Basic CG: Preparation and Intro to Coloring

Written by: Wei-Ling Lorelai Wu
Please do not copy this tutorial without permission.

Hello and welcome to my first CG tutorial ^_^ Now, I've never made a tutorial before, and it's intimidating to even THINK about making one, but I'm gonna go ahead and give it a shot...this is just an intro to CG, and I want to emphasize that I'm only giving GUIDELINES, not gospel :D So please don't think that this is the only way to do things, or that this is the only way that *I* do things...

Ok, well, that being said...let us begin!!!

Part I: The Very Beginning

Note: This is assuming that you have a sketch, and you want to CG it. Ignore this if your artwork is in vector form, or you already inked/drew it digitally. What I'm referring to here is a pencil-sketch on actual paper, like this.

Notice that everything's really iffy, and there are pencil lines everywhere. This is ok ^_^ Take your sketch, put it in the scanner, and scan it at your favorite resolution. I usually scan at 70% on 250 - 300 DPI...it's pretty high res, good enough to print out once you're done CGing.

Open up the sketch in Photoshop. Hit Control + U, or go to Image >> Adjust >> Hue/Saturation. [example] Make sure you check the 'colorize' option box, and then fiddle with the controls until the entire sketch is tinted a light, baby blue. This serves two purposes: one, after you print the blued sketch and ink it, you can rescan the inked version and the scanner will not pick up the blue color if you scan grayscale mode. Second, you have just eliminated the need to 'ruin' your sketch by inking over it.

Remember, this is only necessary if you plan to ink your artwork by hand. If you want to trace it with an art tablet, or render it with vectors, there is no need to blue your sketch and print it out. I'm not going to cover inking techniques in this tutorial because it basically is just tracing over your sketch...and I suck at inking besides -_-;;; However, here are a few inking tips...whenever possible, CLOSE your lines. don't leave any holes if you don't have to, it will facilitate fast CGing later. Also, use thicknesses and be bold in lines. Shaky lines are unbecoming, and different thicknesses will add to the dynamics of the picture. If you have different thinkness pens, try using the fine ones for fine features, like eyes, nose, and lips, while using marker-tips (good for varying pressure) for larger parts like arms and legs. Feel free to leave out inking hair, clothes, etc. if you want to render them completely in photoshop...lineless art has its charms, too ^_^

Continue to Part II: Preparing the Canvas