you use a semi-transparent black.
Experiment with the transparency levels and setting the layer to multiply, overlay, etc,... to see which
one gives the best effect for your personal style. Highlights are basically the same idea.

Step 4: This is optional, but you can blur your shadows layer(s) and your highlights layer(s) to get
a smoother effect. Not suitable for all styles. Highlights will probably be more blurry than shadows.

I recommend not using a brush to get your shadows and highlights. I use GIMP, but I think you can do this
in photoshop too, but what I do is I make a path to select the area I want shaded, then do "path to selection"
and fill the whole selection. It makes for smooth curves.

If you want to see an example: http://lordgreeny.deviantart.com/art/Fa ... -129945709

[Alera]

Not using brushes??? Hey, I'm sorry @Greeny, but I'll disagree with you.
I think this is a bad advice. It all depends from the technique you're using. For yours- it's good to use selection tools, because it's cell-shading. But for soft-shading...

Actually- when drawing- brushes are your best friend! Most of the artists use brushes, you know that? Blur/smudge tools are a cheap way of blending your colours too. If you want to be a professional and have 'live' in your drawings- you have to learn how to do all this with just a brush.

I think there is another bad advice you've given. Using black for shades?! No-no. There's an unwritten rule- never use pure black on your drawings! Even my art teachers have told me this. XD (Linearts should be an exception though.) No matter if it's 'semi-transparent'- it's still no good. Each colour has it's own shades of shadows. They might be sometimes close to black, but they still have something of the original in them.
BTW: Same goes for white!!! Don't use pure white for the highlights, kids, please don't. OTL (Use white only when shading white and for the eyes.)

Other than that- you're right about the layers.

[platonicheart]

to Auro-Cyanide:
I have one example just find my topic titled "Happy to hear your comments for my work"
to Alera and greeny:
hmm... should I just use separate layers for the different body parts? and what about the shadow? for example the hair color is red should I use maroon like that? and about the brush part, what should I use airbrush or color placement?

to dstarsboy:
i still don't have deviantart, is it really useful?

to yukicrosspudding:
LET'S DO THIS!!! HAHA

[skyline1241]

The simplest technique has four steps.

Step 1: Get your line-art on a seperate layer with transparency.

Step 2: Draw the base colour under it, every different colour preferably on a seperate layer.
This will allow you to change each colour individually later with the colour tools if you want to.

Step 3: Shadows. There are two ways to do this, in my opinion. Either you make several new layers
and draw your darker colors onto each one, or, and this may require some experimenting, you
use a single layer for all shadows, and rather than a color, you use a semi-transparent black.
Experiment with the transparency levels and setting the layer to multiply, overlay, etc,... to see which
one gives the best effect for your personal style. Highlights are basically the same idea.

Step 4: This is optional, but you can blur your shadows layer(s) and your highlights layer(s) to get
a smoother effect. Not suitable for all styles. Highlights will probably be more blurry than shadows.

I recommend not using a brush to get your shadows and highlights. I use GIMP, but I think you can do this
in photoshop too, but what I do is I make a path to select the area I want shaded, then do "path to selection"
and fill the whole selection. It makes for smooth curves.

If you want to see an example: http://lordgreeny.deviantart.com/art/Fa ... -129945709

Such a very amazing link!
Thanks you for the post.

[YuukiCrossPudding]

@platonicheart: Yayy!!! xDD
Um. I found deviantart is a bit useful, coz' there's so many, I mean a lot of skilled artist there, we can make friends with them, asking advice too, and see their art etc. if you join a group
We can see their art for reference in what we should do to make our art better!
there's some tutorials too there I think?
and when you post ur drawing maybe someone will pass by and give advice etc.

[kinougames]

I keep asking myself this, and the answer is really only to study other artwork and practice practice practice. I would suggest, however, practicing using the multiply feature for cel shading to start.

[Sakura02]

Practice !!! Many artists take years and decades to draw at a professional level. For me going on 10years @_@

[platonicheart]

Practice !!! Many artists take years and decades to draw at a professional level. For me going on 10years @_@

haha ok ok )

[Auro-Cyanide]

Ah, okay. This may be long.

Basically, there are many, many ways to digitally colour, right from simple 'block-in' to actual painting. Much of the learning process comes down to experimentation and study. This is, of course, a long term process. Sakura is right in that. I have been serious about art for, what, 7-8 years now. I only started digital art about 3 years ago but I had a fairly solid understanding in the traditional arts by that point. There is no difference between digital art and traditional art when it comes to theory, only in practice. Colour theory, study on form and shape, anatomy, these are all the same. Try to do some searching on the internet for overall tutorials on understanding light and colour, like this one http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm . This is not really something you can skip over if you want to be good. I highly recommend practising on stuff that you like, your characters and stories, by try to study at the same time. If you don't understand something, go read up about it and then apply it to your work. You will eventually see massive improvement.

As for technical advice, well that depends what you feel comfortable with. There is no wrong or right answers, only what works. In that, both Greeny and Alera are right. What Greeny is describing is a very basic way of cell-shading. The colours are not particularly exciting and they may not be correct. HOWEVER, it does get the job done and can provide a clean and stylistic look. I do not tend to use black to shade though because I believe it muddies the colours. I like to use a light purple, that when set to multiply, casts a nice purple shadow. These are examples of when I have used the process of a multiply layer on a low opacity setting to shade:

As you may have noticed, some of the shading edges are soft. For this I simply painted the shadows using a hard edged brush (or you may use the selection tool) and then I used a soft edged eraser to soften the edges of bits. Some things should be softer then others. Simple, clean and efficient.

White can be used for highlights, but technically only when pure light would be reflected, such as metallic objects. However, when doing cartoon drawings, you can sufficiently break the rules as long as the message gets across. When shading non-shiny objects, like clothing, white being used as a highlight cab be a bit weird. Again it is best to study real life as well as the works of others to figure out what you like and what you can do.

I won't say you are restricted by the tools you use, since technically that isn't true, but I never personally figured out how to paint digitally with a mouse. I doubt I would be able to produce something like this with a mouse,

but I have seen some people work wonders. I use a wacom tablet, which is expensive but the time it saves and the control it gives me is worth every cent in my opinion. Brushes really come into their own when you use a tablet since you can use pen pressure. Without a tablet, the selection tool is probably the best to use in the beginning, though continue to try out the brushes since you will learn as you go.

All of this is pretty general advice of course. Do you have an example of the colouring style you would LIKE to achieve? I could give you much more comprehensive technical advice if you had something in mind.

[platonicheart]

to Auro-cyanide:

I think I understand it now, a piece of it hehe.... tnx tnx