a while back I promised I’d make a post about my coloring process. Twitter followers voted on opal as our model so here she is! (Click the images for captions)

I feel like my process is pretty basic but if even one person learns something then it’s worth it.

edit: putting the captions under a read more too for people who can’t see them

1. just a sketch! not really relevant to coloring but someone from the stream wanted to see it so here you go!

2.and lineart…

3. I start coloring by filling in everything with one base color. Everything else will be on clipping masks to save some time coloring in the lines later

4. create a new layer > right click> create clipping mask - this makes it so you can’t color outside the edges of the base layer. and then just fill in the flats. each individual color has it’s own layer

5. next is the shadow layer- another clipping mask set to multiply. i used two colors (slightly different shades of the same color) and toggled back and forth between them.

6. i locked my lineart layer and recolored it. i love this step bc it changes the whole look of the drawing. a lot of times i’ll add a few more details and say a drawing is done at this point.

7. i decided to add an extra multiply layer - it’s also not very clear but around this step i made another normal layer under the lineart to clean up details

8. more detail work + adding some highlights on layers set to overlay - the sharp highlights are on a clipping mask and there’s a fuzzy highlight at low opacity over the lineart.

9. a few more fixes - some color adjustments and it’s done!