This is a method
for adding color to scanned line art, with as much flexibility and as little frustration as possible. Instead of obsessing about "staying within the lines" we are going to use the power of the computer to speed through to the more artistic parts of the project.But first, Save often! Save As, as much as your hard disk will allow. And when in doubt, add a layer; it is difficult to have too many layers (you can always collapse them later).
The first technique involves turning the line art into a separate layer of black lines on transparent paper. With this layer at the top of the stack the line work will always stay crisp, and the color work will never accidentally erase anything.
The second technique involves starting with solid color areas, and maintaining that block color layer as an aid to later selection and constraining of paint tools.
Scanning in a "line art" or black & white mode tends to produce a rough, pixelated line. I recommend scanning in grayscale mode at 150 to 300 dpi, then bringing the values towards black and white using the Levels slider.
The working example here was not even ink; it was pencil on paper. Now let's go to the Levels command and look at the histogram.
I don't claim to be any shakes as an artist. I would never, ever dare to tackle a comic book of my own, for instance, or take my (ha! ha!) portfolio to a design studio. What little I do know has come to me through twenty-odd years of desultory scribbling and an awful lot of reading.
The first and best trick is to observe. What matters is at both ends of the scale; the general outline (what the fashion people like to call the "silhouette") and the telling detail. In the case of Rei's "Miko" outfit, the silhouette is flowing and generally tapered. The telling detail is the wrapping of the sash at the waist.
With observation comes research. Why trust memory when there are resources around? Since these three are known characters I had plenty of opinions on hair shape and color. And a dig through back issues of American Astronomer pulled up samples of binoculars I could adapt Ami's pair from. I am a plodder, I'm afraid. I work out proportions with a ruler, draw vanishing points all over the paper, build figures from the bones out. It works for me, but I am in great admiration for those folk who can start sketching at one end and come out with Spiderman at the other.
Remember, in the case of hands , you've got a model waiting for you at the end of your own arm. A mirror is a great tool as well, as is the willingness to grab a broomstick and "En Garde!" around your apartment until you have a suitably thrilling pose worked out. Another tool so basic I shouldn't have to mention it is the clipping book. There is truly nothing better than loose-leaf binder full of photographs for things like drapery folds and hair styles.
My latest tool is Hikaru Hayashi's How to Draw Manga, from Books Nippan. For this image I used the simplified three-line eye from this book. (The giant center highlight is traditional for the Sailor Moon characters. Don't ask me why.) I also gave Rei just a touch of the canine-tooth look anime heroines have been sporting of late.
You might notice Mako's leg has somehow gotten in front of Ami's skirt. Blame the habit of "drawing through"; it is a good habit to draw all of a figure then erase the parts that don't show.
That large block to the right is the paper, much-smudged with pencil dust. I'm going to drag the white point just past the peak, restoring pristine white. The values that start to appear about mid-display are the darkest pencil lines. I'm going to drag the black point on to them.
Now, by adjusting the gamma point (the center of the three triangles), I can darken all of the line work. By playing with all three sliders I can change the line weight, include or exclude the finer lines, and even alter the tone from light gray to solid black.
It is possible to "extract" line work from something with fairly pastel coloring; scan in color, convert to CMYK mode, open the channels pallet and make all but the K channel invisible. Now use the Levels command as above.
To create the new top layer, open the channels pallet and command-click the black channel to convert it into a selection. Invert the selection. Create a new layer. Then, from the Edit menu, select Fill Selection and fill with black. (This trick comes from the Photoshop Wow! book by Dayton and Davis.)
Now either create a new layer filled with white (so you can see your new lines) or fill the background with solid white. Don't forget to Select None first, though!
If the linework was exceptionally ragged, before using the Fill command, select Smooth from the Modify Selection menu. Use a value between 1 and 2 pixels.
When scanning from ink an opposing technique is sometimes called for; go to the Filters menu and apply Gaussian Blur at between .4 to .8 pixels to smooth out the jaggies.
Nothing is perfect, of course. At this point you should make any repairs and corrections to the line work. You can add new lines with the Brush but you must delete lines with the Eraser tool. Set it to Paintbrush mode and Erase Layer.
I myself have a problem with big heads -- easily fixed once in Photoshop with Select by Lasso, then Scale Selection. In this image I needed to add a few missing lines at the bottom of Ami's skirt. I also had more than my usual number of smudges to erase!
Creating the large blocks of color first is a sensible way to plan the color composition. It is in these blocks that the general weights and balances, and the pallet you will use, get hammered out. Since they are solid color areas, later selection and adjustment is easy.
Create a new layer. Now convert to RGB mode. Photoshop will squawk, and want to collapse the layers. Don't allow it to.
The paint bucket needs to be set to Sample Merged (so it can "see" the line art), anti-aliased (otherwise a nasty white edge develops around the lines) and with a tolerance as high as you can get away with -- I use a range of 50 to 60.
Since these are the rough color masses only, the color pallet, or an open document with some useful colors, will suffice for now.
Color composition does not mean painting everything "the color it is." Now, within the context of a comic book or a known uniform you are somewhat constrained (the Civil War was not fought by the "Green" and the Gray, after all!) However, graduations of color are many. And what color is a blue smock under a red light? Well, black, usually. (A blue rock thrown into the Red Sea, however, is merely wet.) So lighting and mood and the general weight of the colors (subtle pastels? Punchy op-arts?) will give great range to what we might call "blue" or "red."
Example. I went with a more pastel range for Ami's school uniform. I might have as easily taken the deeper blue as the base color. That would have brought her "forward", however, and confused the perspective. It also would have taken away from the delicacy of her blouse, and in general given much less of a summery feeling to her outfit.
I have found the simpler pallets the more effective. The idea of a pallet (in this context) is that the colors used cluster together. There may be a group of somewhat similar greens, another group of similar blues. Perhaps a yellow as a single bright contrast. Envision a color wheel. You don't want to see a bit from here, a bit from there. You want to see a patch here, in the greens through the greenish-yellows, and another patch there, with deep reds shading through deep violets... Often these patches are complimentary. Which, in color-wheel geography, means across from each other.
Notice in the final image how the greens of their tools link them together (I chose to make Rei's feng-shui medallion of jade, and make the tubes on Mako's techno-gun green glass, entirely to tie their colors together). Notice also how the reds and purples form a harmonious outline, holding the drawing together. It is this combination of similarities and contrasts you will need to work to have effective color composition.
It is going to look pretty strange after a bit. When the bucket has gone about as far as it can go, open up the Layers pallet and slide this block color layer between the white background and the black line art. Now, making sure the block color is still selected, use Pencil or Brush to touch up the color areas.
Some color areas are easier to use an alternate method; select by Lasso (hold down the option key first. Now, you can draw a curve by holding down the mouse, or a straight line by clicking. And it won't close the selection until you release that option key.) Now Fill Selection from the Edit menu.
Note in the example just how crude the block colors are. It is the line art that gives the impression of detail and accuracy to the final image.
Now, the trick here is to shade on a new layer, preserving that block color layer.
Select the block color layer and Select All. Copy. Now create a new layer and Paste. Move this new layer to just above the block color layer.
While working, keep the layer pallet open. For each area you intend to shade or otherwise modify, temporarily switch to the block color layer and Magic Wand or Select by Color. Switch back to the shading layer and Hide Selection (command-H).
Now even the airbrush is constrained to stay within the lines.
With constraining by color in effect you can easily mask off for gradient fills, texture fills, and filter effects. Of course, you can also alter the base color at any time with paint bucket, Fill Selection, or the Adjust menu.
Just keep an eye on that Layers pallet. You don't want to accidentally paint on the block color layer and lose that available selection forever.
The example here was meant to look like anime-style "cel" art, therefore, shading was simplified and the line was fairly hard, not blended.
Note on the example how the brush is constrained to the jeans. I can paint right up Mako's leg without splashing any paint on Ami's arm.
A softer line is achieved with the Airbrush. The secret to the Airbrush is using two hands; keep your fingers on the pressure (the plus and minus keys) and the brush size (the open and close brackets) as you work. Be prepared to Undo (command-z) frequently.
For a completely different effect try the Smudge tool. You'll need to dibble small bits of color around where the darker tones will be. Then smudge out from them, smearing the color outwards in a smooth wet blend.
Over a few million years our eyes and brain got used to the idea that the top side of things was lit by the golden sun and the bottom side was lit, if at all, by reflected light from the blue sky. It is still hard to go wrong with shading off the upper corners of the piece of paper, and using blue colors for the deeper shadows.
You see, black will build up on you. If you start by shading to black on the lower edge of a foot, where are you going to go with the shadow the foot casts on the floor? The simplest trick is to leave some white space there. A better trick is to hold back the shading a little, allowing some of the original tone to show at the lower edge. The best trick is to introduce an entirely new tone, a blue tone, at the dangerous ultimate edge. The cast shadow, in any case, will almost certainly be darker.
The movies have their own version of this, as does the stage (of the latter, I can speak with the assurance of a professional). It is called "backlight," and it serves to enhance the modelling, separate the characters from the scenery, and add to the mood and the effect of time of day.
The image used in the examples is a poor one here; the figures were simple and isolated enough so no fancy shading was needed. You will notice, however, that the darkest shadows are indeed those cast by something, not the shaded side of an object itself.
Solid color like this, "cel" style, is deceptively simple. The edge needs to hint at the way color would blend and flow if allowed. Which probably makes it excellent training!
Softer, more blended color can be achieved with dodge and burn tools, paintbrush, airbrush, and even smudge tool. In the case of geometric objects and backgrounds there is another shading option; gradients. They are a bit tricky to mask off and set up, but they are sometimes quite the ticket.
For this image (for many images) the Color Picker is the key tool for shading. Eyedrop the base color. Click the color square to bring up the Color Picker. Now drag the sample spot to a darker or lighter value and paint away.
Shifting the saturation or hue slightly with the tonal change brings more life to the colors. Flesh tones, for instance, often look good made a little redder and more saturated through the shadow range, and yellower and less saturated in the highlights. Metallics and shiny fabrics tend to be more saturate in the highlights.
With the Color Picker you can also easily express the effect of lighting, introducing some of the light's color as you approach it. Often, it makes sense to shift all your values towards blue on the shadow sides of objects (an old theater scene-painter's trick).
There are a multiplicity of tricks to try out once you are familiar with these basic techniques. In the snippet to your right, the floor was done in a background layer as a texture fill, with Perspective used from the transforms in the Layer menu. The grooves were created by dodge and burn tools using a shift-click method to draw straight lines. And the reflections are, of course, airbrushed.
I haven't even touched on the power of Adjustment layers. This is, however, not a painting tutorial.
Still, here's a tricky one to try; create a layer, set it to Hard Light mode and fill it with 50% gray. Use the Lighting Effects filter on this layer. Now the lighting effects are changing all the layers below this one. Not only can they be modified again and again, but you can change the depth of the effect by changing the layer's opacity.
A simpler variation is to apply a Gradient fill in Radial mode to a layer used in Multiply or Screen mode to create a vignette effect.
Unfortunately for this tutorial, the working example had nothing more interesting than a couple of layers of lettering to add. Still, let the final version (flattened, changed to Indexed Color and saved as a GIF) complete this lecture. Thank you.
