COLORING
This is where the magic starts. How do you color those grayscale pieces you ask me! It's kind of tedious work actually, you have to be careful, and it takes a lot of practise to actually become any good at it!
Some people use layer functions like multiply and whatnot, but I don't like that.
I use a series of commands, three mostly, but sometimes four. Those commands are ;
command + M = Curves
command + U = Saturation*
command + B = Color Balance*
IMAGE - adjustments - variations
(* means I am unsure of the translation between swedish photshop and english photshop)
The main TOOL I use, is the lasso! The symbol in the toolbar loks just like a lasso. The key to getting this to work for us, is the settings. Fuzzyness. Variations in fuzzyness is extremely important, and somethign to keep an eye on in each step you make for coloring! PART 1.
There are different things to keep in mind depending on HOW you are going to color your drawing! So, decide that FIRST! I decide I'm going to turn Sir Buckton into a Seal Bay, which is a very dark bay with lighter golden/orange tender areas.
BEFORE I start coloring, I need to lighten the areas that will be lighter than the rest. this is becuase if you try to lighten after you color, you will get horrible looking gradients! If you try, you'll see what I mean.
So, we have our lasso tool. We want the fyzzyness to have a big spread (Think of fuzzyness as a blur filter around the edges of something) to avoid harsh transitions. So, we for the largest areas, elbow and hip, I pick 50% fuzzyness. For the jaw I pick 20. For the muzzle area I pick 15. The reason why you don't see the dashed selection around the muzzle is becuase soemtimes a warning window will appear that say something about the selection beeing too small to be shown. This is all right, just click ok, the selection is still there.
Now that we have our selection, we start with command+M, and get a dialog box like in picture 2. Use it to lighten. Keep the selection active - we don't want to exagerate with the curves in command+M, so after that we go tu command+U, and get a window as in picture 3. Lighten again.
Invert the selection with command+shift+i. Use command+M to open the curves window again, and darken. There, now we have sifficient contrast in the base.
PART 2.
Now we color. I start with command+B, and get the following window as in image 5.
In this window we can add color. I usually work mainly with the Midtones, but sometimes also with highlights, but rarely with the shadows, as it destroys gradients and adds too much contrast. It can serve its purposes though, on occasion. It's all about trying your way forward.
So, now we have some basecolor. You'll notice the lighter areas? They look nice and soft colorwise, good thing we did that first huh?
The color we have now is pretty static though, so this is where the trixi part start. Lasso tool again, remember to adjust the fuzzyness for each are you lasso.
(Oh, and if you can't get more than one area at a time, you have the wrong setting on your lasso. There's needs to be a little + symbol. It's the second setting in the top bar!)
Get your Color Balance window open again (command+B), and give the tender areas a push of more color. Deselect with command+D.
Get the lasso again, and draw out some bigger areas to be darker. Get your curves open (command+M) and darken at will. I also desaturated it a bit with command+U.
Now I go back to selecting the tender areas with my lasso, and the invert the whole selection. I get my curves open again and darken the lot of it.
Time for more variations in hue. I pick out some small suitable spots (rememeber the fuzzyness, I probably had at least 30 at these areas). I add a new color, red and some magenta to get a deeper range of colors.
Now let's make him a bay. Big fuzzyness - I lasso the legs and muzzle and ears, around the eye, and go to command+U, and desaurate (desaturate means draining of color) almost completely. I rarely desaturate alltogether, but keep some color. It works more naturally that way.
I also decided to add come cyan and blue, both in midtones and highlights with command+B, to increase the colordifference. Sometimes black seems more black if you give it a blue tint. Just be careful not to use too much! I find combining cyan and blue gives the best shade in my taste.
I want to give him more blue in his pelt - it will make him darker without making him to black, and will also effect the gradient hue where it touches the browns and yellows. (don't know what I'm doing with the yellows in the screenshot though! Just ignore that, maybe I changed my mind haha!)
In this last image you'll see I have added more blue to his muzzle, made his horn black and his beard as well. I've also colored his mane - I did that by first making it bright blue with command+B, then I in stages, darkened it gradually with curves and darkened it with command+U. I also desaturated as I went, to make the hue a more descreet steely tint.
Now, you can go on with this forever - the glossy higlights for example, are not as glossy as they could be. You can get the Dodge-Highlight and gently brush over the highlights. You can also use the lasso and trace around the higlights with an appropriate setting of fuzzyness, and then brighten it and changing the hue slightly depending on what color the light is! The possibilities are endless!
Next I will teach you how to make markings and paints and dappling with my techniques! If you like, you can request colorschemes I can make examples of for the last part of this tutorial series! You can't to make a fleabit grey? I can do it. A red dun paint? I can do it. A chestnut roan? I can do it. Whatever you want, challenge me, and I'll show you how it's done!
