beginner's cg

LAYERY GOODNESS
Some people use one layer to color and others use tons. I use as many as my computer lets me since it makes life easier (and confusing if you're not organized). I normally separate the layers based on colors. I keep the skin tone in one layer, the outfit in another, etc. If I wanted to change his green outfit to a flaming pink I can do so easily by just modifying that certain layer.

I go in with a big sized hard edged paint brush tool and fill in areas quickly and go in and erase the parts sticking out of the lines. There's also a method using the magic wand tool but that requires clean art. We'll just stick to this method for now. You need not worry too much about the colors since you can modify it easily later by going to Image - Adjust - Hue/Saturation or the other choices under "Adjust" and fiddle with the options until you get a color you like.

I normally keep the background 50% gray for the grayscale coloring method but for cel style I keep it a bright color like this so I can tell if I'm missing any spots when coloring. This is all personal preference though.

LOCKING TRANSPARENCY
Well, you've spent all this time filling in your skin tone perfectly so let's make it count. One method of saving time is to lock the transparency of the layer so that you can't color on the transparent parts of that layer anymore. Click on the layer you want to lock and then click the "lock transparent pixels" box. A lock mark should appear on your layer. This is useful when you want to add highlights and shadows to a layer without having to worry about the new colors sticking out.

GROUP WITH PREVIOUS LAYER
This method is recommended if you can afford to use more layers. Click on the layer you want to shade or highlight and then goto layer - New - Layer...the dialogue box to the right will come out. Click on "group with previous layer" and click "OK". Now you've created a new layer that has the transparency of the previous layer locked on it. This may sound a bit confusing but it's a better than just locking transparency because you can use the eraser tool without affecting the layer below it. Try both methods out to see the difference.

SHADING
There are many different methods of shading. Try out different things to see what works for you.

I normally select the mid-tone color that I had filled a layer with and double click the "foreground color" square located on the toolbar to choose a darker version. I use a hard edged paint brush to quickly fill in the area that should be in shadow. It's helpful to zoom out of your image once in a while to see the whole image. Also think about where the light is coming from and how many light sources there are. There can be more than one light source but have a main one that's more dominant than the others.

Note that I had made the tact not cast a shadow on Link's head since it was personally not pleasing to me. ;)

HIGHLIGHTS
I normally just eyeball the color as well using the color picker. The highlight area should stay rather small unless there's a good reason behind it. Sometimes changing the "layer-mode" of a highlight or shadow may create neat effects. Now that the basic image is done I go in and add details and adjust the colors by selecting the layer and using the different functions available in Image - Adjust.

COLOR BALANCE
I wanted a warm feeling about the image so I decided to add a color balance layer. Click on your topmost layer and goto Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Color Balance. Click OK and the box to the right should pop up. This way you can adjust all the colors under this new layer as a whole without having to flatten the image. I added more yellows and reds to make the whole image warmer and more harmonized.

WRAPPING UP
When you feel that you're done with your image make sure that you have a backup PSD copy of your file and flatten the image. If you are going to put the CG up online goto Image - Image Size and lower the resolution to 72 dpi.

That's it for this tutorial, hope that helped! ;)

(I'll put a bigger version of this Link image up on our gallery when I finish it...it still needs alot of adjusting!)

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Beginner's tutorial is copyright of www.pendako.com.

LAYERY GOODNESS Some people use one layer to color and others use tons. I use as many as my computer lets me since it makes life easier (and confusing if you're not organized). I normally separate the layers based on colors. I keep the skin tone in one layer, the outfit in another, etc. If I wanted to change his green outfit to a flaming pink I can do so easily by just modifying that certain layer. I go in with a big sized hard edged paint brush tool and fill in areas quickly and go in and erase the parts sticking out of the lines. There's also a method using the magic wand tool but that requires clean art. We'll just stick to this method for now. You need not worry too much about the colors since you can modify it easily later by going to Image - Adjust - Hue/Saturation or the other choices under "Adjust" and fiddle with the options until you get a color you like. I normally keep the background 50% gray for the grayscale coloring method but for cel style I keep it a bright color like this so I can tell if I'm missing any spots when coloring. This is all personal preference though.
LOCKING TRANSPARENCY Well, you've spent all this time filling in your skin tone perfectly so let's make it count. One method of saving time is to lock the transparency of the layer so that you can't color on the transparent parts of that layer anymore. Click on the layer you want to lock and then click the "lock transparent pixels" box. A lock mark should appear on your layer. This is useful when you want to add highlights and shadows to a layer without having to worry about the new colors sticking out.
GROUP WITH PREVIOUS LAYER This method is recommended if you can afford to use more layers. Click on the layer you want to shade or highlight and then goto layer - New - Layer...the dialogue box to the right will come out. Click on "group with previous layer" and click "OK". Now you've created a new layer that has the transparency of the previous layer locked on it. This may sound a bit confusing but it's a better than just locking transparency because you can use the eraser tool without affecting the layer below it. Try both methods out to see the difference.
SHADING There are many different methods of shading. Try out different things to see what works for you. I normally select the mid-tone color that I had filled a layer with and double click the "foreground color" square located on the toolbar to choose a darker version. I use a hard edged paint brush to quickly fill in the area that should be in shadow. It's helpful to zoom out of your image once in a while to see the whole image. Also think about where the light is coming from and how many light sources there are. There can be more than one light source but have a main one that's more dominant than the others. Note that I had made the tact not cast a shadow on Link's head since it was personally not pleasing to me. ;)
HIGHLIGHTS I normally just eyeball the color as well using the color picker. The highlight area should stay rather small unless there's a good reason behind it. Sometimes changing the "layer-mode" of a highlight or shadow may create neat effects. Now that the basic image is done I go in and add details and adjust the colors by selecting the layer and using the different functions available in Image - Adjust.
COLOR BALANCE I wanted a warm feeling about the image so I decided to add a color balance layer. Click on your topmost layer and goto Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Color Balance. Click OK and the box to the right should pop up. This way you can adjust all the colors under this new layer as a whole without having to flatten the image. I added more yellows and reds to make the whole image warmer and more harmonized.
WRAPPING UP When you feel that you're done with your image make sure that you have a backup PSD copy of your file and flatten the image. If you are going to put the CG up online goto Image - Image Size and lower the resolution to 72 dpi. That's it for this tutorial, hope that helped! ;) (I'll put a bigger version of this Link image up on our gallery when I finish it...it still needs alot of adjusting!)