Manga Colouring Tutorial

[mutualmitten]

How to get this from this:



Note that this is my verrrrry first tutorial, so please cut me some slack.
If I don't explain anything properly, you can definitely ask anything here and I'll answer. No problem. :D

The original picture used: Here (Ayu from Honey and Clover.)

OK! Let's get started.
____

Step 1.
Having purely black lineart will make your picture so that it doesn't blend well in the end in this style, so this step is rather important.

• Layer -> New Layer -> OK -> Fill in layer completely with the brush and set it to #e0ac7c and opacity 80% or so. Now set the layer to "colour".

It should look something like this now.

Step 2.
What you want to do for most of this tutorial is keep the lineart at the top, and set to multiply.



Like so.

• Set lineart layer to Multiply, Layer -> New Layer -> OK -> Drag new layer beneath lineart layer.
  
• Colouring time! Take your brush now (make sure it is set to hard, not soft) and colour the hair. This time I used #cf9f75 for the hair.
  

Step 3.
For this step we are just shading the hair.

• Burn Tool -> shade by hand. (Make sure the brush is soft.) Easy, no? Just be sure that the shadows are at least somewhat in the place where shade should be. No need to be too picky at this point since we will do a touch-up step.

Step 4.
This step is for lightening the hair.

• New Layer -> With a fairly big soft brush (0% hardness) touch up parts up the hair that you think light would shine on. Do so with a colour lighter than the base colour for the hair. In this case, I used something like #ebbe97.
  
  
  
  (Now the shading doesn't look so harsh.)
  
  Step 5.
  Now for the basic skin tone!
  
  
  • New Layer -> hard brush (100% hardness) and fill in the skin with #ffe9bf. (Note: The colour may be darker or lighter as well, depending on your character's skin tone.)
    
  • Be careful not to cover up the hair! Erase the parts that you have covered over if you do.
  
  
  
  Step 6.
  Skin shading~ I always find this step fun.
  
  
  • New Layer -> soft brush (0% hardness) -> Opacity 82% (you can play around with the opacity) -> Brush in areas with #e29e76 in which you think there would be a shadow. (eg. under the hair, underneath the nose and chin, blush.. etc.)
  
  
  
  Looks better already, doesn't it?
  
  Step 7.
  Time to lighten the skin now, which is quick and painless -- unless your made up light source is very bright; then you will need to do more lightening (and darker shading, if there is a lot of light.)
  
  
  • New Layer -> Soft brush -> Fill in areas where you think there would be light in a colour that is lighter than your base skin colour. For this one, I used something close to #fff7df.
  
  
  
  
  Step 8.
  Clothing/Misc. Take any colour you would like for the eyes and clothing/etc., and with a hard brush, put the colour in.
  
  
  • New Layer -> Hard brush (100% hardness) -> brush in. For this I used #919166.
  
  
  
  Step 9.
  Lightening of misc & clothes as well as the eyes. For the eyes, when you lighten, always do the bottoms.
  
  
  New Layer -> soft brush (0% hardness) -> brush in. For this I used #b8af74.
  
  
  
  Should look like this now.
  
  Step 10.
  Basically, this is a fix-up step. If at this point you find anything you wish to fix, such as adding deeper shading or changing colours-- do so now. You can also shade the misc/clothing layer if you wish -- I didn't because I am doing this in a bit of a rush, but I'm sure you guys will take more time to do so. (It looks better.)
  
  
  
  Fixed very minor things here.
  
  END Step.
  This is my favourite part! It is optional, but by doing this your graphic will look much much better, IMO. You can play around with this at will, since it really depends on your own taste for this last step.
  
  
  • Flatten all your layers into one. Layer -> Merge Visible -> Duplicate -> Duplicate again.
  • New Layer -> Fill in with #003972 -> Set to Exclusion at 85% opacity.
    
    • Drag duplicated layer up to the top -> Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian blur at 6.2 -> Set to hard light (opacity of the layer itself is up to you.)
      
      • Drag the second duplicated layer to the top. Soft light (70%) -> Image ->Adjustments -> Desaturate (-51)
        
        • Layer -> New adjustment layer -> Selective Colour -> OK -> Colours: White -> Black (-30) -> OK
          
          • Sharpen -> However much you want.
          
          Finally, it should look something like this. Much better, right? :D
          
          
          You can crop it to make icons after you're finished:
          001.
          002.