I'd gotten a few requests to make a coloring tutorial. Well, this won't be a tutorial as much as it'll just be a demo of what way works for me. There are better ways of doing this, I'm sure. Anyway, let's get cracking!
Scanning the work
PoL is drawn on 11 x 17 Pro traditional comic boards by Blue Line Pro. The pro versions are sturdier than their regular versions and take ink a little more smoothly (PoL isn't inked, so it doesn't really matter). The actual drawing area is 10 x 15.To start, I begin sketching the image with a blue non-reproducing pencil, then go over it with tight pencils, ranging from 2B-6B, depending on how thick or dark I want a line to be. Mechanical pencils are nice for this. You get very crisp lines and there's no sharpening involved.
Now that the final pencil is finished, I scan as a color image at 600 dpi. My scanner only has a 9 x 12 scaning area, so I have to scan it in two pieces and splice accordingly.
Oh, but the image looks sort of dull and dirty, doesn't it? It's an easy fix. Come on, I'll show you.
Fixing the line art
Before doing anything else, I convert the image from RGB to CMYK (Image>Mode>CMYK). Then, I whip out the Channels menu (Window>Channels). Deleting color channels gets rid of unwanted colors. Seeing as I used a blue copy-not pencil, and the borders of the page are also blue, the cyan channel will be the first to go. Just out of force of habit, I get rid of everything but the yellow channel, because they leave me with nice delicate lines. It's good to play around with the channels to see what results you get beforehand, though. This can be done by clicking on the little eye next to each channel to turn them off. That way, you get a preview.Now that the blue is gone, we need to beef up our lines a bit. This can be done one of two ways. The first way is pulling up the levels (Ctrl + L), which'll give you the most extreme blacks and whites, but I find that to be a bit much this time around. This time, I've chosen to fiddle with Brightness/Contrast (Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast).
Brightness and contrast is like Levels lite. It serves the same purpose, giving the option to make line art closest to absolute black/white, but in a pleasant slider bar form.
Sliding to the left brings the image to middle grey. Sliding to the right gives greater brightness and contrast. I usually just fiddle around until I get results I like. Oh, look! A cover with bolder lines... Now that that's over with, here comes the most complicated part, which isn't really that complicated. Let's go over here.
Making "new" line art
Ever wonder how to have nice colored lines that seem to be popular in digital art WITHOUT having to painstakenly select and color each one? I'll show you something interesting.Before beginning, I have to be able to edit the layer with the line art. Heading on over to the Layers pallette (Window>Layers if it isn't already open), the default layer, meaning the starting layer that we work on when the image is first created, is locked. Easily changed. By double-clicking on the layer name, it can be renamed and unlocked for unlimited usage. I usually just name it Layer 0, because it'll be of little consequence once the new line art is created.
Next, two new layers need to be created, which can be done by clicking the button second from the right at the bottom of the pallette. The new topmost layer I name 'new line art', the one below it, background. The background layer is filled white in preperation for the next step.
Now, I'll be needing some more help from my good friend Channels to create the new line art. Clicking the dotted circle selects all the white of the image, but that's not needed, so inverting the selection (Select>Inverse or Shift+Ctrl+I) will select the black. On the 'new line art' layer, I then fill in with black and deselect (Ctrl+D). Turn layer 0 off at this point and huzzah! New line art!
Now the fun begins. I don't care to put all my colors on one layer, especially when I have something special in mind, so I make a new layer above the background, named base color. Kedamono gets this layer all to himself. Isn't he lucky? The scalydoo in the background gets the background, obviously. I lay out the flat midtones at this point in the game. None of that fancy shading you kids like so much just yet. Ah, there we are. In most cases, I work from dark to light, so now Kedamono gets a little sense of lighting. I try to pay attention to the direction of light. In this case, it's slightly elevated on our left side. But, I'm a little bored with this. I want to through in some secondary lighting, so I think I'll do that.
Oh, I seem to have jumped ahead a few steps. Anyway... I've added a new layer, Highlights, on top of my base color layer. Despite the name, I've thrown in some deeper shadows to make the lights pop more, too. I typically light colored lights. They just add a little something extra. USE RESPONSIBLY.
I guess I should explain why scalydoo is now outlined a power blue and all gradiated and such... Remember how I mentioned about those nice colored lines? Well, that's why I went to the trouble of reproducing the line art. Colorizing lines is so easy, it's stupid. Let's pop open the Layers pallette again for a sec and locate our new line art layer.
In order to color the lines and not the rest of the image, the transparency needs to be locked. Not a problem. There's a checkerboard sort of icon on the top of the Layers pallette. It need only be clicked, and a tiny lock will appear on the selected layer. Coloring the lines becomes a quick and easy process in this way. Scalydoo now has his color. Hi-fives all around.
Aaaaand the gradient. Remember scalydoo was a lighter blue than the rest of the background? Well, just selected his color using the Magic Wand Tool (W) and filled in with the colors of my choice using the gradient tool. Done! I normally don't like doing the gimmicky stuff like gradients, but scalydoo looked pretty boring with just one flat color.
Anyway, that's how I do it. Maybe I'll do something with coming up with character designs in my spare time.
