black general - walkthrough by len-yan

after a lot of inquiries about my colouring technique i have finally put together this walkthrough. sadly the file i prepared was too big for dA to support, but i hope this is still readable. i also hope this will answer at least part of your questions regarding my colouring process.

some of the changes between the steps shown here are not easy to spot, which is why i included miniatures of how each new layer look like in normal mode (at least where i thought it necessary).

good look trying out this (very fun and effective) technique^^

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software used: photoshop cs5e

final version of this picture can be found here:

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tumblr link here: [link]

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decorative brushes from ~tiffcali06

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(c) `len-yan

wataboo777 Featured By Owner Mar 11, 2018 Student Digital Artist

Thank you! it was helpful :>

Kei-Seki Featured By Owner Sep 21, 2017 Hobbyist General Artist

Thank you very much! I've been wanting to pick up on grayscale coloring, and this is by far the easiest to understand.

EdsArtFactory Featured By Owner Aug 14, 2017 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

This tutorial changed my life! You are genious

Sarosna85 Featured By Owner Aug 9, 2017 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Thank you so much for this comprehensive and more importantly CLEAR tutorial. I've been looking for some reliable guides on coloring grayscale images but usually I just get something in the manner of 'slap some color on it with blending modes' and you can barely see what the artist has done. You explain things very clearly. I have trouble doing any real digital art since it hurts my eyes so I'm planning to color graphite drawings digitally. This tutorial will be a great help!

Duskpaw Featured By Owner Mar 5, 2016

Thank you very much for this ^^ I've been experimenting with Glazing for a while and never really could get it quite right, but I'll give this way a shot and see how it goes :3

Tatmione Featured By Owner Jan 29, 2016 Professional General Artist

That's interesting. Although I have some resistance in using the grayscale to colour technique, as I usually find it has a poor variety of hue between highlights and shadows, or sometimes colours are not enough saturated to my liking. But that's just my opinion, and I'm a bit new to digital painting, so I'm still not sure of my preferences ^^

ShikiOwl Featured By Owner Nov 27, 2015 Hobbyist General Artist

Thank you for this woderful walkthrough!

tailinyan Featured By Owner Aug 16, 2015 Hobbyist General Artist

what kind of a layer is that you put colors on? A transparent one with 100% opacity?

XDark-ArtistX Featured By Owner Jul 31, 2015

Can you make a drawing tutorial?

AeliReen Featured By Owner Jun 29, 2015

Thank you for very interesting tutorial : )

d6lies Featured By Owner Edited Oct 26, 2014 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you sooooo MUCH for your great explaining!!!
it is always stuck in my mind when I need to convert from greyscale to color!!
I am always wondering when the color does not right TT^TT (something like, I tried to shade dark orange but it turn yellow?!?)
but when you show the picture comparing between normal mode and overlay/soft light/multiple mode, it become clear!!!!
(Arggg, so I could not apply color directly then)

Anyway, Thanks a lotttttt! (>__<)//

CinderFall21 Featured By Owner Oct 24, 2014 Student General Artist

Thank you so much for making this, now I need to try these techniques

RachelFrasier Featured By Owner Oct 2, 2014 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I found this SO helpful, glazing was never one of my strong suits, now I hope I can be better at it!

Thursdaychild Featured By Owner Sep 10, 2014 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you so much!

Caeruu Featured By Owner Jun 29, 2014

This really helps. I'm getting used to "glazing" Thank you!

ChickenPancakes Featured By Owner May 20, 2014 Student Digital Artist

Do oyu think it would work on Photoshop CS3?

len-yan Featured By Owner May 21, 2014 Professional Digital Artist

yes, i think it would work just as well even on Photoshop7

ChickenPancakes Featured By Owner May 21, 2014 Student Digital Artist

Ok, thank you !

KendyLu Featured By Owner May 7, 2014

thank you so much!!!! i love you :"* it's so useful <3

Riznof Featured By Owner May 2, 2014 Professional Digital Artist

Just wanted to say thanks for this awesome tutorial. Probably the best I have found out there!

JUJU-NIMATION Featured By Owner Apr 16, 2014 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you...Thank yuuu

Neverward Featured By Owner Feb 26, 2014 Student

Gosh dangit. I won't stop pushing myself and learning until I'm as good as you hehe

though I won't stop there... but you're sure amazing! And this is an amazing tutorial, so thank you very much for sharing you helped me tremendously!!!

TavisW Featured By Owner Feb 17, 2014 Professional Digital Artist

So helpful - thanks for the effort in making this tutorial!

jawaadart Featured By Owner Feb 6, 2014

NO EXCUSES! Character Concept Art: From Grayscale to Full Color Illustration." If you enroll with the link , the class is $10! Enjoy your class with len-yan!skl.sh/1aBlnAe

jawaadart Featured By Owner Feb 6, 2014

NO EXCUSES! Character Concept Art: From Grayscale to Full Color Illustration." If you enroll with the link , the class is $10! Enjoy your class with len-yan!skl.sh/1aBlnAe

RocCenere Featured By Owner Jan 29, 2014 Hobbyist General Artist

This is incredibly useful, thank you very much.

dudgus2429 Featured By Owner Dec 24, 2013

Great!!!

danketsujin Featured By Owner Dec 24, 2013 Student General Artist

wow! Amazing! Thank you for the tutorial! =]

Skarlet-kitten Featured By Owner Nov 2, 2013 Hobbyist

thanks so much for this tutorial.

used it here: fav.me/d6sn2y2

kitsunemimichan Featured By Owner Sep 9, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

thank you so much! I was so confused before!

Veyber Featured By Owner Aug 20, 2013

Very helpful, thank you! Do you work with a greyscale image first for all your pieces?

Ciereine Featured By Owner Aug 5, 2013 Student Digital Artist

this is the first time i understood the use of grayscaling the pic before coloring it......but i am really curious of what brushes do you use?(pls. answer)....i wanted to create something like this in the future well thank you again

len-yan Featured By Owner Aug 7, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

hello and thank you for your comment. for 95% of what you see in my pictures i use the basic photoshop brush with size, opacity and flow jitter set to pen pressure (i made a post about the brushes i mainly use on tumblr: len-yan.tumblr.com/post/288795… ). hope this helps a bit. good luck~

blackkhally Featured By Owner Jul 8, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Awesome Tut!!

vivelda Featured By Owner Jul 5, 2013 Professional General Artist

Wow! This is the first time I've seen this technique and it blew me away

I might try this.. I think this technique gives the work the chance to have a better light/dark contrast for more depth, something that my own work lacks haha...
Thanks for sharing this!

KuriosiT-kat Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

This is a very clear and I had never understood the technique before. thank you for taking the time to share this with us!

secondchildrenASL Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

It's one of the most accurated and clear tutorial I've read so far. Eternal gratitude for this :unworthy:

BlaqCatArt Featured By Owner Jun 1, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Interesting technique. Definitely looking forward to giving it a try sometime.

nevershop Featured By Owner May 30, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

I regret that I can only favorite this piece once.

alice8882 Featured By Owner May 24, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

thank your so much it really helped me!

BexCreations Featured By Owner May 23, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Can you please post a screen shot of what your grayscale layers look like? Do you work on one layer or several for the base grayscale layer? thanks in advanced!

len-yan Featured By Owner May 23, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

i answered to that in the 'grayscale' part of the tut (that is to say, i mostly work on a single layer). sorry if this isn't very helpful;;
there are some step-by-step posts on my tumblr if you'd like to take a look, maybe they'll be more of a help: [link]

BexCreations Featured By Owner May 24, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Ah, sorry about that. Thanks so much for responding! I'm so impressed that you can keep your lines so clean all while working on one layer. I like to use airbrushes so my lines blur into each other a lot if I work on one layer. Good tutorial, by the way!

Arallion Featured By Owner May 2, 2013

Thanks for the very well-thought-out tutorial! I am looking forward to giving this a try.

dankelby Featured By Owner Apr 5, 2013 Student Digital Artist

This is really useful, thanks for sharing your technique! I'll definitely try it and I learned a lot too.

bdunn1342 Featured By Owner Mar 31, 2013 General Artist

This is exquisite! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your technique.

kaboom-wabit Featured By Owner Mar 23, 2013 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

thank you for sharing

i'm gonna try it out ^^

Ragamuffin-Express Featured By Owner Mar 16, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you so freaking incredibly much! I've been wanting to give greyscale to color a try for a while now, but couldn't seem to find a straight forward, easy, yet detailed explanation before. Thank you so!