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LOL I made a tutorial a few months ago, but I decided to make a tutorial on how to color in Paint Tool SAI!
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01. I open up my image originally in Photoshop and run levels a bit to clean it up/darken the blacks. I'm using a Reborn doujinshi by Dalia, scanned by ebil_trio! One, because it's the only HQ manga on my computer right now and two, it's pretty ... ok.
02. Paste it in Sai. There's no "canvas size from clipboard" option-- that I can tell -- so just paste it in a suitable sized document, select the area around the image and "trim to selection".
03. I get the teeniest brush I can (the pen tool), which is 1.7 -- 2.0 and redraw anything that has gaps. I have to do this a lot for Bleach.
04. Click the select tool and make sure "color difference" is selected. This makes it work for black and white images.
(a)
(b)
(c)
05. a. Begin to select the skin. GOD THAT'S UGLY AND HORRIBLE AND NOT RIGHT. b. So I expand selection by one pixel and I do it twice. c. Then I get the select tool and begin to fill in the gaps that expand selection did not take care of :D It should look like this now:
06. At this point, the line art should be set to Blend Mode >> Multiply and a new layer created underneath the line art. Click the paint bucket and select a nice base skin tone. I recommend something pretty light. Xanxus has kind of darkish skin, so I'd say make it lighter than this.
07. I go ahead and do the rest of the flats in the same manner.
08. After I make a new layer above the flat colors, I set up my pen to about 14 pixels and select a sort of purple-red color for the shading. Don't worry if this looks extreme, we're going to fix it up. So I just keep drawing the blocky shadows. REMEMBER TO PICK A LIGHT SOURCE & STICK WITH IT.
09. Select the water tool, 18-30 pixels, min-size about 30 and density about 40-50. Begin to lightly brush the shadows, in the direction away from the light source. It's okay, once you've smoothed them out, to add a few deeper shadows in the nostril/under the lip etc. Then set this shading layer to Multiply and take down the opacity to about 45-60.
10. Add a little color around the eyes via a new Multiply layer, a little orange applied and then smudged as you did previously, and the opacity downed to about 35. I also add a few highlights with a light pink on a (30 opacity) screen layer.
This is where I'd do clothes/hair.
I have it easy for hair and clothes here; a little gray applied for his shirt and his hair is black. But! here is how I color hair/clothes!
Ichigo and his lovely new mullet will show us.
Flood fill using the same method for skin. Then with a 15-20 pen, begin to brush in the shadows on the same layer. For Ichigo's orange hair, I picked a reddish purple again, more on the red side. (A good idea to click "opacity lock" for the layer, so you don't go out of the lines.) Keep brushing with a water brush, same as used for the skin. Highlights are applied in the same way, only with a lighter color (duh.)
To be honest, it goes the same for clothes. Shadow applied, smudged with water brush, highlights applied, smudged with water brush.
Meanwhile back at the ranch ... we are nearly done. During the commercial break with Ichigo, I colored a little on Xanxus' feathers, just adding some blue with the water brush.
11. Now we make a new layer ABOVE the line art layer. Set this to screen and click "layer clip." And begin to color on top of the lines. For tan skin, use tan. For blonde hair, use a yellow color. For a blue shirt, use blue, etc. A good tip is to use a shade a little darker than the base of whatever you're coloring. Use your discretion for how low you bring the opacity of the layer. 50-65 is your best bet.
12. Save as a nice hq png and we're done ... until you import it into Photoshop, crop it however you feel like and add your coloring of choice. I keep a bunch of pre-made PSDs around to paste into (and edit the layers a bit as needed for each icon) for ease. I shared six of them here, if you're interested!
Two different colors I got from one crop.
Happy iconing! o/ I hope everyone enjoyed this, and if you have any questions/comment, feel free to ask. ♥
to
01. I open up my image originally in Photoshop and run levels a bit to clean it up/darken the blacks. I'm using a Reborn doujinshi by Dalia, scanned by ebil_trio! One, because it's the only HQ manga on my computer right now and two, it's pretty ... ok.
02. Paste it in Sai. There's no "canvas size from clipboard" option-- that I can tell -- so just paste it in a suitable sized document, select the area around the image and "trim to selection".
03. I get the teeniest brush I can (the pen tool), which is 1.7 -- 2.0 and redraw anything that has gaps. I have to do this a lot for Bleach.
04. Click the select tool and make sure "color difference" is selected. This makes it work for black and white images.
(a)
(b)
(c)
05. a. Begin to select the skin. GOD THAT'S UGLY AND HORRIBLE AND NOT RIGHT. b. So I expand selection by one pixel and I do it twice. c. Then I get the select tool and begin to fill in the gaps that expand selection did not take care of :D It should look like this now:
06. At this point, the line art should be set to Blend Mode >> Multiply and a new layer created underneath the line art. Click the paint bucket and select a nice base skin tone. I recommend something pretty light. Xanxus has kind of darkish skin, so I'd say make it lighter than this.
07. I go ahead and do the rest of the flats in the same manner.
08. After I make a new layer above the flat colors, I set up my pen to about 14 pixels and select a sort of purple-red color for the shading. Don't worry if this looks extreme, we're going to fix it up. So I just keep drawing the blocky shadows. REMEMBER TO PICK A LIGHT SOURCE & STICK WITH IT.
09. Select the water tool, 18-30 pixels, min-size about 30 and density about 40-50. Begin to lightly brush the shadows, in the direction away from the light source. It's okay, once you've smoothed them out, to add a few deeper shadows in the nostril/under the lip etc. Then set this shading layer to Multiply and take down the opacity to about 45-60.
10. Add a little color around the eyes via a new Multiply layer, a little orange applied and then smudged as you did previously, and the opacity downed to about 35. I also add a few highlights with a light pink on a (30 opacity) screen layer.
This is where I'd do clothes/hair.
I have it easy for hair and clothes here; a little gray applied for his shirt and his hair is black. But! here is how I color hair/clothes!
Ichigo and his lovely new mullet will show us.
Flood fill using the same method for skin. Then with a 15-20 pen, begin to brush in the shadows on the same layer. For Ichigo's orange hair, I picked a reddish purple again, more on the red side. (A good idea to click "opacity lock" for the layer, so you don't go out of the lines.) Keep brushing with a water brush, same as used for the skin. Highlights are applied in the same way, only with a lighter color (duh.)
To be honest, it goes the same for clothes. Shadow applied, smudged with water brush, highlights applied, smudged with water brush.
Meanwhile back at the ranch ... we are nearly done. During the commercial break with Ichigo, I colored a little on Xanxus' feathers, just adding some blue with the water brush.
11. Now we make a new layer ABOVE the line art layer. Set this to screen and click "layer clip." And begin to color on top of the lines. For tan skin, use tan. For blonde hair, use a yellow color. For a blue shirt, use blue, etc. A good tip is to use a shade a little darker than the base of whatever you're coloring. Use your discretion for how low you bring the opacity of the layer. 50-65 is your best bet.
12. Save as a nice hq png and we're done ... until you import it into Photoshop, crop it however you feel like and add your coloring of choice. I keep a bunch of pre-made PSDs around to paste into (and edit the layers a bit as needed for each icon) for ease. I shared six of them here, if you're interested!
Two different colors I got from one crop.
Happy iconing! o/ I hope everyone enjoyed this, and if you have any questions/comment, feel free to ask. ♥