MyPantsAreMissing's Coloring Tutorial Extraordinaire!

Alright. Let's get this over with.

Sup Bitches! I would be Marvin, otherwise known as MyPantsAreMissing here on DeviantArt. Today I bring you a Coloring Tutorial. But...In my humble opinion...this one is not only better than the rest (ok so I'm biased, so what!?) but I expect to go into much greater detail for the newbies, or as some geeks refer to them as...noobs...or for the extremely geeky...|\|00b5. I don't believe I'm that geeky, so none of that from me. |-|4|-|4, I 1i3d 5u(k3r5!

Sorry, ignore that.

Ok. Let's get started then. Alright...well, I guess I should mention that I'll be showing you how to color my latest deviation Insane Nightmare's Jack Pin up. Which, just so you know, was penciled by my brother and colored by me. In all truth...I was gonna draw something, but he just had it in his sketchbook for months so I stole it. He said it was ok tho. Don't steal without asking permission! That's what a good thief does!




Here's another piece I did with these techniques.



And two works in progress:





Alright, so first things first. Open up Photoshop.I hope I don't have to tell you how to do that. Oh...and if you don't have Photoshop, by all means...obtain it. Preferably legally...I do not condone piracy! I'm using Photoshop CS, but you can probably get away with using anything older than Photoshop 5. Type in Photoshop CS download or something into google.com, I'm sure you'll find a trial version or something. It'll probably be about 200MB, no problem if you have broadband...if not...find a friend with broadband. They might ask you for a small favor (it may be sexual, who knows) but in the end you will have Photoshop! And it will be a joyous day! The sun will shine...the meadowlarks will sing and your fans will all chant in unison...THANK YOU!

Or something like that anyway. Ok...enough. I hope you've got Photoshop open.Let's get this show on the road. We're gonna need to scan the picture you want to color, just so you know...it would be ideal for your picture to be inked but it probably doesn't have to be (it really all depends on the finished work you prefer). Go to File>Import>WIA-...

Ok...unless you have the same scanner as me you won't see that exact name. Just click it. Alright...you'll see this window pop up.



Click on "Adjust the quality of the scanned picture" and a little window will pop up. It should look like this one.

Since you're gonna color this, you're probably gonna want to make it good enough for a nice print. As long as you're not gonna print out a picture that's insanely big, 300 dpi will be fine you can go higher if you want or lower, 72 dpi is usually for the web. I pretty much always scan my images as color pictures, even when they're just inked pictures. It's just my preference. You can choose what you wish. Next...a "Transferring Data" window will pop up and the scanner will do what it's supposed to. If the scanner didn't scan all the picture, repeat the last steps again and make sure to Preview the image before you scan it, or you could just preview it before you scan it every time. It's up to you I guess.



Most of the time Photoshop is pretty good at scanning the right part, so hopefully it worked out for you.



Here's my scanned sketchbook image, as you can see I've scanned too much and it's sideways. Let's fix that so it looks sexy. On your Tools Window select the crop tool (or you can just press C).


Now that you have your crop tool selected, you can drag a little box over the part you want to keep and it'll delete the rest for you.



Now click the little check on the Options toolbar (or just press Enter) and it'll confirm your crop.


Alrights, that's all good and everything but we still need to turn him the right way. Click Image>Rotate Canvas and choose the way you want it to be turned (if you need it turned, you might have scanned it right if so...who the hell cares you perfectionist bastard!?) For this picture, a 90 degree CW turn was all that was needed.




Okay...so this is what we've got now.



We've got the image but the actual linework is a little too light to see well. Let's go ahead and fix that. For that we're gonna bring up our levels window (Ctrl+L) with this we can edit the values of our picture. Ok, so for this picture all I had to do was drag the little black and grey arrows down a little. It'll be different for another picture but you'll probably be doing the same thing.



Alright, your picture is probably looking a little better now. To finish up, we'll bring up our curve editor (Ctrl+M), with this we can adjust the quality of the linework. I usually make something kinda like a stylized s (this time the adjustment wasn't so drastic). Yours will most likely be slightly different, see what works best for you. For this part, it's important you have an inked drawing because most erroneous pencil lines won't be visible afterward.



And...so, yeah. That's pretty much all I ever do for my inked linework, hopefully it worked well enough for you. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier I couldn't ink in my brothers sketchbook so I just traced it in Adobe Illustrator. Don't worry this tutorial will still work even if you didn't ink it in Illustrator, it's not necessary at all but I like the crisp linework better than my own. Not to mention that working digitally is much more forgiving than doing it manually.



Oh...if anyone was wondering, I didn't really like some parts of the original drawing so I excluded them when I traced it in Illustrator. Alright, so now, if you have your layers window open you may have noticed that your layer has a picture of a lock next to it.



This isn't rocket science people! When that lock is on you can't edit your layer. So...just double click the name of the layer and you'll see the new layer window pop up.



Just rename this layer Lineart...this will be...your lineart. Amazing!



Very spiffy, eh!? Yeah, I'm Canadian and I think it's quite spiffy. Which brings us to our next step! Canadian bacon! Only kidding...what you want to do next is create a new layer(Shift+Ctrl+N). Click the following button:



Once you've done that, just drag the new layer underneath the lineart and fill it with any color besides black or white. I filled it with a light blue, not for any particular reason...I actually hate light blue. I'll show you why in a second.



Ok, now you're gonna wanna (my English teacher would kill me over those last 2 words) right click the eraser button and choose the background eraser tool.



Choose the following settings for this tool:



Once you've done that, click on the paper color (usually white unless you like drawing on funky colored paper), make sure you've got a decent sized eraser, preferably something big ( use your [ and ] buttons to toggle the size of your eraser and brushes, it's right next to the P key on your keyboard dummy.) And now that you've got that going you can just drag your eraser over your picture and you should only have your linework visible, the layer below (for me it was blue) will show through, this will allow you to see the parts you missed, go back over these parts (it also helps if you never let go of your left mouse button while erasing).



Once that's done you should change you can change the blue layer(or whatever you're using) to white and you should end up with something kind of what you started with except now it'll be much easier to color. I won't go into that, for now...lock both your layers. If you want too you can rename your white layer to Background or whatever you want.



Once all that is done, make sure to make a duplicate of your linework layer. Just right click the name of the linework layer (not the thumbnail image or you'll get different options)and the window should pop up.



Lock this layer as well. The duplicate layer may have darkened the lineart a little but don't worry about it, you can delete the duplicate layer once the coloring is done. By locking these layer we've made it impossible to edit these by mistake. You don't want to color on your lineart, there'll be no going back once you've done that. AND NOW...The moment you've all been waiting for...the coloring! But we can't create awesome stuff right away...we're gonna need to establish the colors we want before we can add shadows and highlights. These are called your flats. I advise you to save your progress so far, make sure to save your file as a .PSD. It's the Photoshop Format. =D



Don't forget to save often as well. And don't save over an existing one...make a new one. It takes up a bit of hardrive space but It'll be worth it when you mess up and want to start over. Once you get good at coloring you can save less...I only saved twice, but I colored it in one sitting. Ok, let's start the flats. First thing we do is decide what to color first. I decided to start with the pumpkin head. So I chose my orange color from the color picker and went to work. I made a new layer and named it pumpkins, I color everything on separate layers because it's easier to edit if I don't like something. I figured the pumpkins were all the same color and they're far enough away from each other so it wouldn't be much of a problem. You can go about coloring this one of two ways, you can either color with the paint brush and try to stay within in the lines or you can use your polygonal lasso tool and select the outline of the form you want to color (for this part, it would just be the pumpkin) and fill it with your selected color.



I usually do it both ways for every piece I do, it depends which is easier for the part I'm on. Ok...now do the same with the rest of the picture. Just choose a flat color, (I try to think of this as the color the object would be on a very sunny day) make a new layer for each object and title it accordingly. Take your time, stay inside the lines it took me at least an hour to finish my flats.Once you're done you might have a lot of layers. If there are a couple small things like jewelry or something, I just put them all on a layer I call Misc. (short for miscellaneous). Ok...Once the flats are done(I hope you stayed in the lines, it's important for the next part) we're ready to add highlights and shadows. But first...save your work...but not over your last one. Here's how my layers looked when I finished the flats:



The blue/purple background is just the original white Background layer changed blue/purple. Not too shabby, eh!? Some people could stop there but I want to take it to the next level. By the way...here's a shot of my layers when the flats were done.



Yours should be similar, a separate layer for each part of the picture named in a way that makes sense. I cannot stress the naming part enough. Once you start dealing with 90+ layers you'll thank me. Ok, now it's time to add shadows and highlights, but we can't do this correctly unless we know where the objects are being lighted from. I'm not that good at lighting so I usually use an action figure and a lamp and try different lighting situations. Unfortunately I don't have a Digital camera to take pictures of that. Instead...I made some 3d renders really quickly. Check it out!



Those are examples of all the different lighting situations I could have used. Ok, so they're a little crude...but it works. I went with a lighting situation where Jack was being lighted on his right side, leaving his left side in the dark.



Ok, so once the lighting was established, I knew where to put the shadows. Remember...for the shadows and highlights, you should always follow the contours of the body. So...let's start. Select the layer you want to color and with the Magic Wand tool(W) select the colored object.





Now choose a darker shade of the color you're gonna color, for orange...I chose a very dark gray color. Choose a color much darker than you think you should. You'll see why in a moment.



Ok, so now we've got a dark color selected and the object we're gonna color too. Now right-click anywhere on the picture and choose a soft brush.



If we colored this color on, it'd be way too dark. Let's select these brush options:



Now when we brush the color on, there'll be a slight gradation from color to color (If it bothers you to color on the flats, you can select the object and color on a different layer called shadows or highlights). Now, we know the shadows are gonna be on the right side of the picture so we can give that side more shadows. Remember to follow the contours of the body as you do this. You're gonna have to go over some parts more than once with the opacity this low. You can also adjust the opacity a bit and even mess around with the flow and don't forget to vary the size of your brush while doing this ([ and ] buttons).



After the shadows are done, add a highlight. Since we established the light was coming from the left side of the picture, that's where our highlight will be. For the highlight just select a lighter color than your flat color. For my orange flat I chose a yellowish orange, once again changing the opacity and flow options of the brush and following the contours of the body. The parts that come out more will usually be the part with the highlights, so...on a human face, the tip of the nose will have a highlight while the side of the nose might have none. All you have to do now is the same thing for the rest of the picture, ensuring your lighting is correct and give it a couple highlights here and there. Once you're done. You should have a picture that's gorgeous. It would be impractical to go through the whole process of coloring the picture here. I pretty much did the same thing on the face that I did everywhere else. I then adjusted the levels of each layer accordingly and maybe changed the opacity. That's all it takes. Just establish your lighting and follow the contours of the body and you're set. Here's how my layers looked when I was done.



That's all I got for you guys. If you want me to add anything, don't hesitate to leave me a message. You can leave a comment, send a note or e-mail me at ClickHereForAGoodTime@hotmail.com. I'd love to see what you guys color using these techniques. Drop me a note guys. Have A Nice Day!