Tutorial: CG Coloring Sketches
by: Me

I figured that you all want to know how to make sweet images like mine, so I will provide you with insight into how I do it. I use Photoshop 8.0, but I know that 7.0 will also definitely work, and probably most of the older versions will work as well.

First, you want to draw your work in a dark, black pen if possible. It's not completely necessary, but helps somewhat. Then, scan your stuff in at the largest size possible, for the best clarity afterwards. The lines you have drawn might have gotten lighter because of the scan, so to darken them, go to Image > Adjustments > Curves. Click and drag that line and play around with it until you get a setting where the lines are nice and solid. They don't need to be perfect, though. Don't worry about the yellow tone it might get either.

Once you're done with that, bring up your layers window by hitting F7 [if it's not already up]. Click the tab in that window that says Channels, and click the left-most circle at the bottom.

Now, hit delete. This will eliminate everything but your lines. Now, click back to the Layers tab, make sure your sketch layer is selected, and click the Lock Transparent Pixels button [the left-most button above your layer listing].

Now, use your paintbrush tool and go over every inch of your drawing. You can use as big as a brush you want, because you are simply darkening the lines.

Now, you'll be making a new layer for every different part of your drawing that will be a different color, e.g. hair, face, shirt, pants, eyes, whatever. In this tutorial, I'll just do the shirt of my Eriks sketch. What you want to do is use the Polygonal Lasso tool [you can get this by right-clicking the normal lasso tool in the Tools menu]. With your new layer selected, trace the area of the shirt [or whatever you're doing] by clicking directly on the line, making sure your selection line is staying exactly on your ink line the whole way around.


I'll finish this in a bit.