Have a Seat -Coloring Lesson 1

[John Rauch]

I know some of you are going to be disappointed that I'm not focusing on Photoshop stuff or specific techniques here, but I really don't feel like those are the real meat of knowing how to color. Aside from that, there are tutorials all over the internet about those things and it's really very secondary to the actual coloring itself.

So, I'm starting with basic lighting. When coloring, lighting is how you give an object dimension. What you light and what you don't helps the reader understand the three dimensional shape of the objects you're coloring. This applies to everything, so I consider it to be one of the fundamentals of coloring. Here we go!

If you want to follow along, (and I encourage it highly) download this file, open it up in Photoshop (or whatever program you prefer to color in) and get ready to color:

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/chair.tif




Step 1:

Here's our basic drawing. First thing you need to do is get it set up to color. If you're in Photoshop, you might want to put the lines in a channel or layer, depending on how you like to work. If you're in another program, use whatever feature that program has available to make sure the line drawing is overlayed in a way that will be unaffected by your coloring.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/1.jpg




Step 2:

OK, the next step is to fill in the chair with one solid color that we can render into. I picked a medium brown. In PS, you might want to use the lasso, wand, pencil, and paintbucket tools. In Painter, you could also lasso and fill or just brush the color in. It's not important how you do it, so long as the chair is one solid color.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/2.jpg




Step 3:

OK, now we have to choose a light source. To keep it simple, I decided to make my light source almost directly above. For sake of this lesson, I encourage you to do the same at least you're first time through. What I've done is chosen a lighter brown and filled it into all of the areas that face directly towards my light source, including the curved edges.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/3.jpg




Step 4:

Next, I'm tacking all the planes that are facing the light source, but not directly. I've brushed out the curved edges to show the plane beginning to face away from the light source. I've also filled the chair back, which partially faces the light source with a brown color that is in between my light color and my mid-brown.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/4.jpg




Step 5:

Now that I've determined what planes face the light source and to what degree, I'm going back with my original brown and painting in drop shadows from anything that would obstruct the light from hitting another plane. Because my light source is so simple, this is basically just from the arm rest and chair back.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/5.jpg




Step 6:

For this step, I'm brushing in a cooler dark color into the shadows in part for contrast, and in part because shadows will almost always compliment the light source color. In this case, I'm using a slightly warm outdoor light, so a cool shadow would be the most likely real world shadow color. After that's done, I selected a lighter version of the same color and have applied it to all the planes facing the right of the chair to represent a bit of reflected light in the shadows. In most situations, there is light still reflecting around in the shadows, it's just not directly from the original light source.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/6.jpg




Step 7:

Now we're down to the final details. Here, I've softly brushed in some warmer colors into the lit areas to show the warmness of the light source, as well as contrasting the shadows further. I've also emphasized the edges with an additional highlight. Most beveled or rounded edges will reflect light somewhat differently than the flat edges they connect. Check this out in the real world if you don't believe me. Look at the edge of your desk or monitor. Also, in mine, I've decided to paint into the lines for added realism. This is purely a matter of individual style, so don't be upset if you don't know how to do that or if your software makes it difficult.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/7.jpg



Done yet? Post yours in this thread. If you feel especially brave or if you need a little more work to solidify the concepts in your head, start over with a different light source.

[MBirkhofer]

I'll go!
http://www.mbirkhofer.com/artwork/edits/chairc.jpg
I didn't do color holds on the lineart.

Went with a lower light from behind and slightly to the left.

[onizuka43]

Fantastic tutorial, I learned a lot just by reading it. I can't wait to try it out for real.

[appomo]

nice mood and lights

[appomo]

here is my version , i know that the "perspective" from the light isnt right but i want to post it anyway so you can give crits abd point out the failures.
i didnt folowed your tut step by step i interpretated it my way..is this ok or do you want that people follow it step by step exactly how you did?
http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs42/f/2009/100/c/5/stuhl_by_comic_coloring.jpg

[John Rauch]

MBirkhofer: Nice take! The light source from behind makes some interesting lines.

appomo: Like you mentioned, the shadow isn't quite right, but understandably so, being a difficult angle. I think it would benefit you to go through all the steps and stick to them as closely as you can that way you don't miss the parts about contrasting light & shadow colors, among other things. We'll probably tackle something with more difficult shadows later on, but I didn't consider it a beginner lesson, so I intentionally kept it simple here. Kudos on going for something difficult, but we're just trying to get a solid foundation to start with.

[Nick Pitarra]

Some Easter colors! Like I said...I can't color. Once I tried to work in a reflective yellow things got weird...I didn't push it enough (I can't even see it now that I zoomed out). I eye balled the cast shadow too. I'll try and play along as much as possible...I think I learned more by seeing Mike's and Appomo's takes then I did pooping on the chair. Maybe i'll just try standard cellshading next time as thats what I want to learn for my own line work. Thanks again for doing this, you and Cary rock. :carrot: :banana:

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7734/chairfinal.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chairfinal.jpg)

[Justice41]

I know some of you are going to be disappointed that I'm not focusing on Photoshop stuff or specific techniques here, but I really don't feel like those are the real meat of knowing how to color. Aside from that, there are tutorials all over the internet about those things and it's really very secondary to the actual coloring itself.

So, I'm starting with basic lighting. When coloring, lighting is how you give an object dimension. What you light and what you don't helps the reader understand the three dimensional shape of the objects you're coloring. This applies to everything, so I consider it to be one of the fundamentals of coloring. Here we go!

If you want to follow along, (and I encourage it highly) download this file, open it up in Photoshop (or whatever program you prefer to color in) and get ready to color:

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/chair.tif




Step 1:

Here's our basic drawing. First thing you need to do is get it set up to color. If you're in Photoshop, you might want to put the lines in a channel or layer, depending on how you like to work. If you're in another program, use whatever feature that program has available to make sure the line drawing is overlayed in a way that will be unaffected by your coloring.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/1.jpg




Step 2:

OK, the next step is to fill in the chair with one solid color that we can render into. I picked a medium brown. In PS, you might want to use the lasso, wand, pencil, and paintbucket tools. In Painter, you could also lasso and fill or just brush the color in. It's not important how you do it, so long as the chair is one solid color.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/2.jpg




Step 3:

OK, now we have to choose a light source. To keep it simple, I decided to make my light source almost directly above. For sake of this lesson, I encourage you to do the same at least you're first time through. What I've done is chosen a lighter brown and filled it into all of the areas that face directly towards my light source, including the curved edges.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/3.jpg




Step 4:

Next, I'm tacking all the planes that are facing the light source, but not directly. I've brushed out the curved edges to show the plane beginning to face away from the light source. I've also filled the chair back, which partially faces the light source with a brown color that is in between my light color and my mid-brown.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/4.jpg




Step 5:

Now that I've determined what planes face the light source and to what degree, I'm going back with my original brown and painting in drop shadows from anything that would obstruct the light from hitting another plane. Because my light source is so simple, this is basically just from the arm rest and chair back.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/5.jpg




Step 6:

For this step, I'm brushing in a cooler dark color into the shadows in part for contrast, and in part because shadows will almost always compliment the light source color. In this case, I'm using a slightly warm outdoor light, so a cool shadow would be the most likely real world shadow color. After that's done, I selected a lighter version of the same color and have applied it to all the planes facing the right of the chair to represent a bit of reflected light in the shadows. In most situations, there is light still reflecting around in the shadows, it's just not directly from the original light source.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/6.jpg




Step 7:

Now we're down to the final details. Here, I've softly brushed in some warmer colors into the lit areas to show the warmness of the light source, as well as contrasting the shadows further. I've also emphasized the edges with an additional highlight. Most beveled or rounded edges will reflect light somewhat differently than the flat edges they connect. Check this out in the real world if you don't believe me. Look at the edge of your desk or monitor. Also, in mine, I've decided to paint into the lines for added realism. This is purely a matter of individual style, so don't be upset if you don't know how to do that or if your software makes it difficult.

http://www.retroaero.com/digitalwebbing/7.jpg



Done yet? Post yours in this thread. If you feel especially brave or if you need a little more work to solidify the concepts in your head, start over with a different light source.
I think the darker colors on the seat should be down near the back instead of up on the edge. Other than that This looks great. I need to try this a lot of times.

[appomo]

new version http://fc45.deviantart.com/fs42/f/2009/100/a/8/stuhl_by_comic_coloring.jpg

[John Rauch]

Much better appomo! I especially like how your light and dark colors contrast each other so nicely.

[appomo]

thx, on the first one i just experimented a bit but the perspective from the light whasnt right..maybe a good lesson for the one of the next lessons..light :where do you come from :)
do you plan to make such "tutorials" weekly or how will it work in the future?

[John Rauch]

It will probably be about weekly. I have some things in mind I want to do next, but eventually we'll get into choosing light sources.

[William Blankenship]

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d200/thecancerman37/chair.jpg

[John Rauch]

Great job!

[Nick Pitarra]

Really good 3'll and appomo! Both of those came out great. Nice redo Appomo and Love'n the little highlights and details on your's 3'll. :kewl:

I'll redo mine later to try and keepup with you guys.

[OZ!]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y150/ozthepowerful/chair.jpg

Started playing with grains, but I got lazy so there is a ghost. Oops. I'll attempt the wood grain again later

[appomo]

i think the shadow is not right, like by mine but lets wait what john says

[OZ!]

well, the shadow is curved out and only has two angles(because there are only two angles to cast the shadow) but I do agree. I don't think the shadow across the back is large enough to connect correctly. Yours had three angles which hindered it. Oh well, easy fix.

[Sequential76]

Here's mine,
I brushed the reflective light in like you noted, but why not gradient fill?
for the highligts I used a hard brush and shift to make it striaght on the edgeing, then I went in and erased with low opacity to fade the edges. Am I doing it the hard way?

For the arm drop shadow I selected the shape and deleted from the seat surface.

Did you use pen to to select at all?

I consider myself a penciler/inker and as of late I only dabble in color.

I'm not satisfied with what I did.

Thanks
http://www.sequential76.com/images/misc/chair_650.jpg

[BobRivard]

I don't think the shadow placement looks bad, but they don't keep their shape. Why do the shadows get wider as they move out?

One thing that will help make the shadows look more natural is to graduate them out toward a lighter value the further they get from the object. They should be at their darkest right where they touch the object casting the shadow.

[BobRivard]

Here's mine,
I brushed the reflective light in like you noted, but why not gradient fill?
for the highligts I used a hard brush and shift to make it striaght on the edgeing, then I went in and erased with low opacity to fade the edges. Am I doing it the hard way?

For the arm drop shadow I selected the shape and deleted from the seat surface.

Did you use pen to to select at all?

I consider myself a penciler/inker and as of late I only dabble in color.

I'm not satisfied with what I did.

Thanks


For somebody that's only "dabbling" in color, I'd say it looks damn nice.

And for the reflected light, or for anything, really, you could use a gradient if you wanted, but you get more control with a brush, of course.

The way you're doing it in photoshop is fine, in my opinion. There are so many ways to do it. Starting with a base of color, then doing all your 'lighting' and whatnot on a new layer, then going back in and erasing out or masking out the shadows, is a common workflow with digital painters. Others might simply do it all using one layer, and others still might use up to ten layers or more to achieve what they want (unnecessary for most stuff imho).

[Justice41]

Problem I'm seeing with almost everyones colors is that the light source seems to be right in the center of the chair. You have shade where there should be none and there is light colors where there should be darker colors. If the light source is in the center of the chair the casted shadows would fan out from the center. That's just the way I'm reading the colors. Can't help it, my eyes see what they see.

[robbdaman]

Justice you're thinking a tad bit too limited with the lighting source. Rarely will a light source be directional from one area, in fact it is most often light from a source, reflected light from that source and a surface or several surfaces and possibly other lighting sources. This is why you'll have light spattered all over an object rather than just coming from one place. For the instance of the chair here, you'll get light coming from the original source, coming up reflected from the ground, coming from parts of the chair reflected onto other parts of the chair and possibly coming from other objects or surfaces around it reflecting on the chair. This is all without even adding another light source.

[Sequential76]

Thanks, after I read through your advice a couple more times I may go back and refine this. I see things I can do that will make it sharper.

Taking a second look, I'm part satisfied. Working with color always seems overwelming to me so I've shied from it. Alot of times I'll sit down to color and all of a sudden I feel like I'm hip deep in Quantum physics. :mad:

[OZ!]

I don't think the shadow placement looks bad, but they don't keep their shape. Why do the shadows get wider as they move out?

One thing that will help make the shadows look more natural is to graduate them out toward a lighter value the further they get from the object. They should be at their darkest right where they touch the object casting the shadow.


Because there is less light to illuminate and hit the bare parts the farther out it goes.

http://k43.pbase.com/g6/96/675696/2/77758512.G1fEHCTx.jpg

As for the dark part... It should and in theory the shadow would get lighter as it went out if there was another light-source acting on it, but with one source, the farther away it gets, its still stays as dark.

[Newt]

True in vacuum, but not in atmosphere. Light is scattered by particles in the air. The farther from the object casting the shadow, the more particles scattering light into the shadow area. With nearby lightsources (i.e., not the sun), one must also consider the penumbra (partial shadow) created by some light from lightsource penetrating outer edges of shadow.

John- I can't download the tif without buying Quicktime, for some reason. Is that just me?

[OZ!]

Its so sad that I suck so bad at coloring I have to look at black and white stuff to figure it out. Yeah, you are completely right. The darks should be getting lighter as they go away... Crap... Oh well. That's the point of doing these.

[MBirkhofer]

I think I will point out something as well.

Coloring is not realism.
Understanding real mechanics and using them to your advantage the name of the game. However, photorealism isn't.

Bending the rules to sell the image, theme, story, and mood is an important part of coloring.

The contrasting reflective light here is an example of something that isn't quite exactly how light really works. However, doing so reinforces the 3d form of the object.

The cast shadows on my sample for example, are not realistic. The light would be much more diffused and not so solid as I made them. But the hard cast shadows were more visually interesting then a shadow blob would have been.

[John Rauch]

Justice41 (and others): Some good points were brought up and I did light the center of the chair assuming some light would have bounced off of the seat part, and didn't bother explaining it. We'll get into that stuff a bit more later. For right now, I'm trying to keep the lessons simple and easy to follow. The point of THIS lesson is to understand the dimension of the chair and how to bring that out through light and shadow. We'll definitely get into more later.

Sequential76: Great work! I'm trying not to focus on telling people what tools to use. That's a matter of personal taste and preference. If this thing keeps enough steam going, I might hit on some technique issues later on down the line, but for now, I consider them secondary to the underlying principles of light, shadow, and simple story-telling.

[Caio Reis]

Ok, here is my first attempt. I really have no idea what I'm doing, I'm a complete dumb@ss when it comes to coloring so go ahead and torn it apart! I'll probably be doing this exercise about 20 times over but for now, and because it obviously looks completely off I'm submiting this try-out to get som feedback. I'm also reading the prvious posts and see if I can improve.

And thanks John, for taking your time to do this! You are :thumbs: !

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5026/homework001a.jpg

I'll be back...

[Caio Reis]

Working with color always seems overwelming to me so I've shied from it. Alot of times I'll sit down to color and all of a sudden I feel like I'm hip deep in Quantum physics. :mad:

Dude you got the words right out of my mouth. Whenever I start reading some tutorial or article about colorig from a professional painter or colorist I just feel it's way too much information for my limited brain to process!!! :blink:

[Caio Reis]

Version 2.0 coming out. I think something looks a little better than the previous post but I'm still not getting it. :cry:

I'm having difficulty to understand shadows and reflected light so I'll need to practice some more. Any comments would be nice.

Also is it ok to spend like 40 minutes just doing the selection thing? It seems to take me more time than the actual coloring!!!


http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5024/homework001b.jpg

[John Rauch]

Very nice! Don't stress too much about the reflected light. I glossed over that on purpose, but I do plan to come back to it later with another lesson.

[mattchee]

Well, I actually made some time for this. Coloring is a weak area for me so I thought I'd give it a whack. I pretty much followed the basic plan, but I learned a bunch in the process. Maybe I'll try a fancier one later.

http://mastorism.deathhammer.com/comics/chair.jpg

[Ken73]

I don't know how much difference it really makes, but is it just taken for granted that everyone has a stylus tablet? I already know that they are the preferred method, and that almost every industry pro uses them, but I haven't seen them mentioned in any of these tutorials, here or anywhere else (like 90% of the time, anyway)... I'm primarily a penciller and I still use an actual pencil, and will be developing my inking skills which actually leads right into the coloring aspect, but no one talks about the stylus. I only see pictures of people using $2000 pieces of equipment. Just putting it out there...

[John Rauch]

Good job matchee!

Ken: I'm not spending time talking about equipment because it's secondary to the concepts being applied. I *prefer* my cintiq, sure, but I've also done the same job with a regular $100 Wacom and before that a mouse.

[L Jamal]

what John said. I started with a mouse and then got the $100 Graphire and now I use the Bamboo (the current generation Graphire). Use what you're comfortable with. The same principles apply with digital or traditional coloring.

[William Blankenship]

I draw, ink and color most of my stuff on my $100 wacom. I used to think "nah, I couldn't do that on this", and now I do. So really, apart from Penciling and inking with a mouse, it's not the tools you have, it's the skills you build.

Man when I get my hands on a Cintiq you mugs are gonna have nightmares about me. :)

[HaphazardJoy]

Oooo, very cool thread!

http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj373/haphazardjoy/ChairLessonF.jpg

Something's up with my Photoshop. It used to be that every once in a while it'd start messing up when applying a layer/channel with adjusted opacity. A reinstall would always fix it, now that won't even fix it. For whatever reason, adjusting the opacity of the line art, the final product comes out with the opacity adjusted areas with pixel-wide vertical stripes that are much less opaque. In any case, some of the line art looks a little gray, and I didn't manually correct it.

[John Rauch]

Nice job!

[HaphazardJoy]

Thanks! I feel a bit more comfortable with objects (my favorite piece I've ever done had a child's wagon in it, I'm very proud of how the wagon came out hahaha). Still, I feel like I play it a little too safe with the palette. I know you get more dynamics off of playing with more contrast, but I seem to play it on the safe side as whenever I try to add more hues, it seems to be really gaudy and noticeable. That's what I really dig in your work, there's so much variation in hues, but it all works together, beautiful palettes. Any tips for choosing the colors for applying atmospheric effects in cases like this? I tend to just try to find the next logical brightness of the same color and try to add more yellow for the highlights, and darker and blue for shadows, but it never seems quite right.

[Jasen Smith]

http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss236/Jasen_Smith/Misc/chair-2.jpg

Hope this looks good. :)

[John Rauch]

I really like it except for the fact that your darkest shadows don't make sense. You don't have a second light source that would cause them. It's important not to put in anything just because it might look cool.


Really, for everyone following these lessons, I encourage you not to try to show off and get ahead of the lessons. I'm keeping them simple for a reason, so that each one can build from the last and everything we put down on the page has a purpose that we understand thoroughly.