Makio's Colouring Tutorial

[Makio-Kuta]

First off, I'm not sure if this is in the right spot. I didn't feel fit putting this into the RMXP tutorial section, since it's got diddlysquat to do with RMXP. lol

Secondly, I've only made a couple tutorials before in my life and----This was a strange thing to try to make a tutorial on. Since the main bulk of it is guess work. But here we go.

Thirdly this is for Photoshop. I don't know much about GIMP or any other program to know if this is helpful at all to them. But....If they have opacity and eyedroppers... don't see why it wouldn't.
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Recently Reives asked how I coloured. So, since I'm really bad at explaining things without pictures. I thought, I'll make a tutorial and share my simple technique with you all.
Today we're going to work with the happy little lobster man!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... /lob01.png[/img]

Now before we start, there are some important tools to acquaint yourself with.
First, Flow.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... a/flow.png[/img]
It's located up here by default. Along with brush size, mode, and opacity.
You're other friend shall be the eye dropper. it's located on the tool bar, but it's going to be far more easier for you to know that if you just hold down the ALT key you can toggle it.
Another useful short cut is using [ and ] to change brush size.

Now, before we get started you'll want to make yourself a colour palette. I usually store my colours on a swatch that I keep to the side:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... swatch.png[/img]
But you can keep it anywhere. In another picture file tucked of to the side is handy too. So long as it's easy to access.

Once you have your colour palette (which....should consist of a base colour, two shades, and one or two highlight colours depending on the shininess of the material. (shininess...so a word)

Turn flow down to 10% and pick your 1st shade.
Roughly mark out the main shadows like this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... /lob02.png[/img]

Now use the eye dropper and pick an area close to the base and the 1st shade. Some where along here.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... /lob03.png[/img]

Use this colour along the edges to help soften them. Continually use the eye dropper to help get the right colour. Is the smoothing colour to light, use the eye dropper to get a darker one. Too dark? Vise Versa. In the end it should be nicely softened like this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... /lob04.png[/img]

Now do the same thing with the next shade. Be sure to stay in a smaller area, as less things would have a shadow this dark.
Same thing. Rough and then soften.

Now use the colour black. Zoom into areas that have something casting a shadow on them. Like in this case under the antenna.
Shrink your brush and actually spatter on some black.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... lobant.png[/img]

And then smoothen. I usually go over it right away completely with the colour to help make it a little less black. It is okay if these are a little less smooth since they are shadows being cast onto the item.

You'll repeat the same above steps for highlights. You can end in white like the black, if you feel like it. I never do unless doing hair.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/M ... 05done.png[/img]

And that's all there is to it! I hope this can be helpful to someone.

If you give it a try, I'd love to see the results.
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An example using this technique:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/60537601/
A example using a similar technique (no eyedropper abuse or black):
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54339696/

 

[Reives]

Wewt. Good stuff.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Thanks. n.n I hope someone can find it useful.

 

[Ratty524]

... I'll try.

 

[nanao]

Hmm... this coloring is usually for vector. Nonetheless it actually looks real 3D. xD

 

[Ocean]

Hmmm... personally I don't think the shadows are dark enough. The highlights are a good brightness, though.

What I think you should experiment with is working with different hues for the shadows and highlights rather than just making it blacker or whiter. If you want a metallic style, make the highlights more saturated and the shadows less saturated. For dull objects (Skin, for example), you'd do basically the reverse, dull highlights but saturated shadows. I usually use colors like Yellow for the highlights and Blues or Purples for shadows. It all depends on the color of the lighting that you want to use. The color wheel can help you when picking shadows, you can use the opposite color of the highlight for the shadow color. Otherwise, if you just want the white/dark lights/shadows, you could use the Burn and Dodge tools for those.

Keep at it, I'd like to see how your future colored stuff turns out!