Welcome to Gaia! ::

Oct 6, 2006 -- UPDATE: This is a really old post, almost 2 years old... please do not bump or reply to it! It's for reading only!

Tutorials: Serena's Guide to CG coloring

Ok, first off: I've posted these tutorials before, but gaia ate 'em! I decided to repost them for everyone's benefit.



Some General Tips

1. Get a Tablet. Now, I'm not one to claim there's any shortcuts or magic tools to becoming a successful artist, but a tablet is a very, very useful piece of hardware, and a great investment for anyone who is the least bit serious about becoming a graphic artist. I have the cheapest, smallest tablet you can get (a 4X5" Graphire2) and I can't even begin to tell you how useful it is. I use it every day. With the right software, it's like having an art studio that never runs out of supplies (well, until you run out of hard-drive space, that is).


2. Look at EVERYTHING! Your artistic growth will be terribly stunted if your only references or inspiration is your favourite anime art. Look at all kinds of art. Got to your local art gallery, look at TV commercials, look at posters, and ads. Look at the lighting in some of the movies right now, like Lord of the Rings. Look at webdesign, design in print and the animation in TV show openings. Be inspired by some cutting-edge music videos. Look everywhere in the media for inspiration.

But even more than that, look at things just around you. Look at the way the light from a window hits your mother's face. Look at the way your shirt folds. Look at the colors in your wrists, and on your feet. Never underestimate using yourself as a reference, find a mirror. Look at sunsets and clouds and trees. As you become a more accomplished artist, you'll be able to translate things in life into 2D, and you'll get ideas on what techniques to use. You'll start to see things in brushstrokes... it's like the art-version of being in the matrix. (Yeah, I know that's a cheesey analogy.)

3. Draw varied subjects. Even better than just looking at things around you is actually DRAWING things around you! There aren't any shortcuts to becoming a successful artist, but drawing from life will certainly make your progress a lot faster.

4. Limit your colors. Try to stick to two or three colors that look good together, usually two strong complimentary colors and a neutral color. Often people make the mistake of using all the pretty colors they see, but most attractive art sticks to a general color scheme.

5. Don't limit your colors. Haha, I contradicted what I just said. But I notice that a lot of less-experienced colorists stay within one hue for each element of an image they color. For example, skin tones consist of only lighter and darker versions of the skin tones. But when light hits human skin, there is a wide range of colors, light and dark

6. Check out some of the rising stars of graphic art on the web. In most cases, you can ask about specific techniques they use, if you approach them in a professional manner (ie, don't beg). For example, I asked one of my favourite artists how she achieved a certain texture in some of her artwork, and she sent me a pm with some tips on how she did it. However, most artists DON'T react well to general questions, like "How did you color that?" or "Can you teach me to draw?". Also, be respectful that some artists won't tell you how they achieved certain techniques, preferring to keep them trade-secrets; the art industry is very competitive. But even if they refuse, you can still be professional and friendly, and they can still become valuable contacts.

Rememeber, and I can't stress this enough, to be professional in your correspondences. Begging and sucking up will not impress your favourite artist, and will cost you some respect.

2. CG Coloring: Lighting in Layers

Program: OC3+ (also works in Photoshop and other programs with layer blend modes)
Level: Intermediate
This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of layers and coloring in CG programs such as Opencanvas and Photoshop. It also assumes you have intermediate knowledge in shading.


Review:

• Radiosity and reflected light.
  Notice how the moon can brighten the landscape even though it doesn't emit it's own light? Reflected light can be very powerful, yet many beginning artists don't even notice it. It can add a very nice dimension of color to your artwork. If you stood in a field of bright yellow flowers, or wore a yellow scarf, the light would bounce from the sun to the flowers/scarf to the bottom of your neck, creating a yellow glow on the bottom of your neck. The word "radiosity" is from a lighting function in 3D programs. It's also called "color-bleeding".
  
  
• Contrast and diffuse light
  Light sources range from contrast to diffuse. Large, dim light sources, like the sky, or reflected light from another object are very soft. They create soft, graded shadows. Lights that are emanating form a single point and/or are very intense are called contrast. It creates hard, dark shadows.
  
  
  
• Multiple Light-sources
  I'd just like to combine the last two concepts to get a feeling of this lighting method. Though in many lighting situations there is only one light source emitting light, there is more than one light source lighting your subject. For example, outdoors, the sun is the lightsource. But there is also the open sky lighting the land. This is especially noticeable when a cloud briefly blocks out the sun. The light coming from the sky is very diffuse. The sun creates hard shadows on the subject. You can see from the example above that the combination of diffuse and contrast light is ver attractive. I'm going to show you a relatively simple way to imitate this in Opencanvas 3.
  

(While I'm using the sun and the sky as examples, remember that even inside, there is light coming from the light fixture AND light reflecting from the walls.)

The Tutorial:

• I've created a lame little drawing of some space girl in the grass. So far I have three layers. Lineart, (sloppy) flats and a (REALLY sloppy)background. I already created a soft, diffuse shadow underneath the figure from the light from the sky.
  
  
  
  
  
• Ok, next step, I colored the flats as though they were lit ONLY by the open sky. Imagine she is under an overcast sky. The shadows have a green-blue flavour because of the reflected light from the grass, and overall the subject has a green-bluish tint, because of the light of her surroundings. Because light is coming from the whole sky, the shadows appear darkest underneath the figure (since the ground is lighting the subject the least). Diffuse light doesn't create an highlights, just soft shadows. It rarely creates speculars (small white circular lights that appear on glossy, reflective objects like eyeballs or hair... I may do an entire tutorial on speculars some time since I often see them misused).
  
  
  
  
  
• Now We're going to imagine that the cloud has passed over, and now the light from the sun is bearing down on this confused space-girl! First I created an addition layer (screen or dodge layer if you're using photoshop), and I imagined that the light was coming almost directly from above. The sun cast a very yellow-ish light, so I mostly used yellow to light her. I can't really tell you where to put the lighting here, as it's wherever you want it to shine from. (Here's what my lighting layer look like on normal/standard lighting mode: here )
  I also made sure to light the things around her, which explains the god-awful grass-lighting. Remember this is just an example.
  
  

::reserved 4::

::reserved 6::

::reserved 8::

I'm only on #8? Yargh...

::reserved 10::

...finally O_O

THE DAFT DEMANDS A STICKY! IN THE NAME OF GORD I DEMAND A STICKY!