Welcome to Renu's Super Duper How Do I Color Tutorial*
*the super duper-ness of this tutorial is subject to debate, I have no idea what I'm doing here
This assumes some familiarity with photoshop, so, uh... look for a basic photoshop tutorial if needed. It should probably work with Krita as well (and Krita's free, so yay).
So, I'll take you step by step from line to finished color with my last finished piece (the Princess Principal fanart). And without further ado, let's get down to business to defeat the huns color a picture.
Well, there's nothing much to say, it's a coloring tutorial, so... yeah. It's just to see where we start.
Here, you'll have to fill each spaces you want with the base color of each thing. Do note that you can add texture (as seen on the flowers), gradients or pattern (not seen anywhere) at this stage. Just nothing that has to do with light. This will come later.
I recommend putting each color in a separate layer so you can change things up easily later. If you don't have any time, I guess you could do it all in one go, but meh, if you change your mind later, you'll actually end up losing time, so as long as your computer can manage many layers, do it like this. Also, groups are your friends. I separated Ange, Princess and the flowers in different groups. This will be handy later.
Once it's done, put all color layers and groups (except the background if it's a uniform color, like in this case) into another group (which I generally name "colo" but do what you want, sky's the limit, don't let your dreams just be dreams)
Actually, I rarely need this step. If you did the correct tone while in the previous stage or your ambience is pretty neutral, you can skip it.
Otherwise, create a layer outside of the color group, create a clipping mask (either alt+clic or right clic>clipping mask) (it makes it so what you do in that layer can't go out of what is covered by the layer or group directly under it) and put it in "Hard Light" (in the blending options). Then, adjust its opacity so it looks good. Here, it's at 62% #themoreyouknow
Ah, I forgot to say it, but the goal of this step is to have a unified ambiance and so on. Just look at how it looks before and after.
Create a layer in Hard Light, and do a clipping mask with it (either on the general color group or a specific one, depending on how confident you are/things are on top of each other). In this case, I have one for Ange, one for Princess and one for the flowers (the groups I created in the flat colours step).
The important thing to keep in mind at this point is where the light comes from. Here, I got fancy and decided it would come from the center and under the characters. Usually, top left is a safe bet. If there is a light source in the image, keep it in mind, obviously.
For color, you can see my light and shadow palette on top of the image. It's a good idea to have different tones for light and shadow. Complementary colors (red/green, orange/blue, purple/yellow,...) generally work well together, but if you want a particular color everywhere on the picture, you can try to use close tones.
For my shadows, I started with the lighter of the two tones, before doing a second pass with the darker one. The more passes, the deeper the shading will be, but if you want to go fast, a single pass is more than enough.
Varying opacity with your strokes at this point is very useful, since not everything is as light and dark. Also, that way you have only one color, which allows you to lock the layer's opacity to try different ones.
Also remember that some materials don't act the same as others with lights and shadows (for exemple wood and metal don't act the same at all). While it is most important with the lights, already think about that.
And finally, NEVER USE BLACK AND WHITE. NEVEEEER. In my very long career I have acquired a very particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for people who use black and white. If you use colored shadows, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
Same idea as with shadows. Do the same but with bright colors.
In this case, I had to do it on my overall tone layer, since it was very dark and did strange things with my light layers.
Keep the shiny-ness (or dullness) of materials in mind.
Some zones need to be very bright, while other need to be very dark.
After you've done your general lights and shadows, create 2 layers and create a clipping mask (generaly at this point I do it over the color group rather than subgroups so I can act on the whole image).
The first one will be for the bright zones. Use the color dodge blending mode with a dark, saturated color and use either gradients or a soft brush to light up the zones you want people to look at.
The second one will be for the dark zones. Use the multiply blending mode with a lighter color, then darken what needs to be darker with a soft brush.
Adjust the two layers opacity as needed.
If there are some parts that need to shine (slime, metal, eyes,...) there's a little trick I like to use. Create a new layer (above the line art) and open the FX menu (double click on the layer or clic on the "fx" button at the bottom of the layer window). Select "outer glow" and put a light color of the same tone as your light. Then, with a sharp brush with no opacity change, put some specular lights with a color very close to white (if you use white there, I won't kill you). Adjust the size of the glow and you're done.
Not always necessary, but it can really help an image unify if you skipped the overall tone step.
Create a color balance layer over everything, then adjust the shadows, medium and lights like so:
Shadows should lean in the color of your shadow layers.
Medium should be closer to the overall tone layer.
Light should be like your lights layers.
Be carefuly not to go too hard with this. Values between -10 and 10 are more than enough, and -5 to 5 usually do the job.
If you mess up there, the image will be too saturated and you'll lose some nuances. Either go back to adjust the values or simply reduce the layer's opacity.
And you're done. Post your picture and harvest the likes.
So there you have it. Assume this tutorial is spooky since I probably won't be able to do anything for Halloween and ask if you need clarifications. As I said, I have no idea what I'm doing.
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