Colouring Some More Lineart

Step 1: I found a nice cool bit of lineart by a dude called BOMU and decided to colour it up. I opened up the file, double clicked the layer name "background" and renamed it to inkwork and changed its properties to "MULTIPLY" as ringed in red. By renaming it we can change the properties, cus you cant with a background layer. Anyway, I then created several blank layers and dragged them below the inkwork layer. I used the Polygon Selection tool to select an area then I filled it using the paint bucket with some solid colour. I also named the layers, so I can tell whats what! As you can see the eyes and mouth are above the hand, the hand layer is above the face, and the face is above the collar and background.

Step 2: Now, on each of the colour layers, click the little Tick to Preserve Transparency as shown in red, This basically stops paint from going outside the area thats filled, like masking but quicker :). Now I selected the eyes and mouth layer and added some detail using the airbrush and The Dodge & Burn tool (marked in red). The Dodge & Burn tool is tricky to use so practice a lot, but basically when you draw with it it will darken the colour, but if you hold ALT it will lighten the colour, its a nice way to shade quickly without constantly picking colours. But be careful overuse can make you pic look crap.

Step 3: Now I am working on the face layer, as you can see the hand is unnaffected because its on the layer above and so are the eyes. Now is the fun part, lots of soft Dodge and Burning with a big brush and loads of airbrushing, using ALT to pick colours from the face itself. As you can see the airbrush is on a low opacity setting, this allows me to build up the colours more gradually.

Step 4: Nearly done, coloured the hand the same way as I did the face, then did the collar and background. I also added some extra lighting with the airbrush down the side of her face and in her big eyes!!!! Save it, Flatten it, resize it and save for the web!

Step 5: OK heres the finished picture, I also used a big airbrush set to "SOFT LIGHT" and sprayed a bit of green and blue over the skin in places to change the tones a bit. I know this tut doesn't explain exactly how I draw stuff, its just meant show you my process and hopefully give you some tips along the way. If you found it useful drop me an Email :) better still post it up on my forums!!!!