Pam's (Inaccurate & Fake) Paint Guide. >:3
I blew off most of my irl responsibilities today just so I could finish typing this.
IT'S HOW I PAINT YO. Holy smack, I never thought I'd finish writing this. I wound up taking longer than it normally would bc I was busy w/ irl. I'm slowwwwly getting though my to-do list, hopefully I'll get some icons done too. Sorry about that you guys, I still need to make your requests & other things I owe you. :( I only got this done bc it didn't require PS per se so I could do it via jotting down notes while doing irl stuff. BUT ENOUGH OF MY IRL, NO1CURR.
This guide's dedicated to Shawna (longerthanwedo) bc it's her fault this got made. Before I start rambling talking I have to tell you that I have a bunch of different ways of going about things. Besides my way there's obviously other ways of doing things too. That means the way I do things are by no means the only way to do it. Take this guide as it is, a guide. Take what you want & leave what you don't want, don't feel forced to use all of the techniques in here just bc they're here. Imo there is no wrong way when it comes painting considering the amount of techniques out there. Also I am by no means a professional, I'm just someone who likes to mess around w/ brushes & textures. :3 I'm 99% sure I'm doing it the wrong way any way but I honestly don't care. Just have fun & paint. :3 Try not to think about it too much. /ohtheironyofthiscomingfromme
I hope you can tell that all of the examples use different ~techniques, I had no clue on what to pick in the beginning. :( SO ENJOY THE GUIDE, MAKE FUN OF MY GRAMMAR & TAKE IT W/ A GRAIN OF SALT Y'ALL. WORD OF WARNING: I do not shut up, I ramble. :( WORD OF WARING IT'S SOMEWHAT IMAGE HEAVY + THERE'S 2 GIFS + 1 VIDEO.
:3'>
For this guide we'll be using this cap. I feel like an Amy cap would be perfect for this whole guide, imo it will get the point across. I brightened it up for the guides purpose, lbr you knew I'd saturate & brighten the cap. YOU KNEW IT. Brightened up cap:
¡C'MON VAMONOS!
SMART BLUR
Imo smart blur is like a really really poor man's topaz filter, or so I think. I have a huge love/hate relationship w/ smart blur. I love it (bffs since '04) bc it can immediately remove grain from a scan in a snap (perfect for cleaning anime scans) buuuut it can degrade a scans/caps quality (too blurry/sharp; EX. GOT/TDK ICON) if you're not careful. It's such a mess, you really do have to be careful with it.
HOW I USE IT
I use it in whatever way I see fit, basic answer ik. It's such a straight forward filter that I honestly don't want to go too much into it. Smart blur has 4 settings to work with: quality, radius, threshold, & mode. The quality helps control the overall quality of the image. If I remember right the higher the quality the sharper the edges will be. The radius controls how strong the blur will be. The threshold determines how smooth it will be, or smtn. THIS I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN. The mode controls the type of blur used. There are 3 settings under this: normal (which focuses on the entire image), edge only (focuses on just the lines, but makes them b&w), & overlay edge (which overlays said b&w lines on the image). I'M 99% THIS EXPLANATION SUCKS, LOOK IDK HOW IT WORKS I JUST KNOW HOW TO FIDDLE W/ IT. Imo it's fantastic for when you're resizing from big to small since you can't see the details.
Fiddle with the settings until you get what you want. I do recommend you copy + merge the whole canvas before you use this. I do this so I can change the opacity or sharpen the layer to my liking w/o messing with my other layers. I like using the medium quality setting since it doesn't distort the quality that much. Example:
I don't remember what setting I used on this exactly atm. Ik the quality was set to low with the radius set in the 4-10 department, the threshold was 10 or so & the mode was normal.
BLENDING
Remember how in smart blur there was clumps of pixely color? Well this helps fix it. Essentially this is my go to thing if I'm too lazy to fully repaint a cap/scan/image. This ~technique consists of smart blur (above) & blending the pixelated clumps w/ brushes. Please keep in mind that I have a tablet (which is why I can use pen pressure) so this may not be translatable per se. Btw pen pressure is exactly what it sounds like. Pen pressure works like a irl tool, less pressure = lighter/thinner + more pressure = darker/thicker. Lbr I'm not going into what is bc I suck. There are ways around it though. You don't necessarily have to use a tablet, you can use your mouse/trackpad too. ;D A brush with low opacity & the eyedropper tool work just as well for blending, you just need to be patient. I used to do it like this back in the day w/ PS6 since it didn't have a tablet. It didn't help that when I did get my tablet my version of PS didn't support pen sensitive brushes. :/ Ik that in newer versions of PS there's flow in the toolbar so combining it w/ the opacity setting will work if you have a mouse. :3 YOU CAN DEW IT.
HOW I USE IT
As I've already said I'll use a combination of smart blur & some brushes w/ pen pressure. I use these brushes, all of these are default brushes in PSCS5. The settings I used are on the side. Before I start I apply smart blur, in this case though I'm using the smart blur example from above. After that I'll use a combination of layer opacity & brushes set to 80% (or so) opacity to blend all of the pixel graininess in. I'd recommend zooming in for best blending effects. For even better blending results pull the colors w/ the eyedropper tool. I think you can get easy access to it by using a keyboard shortcut, idk what it'll be for your comp tho. It is seriously amazing, pick colors from around the area you're coloring & color. :D
Essentially this is what (badly recorded) blending looks like.
Look at how bad it is. I love how we're barely into the second section & I'm already talking out of my ass. :V
After sitting there & crying more it will eventually look something like this. Normally I focus on other things but for today I'm focusing on the face & hair. You do have to be careful though, it's very easy to loose details & shadows by doing this.
I love how I never manage to fix her fucking shirt during the whole guide. LOOK AT THE PROFESSIONALISM HERE.
ACTUAL PAINTING
I should never EVER be allowed to this, it's a stated fact that I don't know how to use light sources & I'm terribad at recoloring things. IDK WHY I KEEP DOING THIS, IT'S FUN THO. Any way this consists of me cleaning the image & repainting the whole thing. I'll usually desaturate the image as much as I can so the colors in the original image don't interfere with the repainting process.
HOW I USE IT
PAINT LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. NO KIDDING, THIS IS WHERE YOU LET LOOSE. NO RULES. NO ADVICE. I HAVE NOTHING.
I LOVE them for painting, usually fidgeting the size settings gets the job done. For details like fine hair & the stupid lines I add along the contour of people's faces I use the (bottom right) hard round brush @ 3-5 px. IT IS MY FAVE FOR WRITING TOO. OMG. BEST DEFAULT BRUSH *EVER*.
Okay there should be at least one video here but unfortunately I can't upload them to youtube. Plus apparently it's corrupted, I don't fucking even know anymore. I'm tired of dealing w/ the video. Since I can't upload it to any fucking host (the vid's like 40 smtn mins) I'll upload it to some host. Tbh I couldn't even edit it, my comp went bat shit when I opened it via a program. :/ I COULDN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW I COULD GET THE VIDEOS TO SPEED UP SO I COULD MAKE THEM 15 MINS OR SMTN. I'm talking about the GWTDT video btw. I recorded myself painting the Tilda icon too but there's this hella awkward moment when I'm picking music & I don't want to be ~judged. I'm an asshat.
DAILYMOTION IS MY SALVADOR THIS TIME AROUND. HERE IT IS:
Painty Walkthrough (kawaii_chicken@lj) by pamkips
LAUGH, I DARE YOU TO. I couldn't speed up the video, I'm sorry y'all. Until I figure out how to speed it up & get it under 15 minutes it'll be like that. :( WHATEVER IT HELPS GET THE POINT ACROSS. I AM SO SO SO SORRY IF YOU CAN'T SEE THIS. ;A; EDIT: IT WAS PROVATE, I APOLOGIZE. FUCK MY STUPIDITY.
For this guide though I did a simple recoloring focusing on the skin not rly & on the hair. I wound up redrawing most of the hair for this. I used a 3px hard brush w/ a bunch of different color setting, I pulled the colors from the hair itself. It's always best to pull colors from your image for best results. Always redraw according to the way the hair flows.
You guys want to hear something funny? I can never get hair to look right in manga coloring but in a fucking cap? It's like a L'Oreal commercial. I hope I did justice to qween Amy's hair.
SMUDGE BRUSH
Oh lawd, my mortal enemy. I think we ALL know how the smudge tool works so I'm not going into it. Unless you've been living under a photoshop rock (;A;) the smudge tool smudge blurs things. No wait it doesn't blur it fucking smears it to the point of pixelated oblivion. Think of it like finger painting. I'm obvs very bitter (long story) against the smudge tool, ignore me. It's ruined a ton of icons for me. Idk I'm not knocking it down tho, it's a very useful tool. It's just not for me. :( Power to you all that know how to use & rock it. :3
HOW I USE IT
I only like to use the smudge tool for certain areas. (Like reaaallly quickly fixing pixelated hair.) I try not to use it for full images since it can quickly degrade an images quality. Smudge it. No tips honestly. It's very straight forward. Just take it an area at a time since if you don't it'll all become a huge smudged hot mess. Also smudge along the contour of the area. So if the face is round smudge according to the it. This is what it'll look like tho:
SO THE THING IS THAT MY PERFECTIONISM WON'T LET ME LIVE ON W/ JUST THE IMAGE LIKE THIS SO I HAVE TO REDRAW IN A BUNCH OF THINGS SO I CAN FEEL ~SATISFIED.
You bet I reused the hair from the painting example. I added in purple lines to give it some color contrast. :3
TEXTURES
This consists of making it look paint like with paint like textures. :3 It's all based off of blending said textures & brushes to give it that paint effect.
HOW I USE IT
By going crazy, no really. This is one of those times you let your imagination flow. I do recommend that you tweak your color settings as you go along bc these textures will really mess w/ your coloring. Some of my *favorite* paint textures come from blueymcphluey, oh_freckle, & soaked. Especially blueymcphluey's, I've been using his textures for years. No lie, they are A M A Z I N G. vetica posted some bitching ones the other day too, one of which I used for the example below. I also use brushes, the default brushes. The round blunt I used above works for this too. :3 JUST GO CRAZY.
Idk how to describe this process. I just pile textures up as I go, usually setting them to different settings (screen, lighten, color burn, multiply, overlay, hard light & soft light), erasing areas & resizing them. I usually dog pile them something like this:
...terrifying.
Finished result.
Forgot to add that for this example I used these two textures: one by blueymcphluey & two by vetica. Everything else is brush dabs, spatters, & lines. I duplicated the right side & placed it on the left...idk how to explain this since it all consists on how you combine the textures & brushes. :( Imo it really depends on what colors you pick, it's very easy to get out of hand when it comes to this. (UHHH LOOK AT THE EXAMPLE I'M PROVIDING.)
That's how I do it? GOD I DON'T THINK THIS EVEN *QUALIFIES* AS A GUIDE SINCE I'M NOT TELLING YOU ANYTHING USEFUL. I APOLOGIZE YOU GUYS, I AM TERRIBLE AT EXPLAINING THINGS. :(
IK YOU'LL HAVE QUESTIONS, LORD KNOWS I DID A TERRIBLE JOB. :( I'LL DO MY BEST TO PROVIDE MORE EXAMPLES & GO MORE IN DEPTH.
Also didn't proofread. Also sorry for disappearing for weeks. I've been rly busy. :( Sucks tho, I've left so many comments unanswered. ;A; I'M SORRY YOU GUYS, FORGIVE ME. ;A;
EDIT: You guyyyyys I'm not going to delete it. I just had a ~moment of uncertainty, I wouldn't it delete it tho. Too much time went into this. 8<
IT'S HOW I PAINT YO. Holy smack, I never thought I'd finish writing this. I wound up taking longer than it normally would bc I was busy w/ irl. I'm slowwwwly getting though my to-do list, hopefully I'll get some icons done too. Sorry about that you guys, I still need to make your requests & other things I owe you. :( I only got this done bc it didn't require PS per se so I could do it via jotting down notes while doing irl stuff. BUT ENOUGH OF MY IRL, NO1CURR.
This guide's dedicated to Shawna (longerthanwedo) bc it's her fault this got made. Before I start rambling talking I have to tell you that I have a bunch of different ways of going about things. Besides my way there's obviously other ways of doing things too. That means the way I do things are by no means the only way to do it. Take this guide as it is, a guide. Take what you want & leave what you don't want, don't feel forced to use all of the techniques in here just bc they're here. Imo there is no wrong way when it comes painting considering the amount of techniques out there. Also I am by no means a professional, I'm just someone who likes to mess around w/ brushes & textures. :3 I'm 99% sure I'm doing it the wrong way any way but I honestly don't care. Just have fun & paint. :3 Try not to think about it too much. /ohtheironyofthiscomingfromme
I hope you can tell that all of the examples use different ~techniques, I had no clue on what to pick in the beginning. :( SO ENJOY THE GUIDE, MAKE FUN OF MY GRAMMAR & TAKE IT W/ A GRAIN OF SALT Y'ALL. WORD OF WARNING: I do not shut up, I ramble. :( WORD OF WARING IT'S SOMEWHAT IMAGE HEAVY + THERE'S 2 GIFS + 1 VIDEO.
:3'>
For this guide we'll be using this cap. I feel like an Amy cap would be perfect for this whole guide, imo it will get the point across. I brightened it up for the guides purpose, lbr you knew I'd saturate & brighten the cap. YOU KNEW IT. Brightened up cap:
¡C'MON VAMONOS!
SMART BLUR
Imo smart blur is like a really really poor man's topaz filter, or so I think. I have a huge love/hate relationship w/ smart blur. I love it (bffs since '04) bc it can immediately remove grain from a scan in a snap (perfect for cleaning anime scans) buuuut it can degrade a scans/caps quality (too blurry/sharp; EX. GOT/TDK ICON) if you're not careful. It's such a mess, you really do have to be careful with it.
HOW I USE IT
I use it in whatever way I see fit, basic answer ik. It's such a straight forward filter that I honestly don't want to go too much into it. Smart blur has 4 settings to work with: quality, radius, threshold, & mode. The quality helps control the overall quality of the image. If I remember right the higher the quality the sharper the edges will be. The radius controls how strong the blur will be. The threshold determines how smooth it will be, or smtn. THIS I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN. The mode controls the type of blur used. There are 3 settings under this: normal (which focuses on the entire image), edge only (focuses on just the lines, but makes them b&w), & overlay edge (which overlays said b&w lines on the image). I'M 99% THIS EXPLANATION SUCKS, LOOK IDK HOW IT WORKS I JUST KNOW HOW TO FIDDLE W/ IT. Imo it's fantastic for when you're resizing from big to small since you can't see the details.
Fiddle with the settings until you get what you want. I do recommend you copy + merge the whole canvas before you use this. I do this so I can change the opacity or sharpen the layer to my liking w/o messing with my other layers. I like using the medium quality setting since it doesn't distort the quality that much. Example:
I don't remember what setting I used on this exactly atm. Ik the quality was set to low with the radius set in the 4-10 department, the threshold was 10 or so & the mode was normal.
BLENDING
Remember how in smart blur there was clumps of pixely color? Well this helps fix it. Essentially this is my go to thing if I'm too lazy to fully repaint a cap/scan/image. This ~technique consists of smart blur (above) & blending the pixelated clumps w/ brushes. Please keep in mind that I have a tablet (which is why I can use pen pressure) so this may not be translatable per se. Btw pen pressure is exactly what it sounds like. Pen pressure works like a irl tool, less pressure = lighter/thinner + more pressure = darker/thicker. Lbr I'm not going into what is bc I suck. There are ways around it though. You don't necessarily have to use a tablet, you can use your mouse/trackpad too. ;D A brush with low opacity & the eyedropper tool work just as well for blending, you just need to be patient. I used to do it like this back in the day w/ PS6 since it didn't have a tablet. It didn't help that when I did get my tablet my version of PS didn't support pen sensitive brushes. :/ Ik that in newer versions of PS there's flow in the toolbar so combining it w/ the opacity setting will work if you have a mouse. :3 YOU CAN DEW IT.
HOW I USE IT
As I've already said I'll use a combination of smart blur & some brushes w/ pen pressure. I use these brushes, all of these are default brushes in PSCS5. The settings I used are on the side. Before I start I apply smart blur, in this case though I'm using the smart blur example from above. After that I'll use a combination of layer opacity & brushes set to 80% (or so) opacity to blend all of the pixel graininess in. I'd recommend zooming in for best blending effects. For even better blending results pull the colors w/ the eyedropper tool. I think you can get easy access to it by using a keyboard shortcut, idk what it'll be for your comp tho. It is seriously amazing, pick colors from around the area you're coloring & color. :D
Essentially this is what (badly recorded) blending looks like.
Look at how bad it is. I love how we're barely into the second section & I'm already talking out of my ass. :V
After sitting there & crying more it will eventually look something like this. Normally I focus on other things but for today I'm focusing on the face & hair. You do have to be careful though, it's very easy to loose details & shadows by doing this.
I love how I never manage to fix her fucking shirt during the whole guide. LOOK AT THE PROFESSIONALISM HERE.
ACTUAL PAINTING
I should never EVER be allowed to this, it's a stated fact that I don't know how to use light sources & I'm terribad at recoloring things. IDK WHY I KEEP DOING THIS, IT'S FUN THO. Any way this consists of me cleaning the image & repainting the whole thing. I'll usually desaturate the image as much as I can so the colors in the original image don't interfere with the repainting process.
HOW I USE IT
PAINT LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. NO KIDDING, THIS IS WHERE YOU LET LOOSE. NO RULES. NO ADVICE. I HAVE NOTHING.
I LOVE them for painting, usually fidgeting the size settings gets the job done. For details like fine hair & the stupid lines I add along the contour of people's faces I use the (bottom right) hard round brush @ 3-5 px. IT IS MY FAVE FOR WRITING TOO. OMG. BEST DEFAULT BRUSH *EVER*.
Okay there should be at least one video here but unfortunately I can't upload them to youtube. Plus apparently it's corrupted, I don't fucking even know anymore. I'm tired of dealing w/ the video. Since I can't upload it to any fucking host (the vid's like 40 smtn mins) I'll upload it to some host. Tbh I couldn't even edit it, my comp went bat shit when I opened it via a program. :/ I COULDN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW I COULD GET THE VIDEOS TO SPEED UP SO I COULD MAKE THEM 15 MINS OR SMTN. I'm talking about the GWTDT video btw. I recorded myself painting the Tilda icon too but there's this hella awkward moment when I'm picking music & I don't want to be ~judged. I'm an asshat.
DAILYMOTION IS MY SALVADOR THIS TIME AROUND. HERE IT IS:
Painty Walkthrough (kawaii_chicken@lj) by pamkips
LAUGH, I DARE YOU TO. I couldn't speed up the video, I'm sorry y'all. Until I figure out how to speed it up & get it under 15 minutes it'll be like that. :( WHATEVER IT HELPS GET THE POINT ACROSS. I AM SO SO SO SORRY IF YOU CAN'T SEE THIS. ;A; EDIT: IT WAS PROVATE, I APOLOGIZE. FUCK MY STUPIDITY.
For this guide though I did a simple recoloring focusing on the skin not rly & on the hair. I wound up redrawing most of the hair for this. I used a 3px hard brush w/ a bunch of different color setting, I pulled the colors from the hair itself. It's always best to pull colors from your image for best results. Always redraw according to the way the hair flows.
You guys want to hear something funny? I can never get hair to look right in manga coloring but in a fucking cap? It's like a L'Oreal commercial. I hope I did justice to qween Amy's hair.
SMUDGE BRUSH
Oh lawd, my mortal enemy. I think we ALL know how the smudge tool works so I'm not going into it. Unless you've been living under a photoshop rock (;A;) the smudge tool smudge blurs things. No wait it doesn't blur it fucking smears it to the point of pixelated oblivion. Think of it like finger painting. I'm obvs very bitter (long story) against the smudge tool, ignore me. It's ruined a ton of icons for me. Idk I'm not knocking it down tho, it's a very useful tool. It's just not for me. :( Power to you all that know how to use & rock it. :3
HOW I USE IT
I only like to use the smudge tool for certain areas. (Like reaaallly quickly fixing pixelated hair.) I try not to use it for full images since it can quickly degrade an images quality. Smudge it. No tips honestly. It's very straight forward. Just take it an area at a time since if you don't it'll all become a huge smudged hot mess. Also smudge along the contour of the area. So if the face is round smudge according to the it. This is what it'll look like tho:
SO THE THING IS THAT MY PERFECTIONISM WON'T LET ME LIVE ON W/ JUST THE IMAGE LIKE THIS SO I HAVE TO REDRAW IN A BUNCH OF THINGS SO I CAN FEEL ~SATISFIED.
You bet I reused the hair from the painting example. I added in purple lines to give it some color contrast. :3
TEXTURES
This consists of making it look paint like with paint like textures. :3 It's all based off of blending said textures & brushes to give it that paint effect.
HOW I USE IT
By going crazy, no really. This is one of those times you let your imagination flow. I do recommend that you tweak your color settings as you go along bc these textures will really mess w/ your coloring. Some of my *favorite* paint textures come from blueymcphluey, oh_freckle, & soaked. Especially blueymcphluey's, I've been using his textures for years. No lie, they are A M A Z I N G. vetica posted some bitching ones the other day too, one of which I used for the example below. I also use brushes, the default brushes. The round blunt I used above works for this too. :3 JUST GO CRAZY.
Idk how to describe this process. I just pile textures up as I go, usually setting them to different settings (screen, lighten, color burn, multiply, overlay, hard light & soft light), erasing areas & resizing them. I usually dog pile them something like this:
...terrifying.
Finished result.
Forgot to add that for this example I used these two textures: one by blueymcphluey & two by vetica. Everything else is brush dabs, spatters, & lines. I duplicated the right side & placed it on the left...idk how to explain this since it all consists on how you combine the textures & brushes. :( Imo it really depends on what colors you pick, it's very easy to get out of hand when it comes to this. (UHHH LOOK AT THE EXAMPLE I'M PROVIDING.)
That's how I do it? GOD I DON'T THINK THIS EVEN *QUALIFIES* AS A GUIDE SINCE I'M NOT TELLING YOU ANYTHING USEFUL. I APOLOGIZE YOU GUYS, I AM TERRIBLE AT EXPLAINING THINGS. :(
IK YOU'LL HAVE QUESTIONS, LORD KNOWS I DID A TERRIBLE JOB. :( I'LL DO MY BEST TO PROVIDE MORE EXAMPLES & GO MORE IN DEPTH.
Also didn't proofread. Also sorry for disappearing for weeks. I've been rly busy. :( Sucks tho, I've left so many comments unanswered. ;A; I'M SORRY YOU GUYS, FORGIVE ME. ;A;
EDIT: You guyyyyys I'm not going to delete it. I just had a ~moment of uncertainty, I wouldn't it delete it tho. Too much time went into this. 8<