100% Photoshop
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Basic Colouring
With the light and dark areas in place, I then started to consider the colour. This was done very simply by painting over the current image with the airbrush in color mode.
With the light and dark areas in place, I then started to consider the colour. This was done very simply by painting over the current image with the airbrush in color mode.
For the moment, I decided to use simple browns and pinks for the skin tones.
Don't do this!
Since I'm trying to make this a comprehensive guide, I may as well document some of my mistakes too.
I made my first error here, having mistakenly painted over the SKETCH layer rather than the background, so I decided to merge the layers and paint directly over the outline. Then it was time to lose my flow (and my sanity) completely:
Disaster 1: I cut the image with the Magic Wand and pasted it onto a red backdrop, messing up the anti-aliasing around the woman’s face. I also noticed that I had been a bit reckless with the airbrush and had lost some of the definition on the man’s nose and cheek. I had run out of undos so I loaded a previous stage and tried to cut the man and paste him over the messed up image (not so well I must add) and a bit later on I rubbed through certain areas with the eraser.
Disaster 2: I brushed in the woman's hair very loosely and decided to run a filter over it before going to work with the smudge tool. I selected the hair I wanted to filter with the Lasoo tool and chose Paint Daubs from the Filter/Artistic pull down.
Sometimes I use this on hair to sharpen the details and disperse the colour which can be worked into the hair to give it more tones and variation, and less of a monochrome look.
(click image to view the disaster in full)
Looks bad, eh?
After trying to work with this (and once again running out of undos in the process) I did the unthinkable. I saved this image OVER the last, after painting in the heads of the characters and a lot more work. This left me with 2 choices: to load the previous step (shown as step 4) or to try to repaint the messed up areas. I decided to scribble out the messed up areas and rework them.
Lesson 1: Save regularly under different file names.
Lesson 2: Don't touch those filters! (ok, I admit I did use the Paint Daubs occasionally afterwards, but not before saving).
Anyway, at some point while reworking the image with the airbrush and smudge tool I reached the following stage.
Smoothing
At this point, I decided to smooth out some of the irregular brush strokes. This was done first with the blur tool and then by blending the shades together with the smudge tool, as shown in the following example.
At this point, I decided to smooth out some of the irregular brush strokes. This was done first with the blur tool and then by blending the shades together with the smudge tool, as shown in the following example.
2. Blur tool used to soften these steps.
3. Smudge tool and soft brushes used to blend each step into the next.
