Hello and welcome to this page! I am really not sure what it is for- I don't want to call it a tutorial because I don't feel like I am experienced or professional enough when it comes to digital art to tell you that this is the professional way to do things. I think it is more of a way to let you guys see how *I* personally do my digital art. You can work along to this if you like- just to try something new for coloring your own pictures or gain your experience and add to your technique. So, I hope, regardless, you find this page either useful or at least fun and interesting to look at to get an idea of how I digitally color my own artwork :) That said, let's get drawing!
First off, I thought we should go over the materials you will be needing to follow along if you want to do so.
For the sketch ( afterall, you *will* need a drawing or sketch to color in the first place! ) I prefer to use either a true blue or tuscan red color-erase pencil. These range from anywhere between 65 cents to 85 cents a piece and can be found at most art stores. Using regular pencil lead is fine, but I prefer color-erase pencils because they offer good control and they are much easier to erase should you mess up. For this particular project I used the true-blue.
Now, you CAN ink the sketch in Photoshop instead of by hand- but you will be saving yourself a lot of painful frustration if you just take the five minutes to hand ink your sketch before colorizing it digitally. You especially want to ink outside of Photoshop if you don't have a drawing tablet- going over your lines with a mouse and trying to get them perfect will drive you up the wall. Normally when I ink, I prefer to use either Micron Brushpens, Rapidographing pens, or else regular Micron ink pens. Basically anything you choose is fine as long as it's not a marker or else has too fat of an ink tip. Brushpens are very beautiful, but DON'T use them unless you have had experience with them. Handling brushpens correctly and working them properly comes with lots of practice and experience. So if you have never used one before, don't risk ruining your sketch before you get a chance to color it.
Okay, let's rehash a moment. So far you will need:
A drawing pencil
An inking pen/tool
A Photoshop version of 4.0 or higher
Basic Photoshop skills
If you have Photoshop 4.0, that's okay. The only main difference is that you will have to be careful to catch your mistakes as you make them because you don't have the history feature like versions higher than 4.0 does. Are you frightened by the above console? Don't worry! There are tons of buttons- and even more buttons hidden from view! But for this project, you will only be using a few of them. Let's introduce you to them so you feel less scared and can get more accquainted ;)
Say hello to the paintbrush tool! We will mostly be using this to make shadows and highlights.
You will be using this one the most. We are going to use it to do the majority of the coloring.
This is used to correct any coloring "outside of the lines".
Use this tool to zoom in and out of your drawing to color those extra tiny spaces!
I used this, but you might not have to. Use it to cut excess "canvas" that you don't need in your picture.
This will be used to choose the different colors you want to use in your picture!
Alright, now that you have selected your materials and have gotten accquainted with some new ones, let's get started!
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