D

Ok this may sound dumb because I've never used Photoshop before, but how do you enlarge to 200 dpi? Nevermind I figured it out, woot woot!

And should I have a tablet?

Thanks man, I figured it all out and am starting to colour Great idea for this too! I'm using CS3 and I noticed your screen shots were slightly different than my program so I didn't know if it was the same deal.

Awesome work on Galvy btw!

Cheers

nice I just saved it under dayofreckoningcolourclass then I saw your post, lol

Okay, here's the part I always have a bit of trouble with. Usually when I have a new piece of art, I will hit duplicate layer on the line art. Is that a good idea? If I do that enough, I end up having issues with my line art becoming darker and messier. What's a better way to do that? Also, what'd the difference between White and Transparent? And what's the point of other brushes? Don't they all color the same?

Apparently I'm like a sponge...

While I was colouring last night I couldn't for the life of me figure out how you stayed within the lines so well, then I moved the Lines tab up and presto it was like cell animation, very cool. You might want to add that little step in for us beginners I noticed after I was done that your Flats screen shot shows the Lines tab moved up as well, so I know I was doing it right.

Cheers

Ok got the flats done, my word it's bloody hard to do with a mouse. I must get a tablet. Colours are very close to Sol's sceme but slightly different.

Checkit

I'm really liking this photoshopy thingy they made here, y'know

Ok I just finished the flats, and I did it by moving the flats tab to the top then moving the lines tab, constantly going back and forth to see if I was doing it right. Jebus, I am such a dork. It would have saved me soooo much time if I had stopped to read what you wrote right up there.


I am stoopid, but still having fun

Ok got all the flats done too.

-FLATS-

The only thing I've done differently (other than some color variations) is to modify the line layer by removing the white and locking the transparency. That way I can easily change the line color. But since I probably won't use it, it's not necessary.

Little behind, but here my flats.

ah why not


here's a look at mine so far. just flats




and here's my flats with the line art hidden [in case you wanted to see how messy they are xD]




and for those curious, my layers are set up like this


line art [set to multiply]
megatron flats
optimus flats
background

depending on which color style im gonna use [cel style or painted] this is the point at where i can go a couple different directions

maybe ill do both tho just so you guys can see the different methods i use

oooooh, if i get a break im so gonna do this

Wow...that really pops. This is going to be fun.

Here be my first attempt at shading in Photoshop. I had a hard time using the mouse to lay down the shadows... it just didn't feel right. Instead, I highlighted Megs with the lasso tool and filled with black (opacity set to 50%) and using the eraser tool, carved them out. Time consuming, I know, but I think it helped.


It still feels off though (especially after looking at SolFire's), so any pointers are welcome.

Click to view attachment

Ok I have to get caught up on the shading and lighting of Megs, been busy getting ready to move and working. In addition been on eBay incessantly trying to obtain a cheap tablet, cause my mouse and my laptop pad both suck for doing this, very time consuming. But hey at least I'm learning, thanks again Solfire!

Cheers

I'm behind, but here's my flats:

Obviously I'm just having fun with the colors, its a bit messy in areas but hey, its a great learning process.

-Megs Shaded-

Not too hard once I got a feel for adjusting the settings on the brush to make do what I wanted when. I'd do one area and then improve doing the next, so I'd go back and work on the first area again.

Basic shading on Megs done! It's a pain to do w/ the mouse, but not too bad. Because I used such (hideously) pale pastel colors, I had to change the overlay to a whopping 69% so you could actually see the shading.

alright!!

so lets take a look at what we got here


This first pic here is shadows. Now what i did here, was i first rendered my bkg. just cuz it helps me get a sense of lighting for the overall picture. so i used my loaded wet tip watercolor brush. i chose a darker color and just bucket filled the whole bkg. typically when im "painting" i work from shadows to highlights [dark to light]. after that i took my highlight color and painted in the highlights on his chair there. gave some subtle highlights to the top part of it [as itd probably catch a little light as well from where the lightsource is. which is megatrons tail pretty much]

and the bkg rendering is done. Now i decided to handle the characters in a "cel shading" type of manner so what i did was i created a new layer above my megatron and prime flat layers. set the opacity to about 50% and using a black hard round brush [yes..i said black lol] and started blocking in my shadowing, allways keeping in mind my lightsource [which will be megs' tail]


and here's a look at all of the above sans the line art. kinda gives you a better idea of the bkg rendering maybe


And now moving on to highlights! Now that my shadows are done, i created another new layer. I set this layer to overlay and left the opacity at around 80%. Keeping in mind my lightsource i blocked in the highlights accordingly using a white hard round brush.



and now for some FX! What i did here was i created a new layer above ALL the layers [even the line art]. Setting the layer to hard light i took just the regular air brush and choosing my glow color, brushed the glows in. Now its pretty flat if its just the one color and i wanted some brightness to the glows, so using white [or a near white version of the glow color] i brightened up the "core" of the glow a bit


Now this here, im showign you what brush im gonna use to add some kind of dirty effect. i just took that brush [might be a custom one, i cant remember. butyou can use a brush similar to it i guess] and on another layer set to overlay [this time under the line art] and using a dark brown [vary your opacities for painting type stuff. it helps make it look "smooth" and blend in more].


so after i did that all over the place i took the eraser [just a hard edged round eraser. make sure its really small] and just started scribbling all over the place, just erasing little parts of the grime stuff i just put on. just makes it a little more visually interesting.kinda like there's little scrapes in the grime/dirt stuff


and now the pic is pretty much complete. i've gotten all i usually do to it done. time to save and time to put some finishing touches. so after saving, i flattened the pic. I do this to pretty much every pic that i color because sometimes the final look doesnt quite have the flair or right mood [this is kind of a cheat if you cant create mood with color or just dont have the time to take the time picking the right colors].

I bring up the color balance menu and i play with the sliders in allthe shadow, midtones, and highlights categories


after some color balance playing and a couple other tricks we have the final product




and thats...a general and broad little tag-along on a little pic

Thanks for that, Josh!

Aside from the "dirty" effects, that's pretty much the same process I use to color. ...Albeit at a much less professional looking level. (Mine, I mean -- "Less professional.") ;)
I was going to redo the piece in the way I normally shade and show that too, but now I don't have to.

ANYWAY, I've been caught up to the last lesson for a while:

-- Progress Shot No. 4 --

Done:



This has been great -- I definitely learned some new things.

Went back over the image to give it (hopefully) a little more depth.




Now I think I'm done.

Man I got to finish this piece and get it posted, got really sidetracked. Moved to Vancouver, so now I should have time to get it done, lol.

Lol, still haven't finished, where did the time go?