14 [ tutorial 2 : manga colouring and butchering ]
This tutorial is for PSP9 and should translate into everything else quite nicely I think. It's also written assuming you have a reasonably decent understanding of the program and how to do shit with layers. So, uh, I'm hoping for no "how do i set layer to soft light" questions because they make my soul hurt.
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1. Every icon starts with a base. And thus this one did as well. Shocking! I used a shot of Naoto from the manga DOGS by Miwa Shirou, resized and pasted onto a blank 100x100 canvas. Here we go!
I then made some modifications to it. I sharpened it, then duplicated and set that to soft light, and duplicated once more to set it to multiply, fiddling with the opacity so it didn't look too godawful. This was to make the lines cleaner, sharper and harder in general. Aaaand when that was done, I merged those layers into one to complete the base!
2. Colouring! So like, I'm assuming you know how to set the base layer to multiply. If you find ofuck, you can't do it!!!1 that's either because you're brain damaged or the layer is a background layer. In that case, right click it and click "Promote background layer" to fix this here problem. Magical!
Still with me? Is that a no? Well too bad I have this thing about not shutting up isn't it.
I made a new layer, dragged it underneath the base layer and picked a colour to colour the skin in with. I used #f9eac3. Using the paint brush tool (LOL I totally just said that didn't I), I uh, coloured the bits with her skin in. Sort of sloppily but that was intentional. Clearly. I'm not lazy or anything. at. all.
And then I made another layer, above the base layer. I might have randomly picked a red and drawn on the bit where the knife's sticking into the dude's leg. As you can see I'm artistic and fabulous. So, here's what we've got now:
3. Right. The layer with the red? I set that to lighten. LOOK, IT LOOKS KIND OF ACCEPTABLE NOW.
4. I decided it was lacking something. Namely more colours. And I found that sad because I like colours. So I made another layer and dragged it under the base, and under the layer where I coloured the skin. Because I was going to colour the background!
I picked a bright blue (#77f0f4) because if I've learned anything in art, and I haven't, it's annoying colours are super cool. Then I scribbled in the background.
You might have noticed that the blood is darker. That's because I thought it was too bright so I changed it like a ninja.
5. I'm betting I've confused everyone with my above below above below shit but OH WELL TOO BAD LA LA LA. I made another layer, shoved it above the layer with the blood (which means this layer is also above the base, guys!!) and filled it with a gradient with warm colours. IIRC, this one's by crumblingwalls. I set this layer to soft light at 100 opacity.
Why yes it DOES look like poo thank you.
6. New layer, filled in with a beigey sort of colour, #f3d79b. Set it to multiply at 70%.
7. Another new layer, this time underneath the beige layer from the previous step. I filled it with a blue to purplish gradient, also by crumblingwalls, and set it to lighten at 100%.
Well, er, it could look worse!
8. Like, say, for example, if I were to take a texture by gender, paste it in a new layer above all the others and set it to multiply on 100% ... It would look really awful!
9. And I don't think making things look awful is really the point to this tutorial. I mean, you don't really need a tutorial to make something that looks like shit, it just kind of happens if you fuck around, right?
... I gaussian blurred the texture with a radius of 1, and reduced the opacity to around 66%.
10. And I'm more or less done so I add some random tiny text and call it finished.
And there we go! Here's what the layers should look like for your reference. Because you're dumb. Admit it.
->
1. Every icon starts with a base. And thus this one did as well. Shocking! I used a shot of Naoto from the manga DOGS by Miwa Shirou, resized and pasted onto a blank 100x100 canvas. Here we go!
I then made some modifications to it. I sharpened it, then duplicated and set that to soft light, and duplicated once more to set it to multiply, fiddling with the opacity so it didn't look too godawful. This was to make the lines cleaner, sharper and harder in general. Aaaand when that was done, I merged those layers into one to complete the base!
2. Colouring! So like, I'm assuming you know how to set the base layer to multiply. If you find ofuck, you can't do it!!!1 that's either because you're brain damaged or the layer is a background layer. In that case, right click it and click "Promote background layer" to fix this here problem. Magical!
Still with me? Is that a no? Well too bad I have this thing about not shutting up isn't it.
I made a new layer, dragged it underneath the base layer and picked a colour to colour the skin in with. I used #f9eac3. Using the paint brush tool (LOL I totally just said that didn't I), I uh, coloured the bits with her skin in. Sort of sloppily but that was intentional. Clearly. I'm not lazy or anything. at. all.
And then I made another layer, above the base layer. I might have randomly picked a red and drawn on the bit where the knife's sticking into the dude's leg. As you can see I'm artistic and fabulous. So, here's what we've got now:
3. Right. The layer with the red? I set that to lighten. LOOK, IT LOOKS KIND OF ACCEPTABLE NOW.
4. I decided it was lacking something. Namely more colours. And I found that sad because I like colours. So I made another layer and dragged it under the base, and under the layer where I coloured the skin. Because I was going to colour the background!
I picked a bright blue (#77f0f4) because if I've learned anything in art, and I haven't, it's annoying colours are super cool. Then I scribbled in the background.
You might have noticed that the blood is darker. That's because I thought it was too bright so I changed it like a ninja.
5. I'm betting I've confused everyone with my above below above below shit but OH WELL TOO BAD LA LA LA. I made another layer, shoved it above the layer with the blood (which means this layer is also above the base, guys!!) and filled it with a gradient with warm colours. IIRC, this one's by crumblingwalls. I set this layer to soft light at 100 opacity.
Why yes it DOES look like poo thank you.
6. New layer, filled in with a beigey sort of colour, #f3d79b. Set it to multiply at 70%.
7. Another new layer, this time underneath the beige layer from the previous step. I filled it with a blue to purplish gradient, also by crumblingwalls, and set it to lighten at 100%.
Well, er, it could look worse!
8. Like, say, for example, if I were to take a texture by gender, paste it in a new layer above all the others and set it to multiply on 100% ... It would look really awful!
9. And I don't think making things look awful is really the point to this tutorial. I mean, you don't really need a tutorial to make something that looks like shit, it just kind of happens if you fuck around, right?
... I gaussian blurred the texture with a radius of 1, and reduced the opacity to around 66%.
10. And I'm more or less done so I add some random tiny text and call it finished.
And there we go! Here's what the layers should look like for your reference. Because you're dumb. Admit it.