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News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:29 am

I got asked to do some sketches for a musician's CD Covers (i get a cut of every cd sold! *dance*) but I need some help with the sketches.

All I want to do is, basically, colour them. What I'm having trouble with is darkening the line-work to a definite black, and then shading and such.

I know you can fiddle with the.. saturation I think, but you end up with an awfully pixelated picture that looks like it was done on MS Paint. Wondering if there's a way to get around that.

The picture I want to colour is this one.

Any tips or tricks would be very much welcomed.

Oh, and if you're now wondering how I did my sig and avatar, they're water colours...

EDIT: Also, I would VERY MUCH appreciate help colouring pencil drawings. If that's possible. I mean.. I wouldn't know where to start with it so.. yeah.

Thanks in advance!

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:42 am

Hold out for an hour or so. I'm going back to bed. When I get up again I'll help you out.

News Credits: 1 · by **Whisper** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:59 am

Are you using Photoshop?

If so, do this:

Open image in new window.

1. go to Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels.

2. go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast..., then do Brightness +10 / Contrast + 20

That should do it.

If you don't have Photoshop, I've done one for you already...

News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:24 am

Whisper wrote:Are you using Photoshop?

If so, do this:

Open image in new window.

1. go to Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels.

2. go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast..., then do Brightness +10 / Contrast + 20

That should do it.

If you don't have Photoshop, I've done one for you already...

I don't have photoshop, alas, but I know a lot of the techniques are similar. I'm on Paint Shop Pro *6*... 6!

sigh.. you've done one for me?

News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:22 am

Okay so, I did the brightness/contrast thing, got the lines, coloured and shaded somewhat, its far from perfect, just a rough mess around, can anyone give me some tips on how to improve?

News Credits: 1 · by **Whisper** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:34 am

Meverix wrote:sigh.. you've done one for me?

Just the outline.

As for colouring tips... I'm not that great on such things... :-?

by **awkwaRd** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:58 am

i have a tutorial that i went by when i first started coloring, also i think the inking section of it makes it look better, but it is for photoshop... but i'll post it anyway and maybe paint shop has similar things...

http://www.fur.com/~almackey/tutorial/nstep1.html

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:33 pm

Wow that was a long nap. And now that I realize you use Paint Shop Pro I'm not sure how helpful I can be. But in photoshop I normally create an actual line art to place over the top of the layers I'm coloring on.

I use this tutorial.

I'm gonna mess around with this and see how this method works out.

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:04 pm

I finished up one leg just to show how it looks when the line art can't be affected by the colors. Also added a color overlay to the lines to make them a bit thicker and beefier looking.

News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:17 pm

Hm.. okay, this all looks pretty damn awesome, I'm playing around and getting quite used to it all... Thanks a bunch guys!

Now my only problem is colouring a sketched drawing, ideally this one. Would make these CD's covers a lot more interesting, the lined-work looks a little cartoony, though I had an idea what I can do with it...

Thanks a heap guys!

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:06 am

Sketches tend to be much harder to color as line art of them tend to be almost impossible to make. And raising the levels on them to get a decent black level tends to degrade the original look of it. It's sort of a lose lose situation.

News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:17 am

Zuko wrote:Sketches tend to be much harder to color as line art of them tend to be almost impossible to make. And raising the levels on them to get a decent black level tends to degrade the original look of it. It's sort of a lose lose situation.

Darn.. Ah well. Thanks for the help guys!