My Pixiv account

[TetsuyaHikari]

Spoiler!

Hey guys, I've recently got into coloring lineart again, so I figured now would be a better time than any to post a link to my Pixiv account. I don't know how long I'll stick with it, but I'd appreciate some input nevertheless. I'd like to improve, but I don't know a damn thing about shading, lighting, or any of that, so if any of you guys could help me to understand how to add shading so my colorings don't look so plain, I'd appreciate it!

Also, there's a problem I've encountered recently with some lineart. Normally, I can just use the wand tool to select an area, then fill it in, and eventually color the whole picture piece by piece like that. However, on some of the lineart I have, the first layer is locked and I can't remove the lock, nor can I color it by using the wand tool. I've tried creating a duplicate layer, then deleting the locked one and doing it that way, but it just doesn't work.

Normally, I would just delete everything with the wand tool and make it transparent, then fill it in with white and start adding new layers for separate parts of the picture (i.e. eyes, hair, skin, clothing, etc.). If the picture is already transparent, then that makes things a bit easier for me. It seems the only way I'll be able to color some of these linearts is manually going over every inch of it with a brush, but surely there's a better way... Right?

Anyway, if some of the art buffs around here could shed some light on that, that would be great! I'll be editing this post with my newest work every time I finish one, so be sure to check back periodically. Oh, and feel free to rate and/or comment on my pictures through my Pixiv page as well if you've got an account. Thanks!

My Pixiv account

[Sayara]

What program do you use? Photoshop, Painttool SAI?

[NoiseHERO]

Coloring, shading and lighting, light sources?

This helped me a lot. : O

http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm#skin_tones

[TetsuyaHikari]

What program do you use? Photoshop, Painttool SAI?

Sorry, I should have specified that. I put it in the tags, so I'm not sure why I forgot, lol. Yes, I use Photoshop (CS5 to be exact). I do have SAI also, but I don't know how to use it.

EDIT:

Coloring, shading and lighting, light sources?

This helped me a lot. : O

http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm#skin_tones

I appreciate this and all, but... I can't make heads or tails out of this. It might as well be written in German, lol. I don't understand how I'm supposed to decide where to shade the character if there isn't a light fixture to begin with. I mean, how do you create shadows from nothing?

I've literally watched over 5 tutorials of shading on Youtube from people using Photoshop and it just doesn't make sense to me. I feel like I'm in high school all over again, watching the teacher do a math problem on the chalkboard, then being asked to do it as well, yet still being confused as to how it is done... Despite seeing a visual guide. This whole shading thing just doesn't click with me for some reason. I'd like to learn how to do it, but there's just something in my brain preventing me from understanding it, I think.

[NoiseHERO]

R-really it's...

I mean I can't say it's easy but...

Well when light hits different surfaces it looks a certain way that's what this guide helped me with.

I guess you could use a series of reference (especially in anime where it's like a lot poses and light sources for manga/anime art styles would be common.)

Eventually your light sources would become common sense... Well if your use pixiv you should have mountains of things to use as reference. D:

[TetsuyaHikari]

R-really it's...

I mean I can't say it's easy but...

Well when light hits different surfaces it looks a certain way that's what this guide helped me with.

I guess you could use a series of reference (especially in anime where it's like a lot poses and light sources for manga/anime art styles would be common.)

Eventually your light sources would become common sense... Well if your use pixiv you should have mountains of things to use as reference. D:

Yeah, I understand the concept of shading, but I don't really know how to put it into practice. I've seen plenty of pictures apply shading to the character, but every picture is different, so there's no real solid way to shade the character 100% of the time. I don't know how I'm supposed to decide the angle, which parts to add shading to, which ones to leave alone, etc.

Like I said, I'm just mainly having an issue with creating shadows from, well... Nothing. I guess you could say I lack the imagination to create them myself.

[NoiseHERO]

I dunno

I could tell you to piture everything in a 3D perspective in know where the light hits and what blocks the light and how far the light travels...

But in general it just takes a lot of practice.

I also used to not be able to shade and not know much about where to start and I STILL find it to be one of the hardest parts to make look... "good."

You won't be able to make it magically look perfect and professional out of nowhere, unfortunately. You already have a decent take on anatomy for an anime style and clean lines, it shouldn't be that hard for you. D:

[TetsuyaHikari]

I dunno

I could tell you to piture everything in a 3D perspective in know where the light hits and what blocks the light and how far the light travels...

But in general it just takes a lot of practice.

I also used to not be able to shade and not know much about where to start and I STILL find it to be one of the hardest parts to make look... "good."

You won't be able to make it magically look perfect and professional out of nowhere, unfortunately. You already have a decent take on anatomy for an anime style and clean lines, it shouldn't be that hard for you. D:

I see... Well, maybe if I keep at it, I'll figure it out. I sort of tried to do some shading on the 'Time for a break -revised-' picture. You can tell on the skirt where it is darker in some places than others.

[Sayara]

If you have both you oughta do the Line art/solid color on SAI.
It has a really easy method to fill full color without too much heart-ache:



Save that image as a .PSD and open it in pshop5. With me and shading. Don't be so conservative about making super glossy for right now while you experement with shading. Let it be heavy, drastic and sloppy.

Its all experementation for doing coloring and stuff. depends on what you want to do.

[TetsuyaHikari]

The coloring isn't really the issue. I can do that. I just use the wand tool to select different parts of the picture to fill in and the brush as necessary. Hell, I can't even do that much in SAI, lol.

I tried testing out your example on a picture I already colored, but when I followed the instructions, it just colored 90% of the picture when I used the bucket. I couldn't fill in specific parts of the picture like I wanted. Also, I still have the problem of some of these linearts not being transparent or whatever. Basically, I've got like... 4-5 pictures I can just use the wand on to click and color, but there are a few that I can't do that with.

I'd have to manually brush every part and that just seems rather ridiculous. There HAS to be an easier way to color those linearts.