TUTORIALS
Step 6: Painting part 1
Select a Color Pallet:
In order to begin painting your line drawing, you must first decide
what colors you are going to use. Sometimes I create color pallets
that are specific to the character that I am about to paint. I
even go as far as to naming each color to it’s appropiate
usage, i.e. Julia’s hair color, Julia’s eye’s,
etc. Naming your colors will help you tremendously, especially
when you are creating a series of paintings that will have similar
colors. Also, having a custom pallet makes it easy because you
can delete the colors that you won’t use and add new ones
that you will use. Saving your color pallets is made easy in Corel
Photo Paint. Once you have your pallet saved you can always import
it into future projects. There are other times when I just use
the default color pallet, in which case I don’t even bother
customizing my pallet.
Create a New Layer:
The next step is create a new layer (see image). The reason for
creating a new layer is so we can use it for the color level.
Have this new layer set at “Multiply”, in order to see
your line drawing underneath. It would be a good idea to name
this new layer. Give it a name you can easily recognize, like
“color” or “tones”. There are many ways that
you can color your image. Some people just end up flooding the
entire layer with one color and then systematically replace certain
colors. You can do it that way. However, the way I did it for
this demonstration is somewhat different. Since I already have
a specific color that I am going to use, flooding the entire page
with one color wont work in this case.
Using the Magic Wand:
I paint using the magic wand tool. I just click on a closed area
and it selects just that specific area. This is great when you
need to airbrush some tones in that area only. It is also helpful
when you click on an area and it selects something else that you
didn't want, because then you know that you have a leak somewhere
in your line drawing. It is better to fix it now than to try and
paint it. For this demonstration, I have selected Julia’s
left arm and part of her back. Keep in mind that I am still working
in the color layer.
Using the Paint Bucket:
The Paint Bucket tool is pretty straightforward. Choose the paint
bucket tool, pick the color you wish to fill with and click in
the selected area. Make sure you masked off the area you want
to fill in with the Magic Wand tool. The color should fill the
whole area that has been selected. Do the same with all the other
areas you wish to color. The color will only be filled in the
masked area. You must select other areas with the Magic Wand tool
in order to paint them. Alternate between your Magic Wand tool
and your Paint Bucket tool as you go through your entire drawing.
Corel has made this part easy by having the spacebar act as a
switch. Pressing your spacebar will take you back to the last
tool you used and vice versa. Suffice it to say that this part
is easy. The hard part comes later.
Using the Brush Tool:
A. Filling in the remaining color
This part becomes a little harder because you will be focusing
on details. Sometimes the paint bucket tool does not fill in all
the nooks and crannys, leaving behind unfilled areas near your
line. This happens because your line either is of low quality
or you’ve scanned at a low resolution leaving your line somewhat
pixelized. Do not worry yourself. All you need is the paint brush
tool and a steady hand. I always use the mouse, even when I’m
painting, so I’ve managed to control the mouse fairly well.
Some of you may use a board with a pen, that’s fine also.
However, you must learn to keep you hand steady for this proceedure.
That means no masturbating while doing this! Set your brush tool
to a sharp edge and 0% tolerance. This means that the brush will
paint with full opaqueacy. Make sure you are not using a soft
edge. What you want to do here is just fill in the flat color
that remains to be filled.
B. A talk about techniques
Before you begin painting in the color, notice the gray around
some of your lines. This means that some of the color did not
fill in underneath that line. If you recall earlier that I mentioned
that some people just flood the entire page with one color and
then replace those colors. Well this tecnique usually takes care
of that problem. My tecnique however has created this problem.
I use to tear my hair out before trying to figure out how to deal
with this problem. Now I can say that I have somewhat fixed this
dilema. Of course, nothing beats a drawing that has been inked
by a real inker. An inked drawing once scanned leaves a sharp
image in which all you have to do is fill in the color. I am not
an inker and I find it really hard to do. So I pencil in my drawings
which add to this problem of unfilled pixels.
C. Filling in the remaining color (continued)
Again I remind you that your hand must be steady. Lay off the
coffee and the soda. Select your color, usually the color that
you have already used for that area. Remember, you are just filling
in color. Hit all the edges with your brush. On internal lines,
like Julia’s arm, you can paint right over the line. Make
sure you are still in the color level. If for some reason you
accidently switched over to the line level, you would have effectively
replace your line with a brush stroke. You don’t want that.
You want to keep your line. This is the whole purpose of working
on an entirely different level.
D. A talk about tutorials
I used to work on one level (Boy was I stupid). This limited me
tremendously. If you ever take a look at my earlier stuff you
will notice some blue mixed in with my line. That’s before
I found that you can work on different levels and still be able
to see your original line underneath all that paint. This was
like a revelation to me. I don’t claim to know all the techniques
and I seriously don’t know all the techniques. That’s
why I would recomened you serious artist out there to comb the
internet for professional tutorials. I’ve been really disappointed
with the bookstores for they seem to lack anything resembling
a tutorial like this. I have found some good tutorials that have
come out of Japan. I wish I could read Japaneesse because they
do some really nice CG work. I have learned some stuff from just
looking at the pictures. Other tutorials that I would recommend
are at https://pub127.ezboard.com/bcartoonandillustrationparadise66133
They are really good and seem to know their stuff.
E. Filling in the remaining color (continued)
Hopefully you understand what I am trying to convey to you. Don’t
worry about tones at this point. You are only concerning yourself
with filling in all the flat color. If you switch off the line
level you will see where you need to fill in your color. However,
always work with the line level on or visable. I do this so I
can know where I can bring my color up to. Do this until all your
gray is gone. The result will be your line underneath showing
through the color on top.
Next -> Conclusion
