Gimp 2.4. Tutorial [Drawings Link Inside]

A by Coco Dixon

My drawing is the icon; A GIMP tutorial. Since I use it. Also gonna make a photoshop! Program: GIMP 2.4 Tutorial: Coloring SO SORRY; FORGOT TO ADD LINK D: www.gimp.com From GIMP.org: GIMP 2.6.1 is a bug-fix release in the stable GIMP 2.6 series. T

I use GIMP, so I'm just showing you how to color. This is ment to be seen with images, but they weren't coming up so it's jst the words XD
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Whenever coloring digitally, you should always start off with clean line art, whether it’s inked by hand or drawn on the computer. Believe me, it’s a gazillion times easier (especially since we’ll be using layers in this tutorial!)

About layers (in GIMP): When shading/coloring, there are some “special effects” that you may want to use on an entire area (like the skin) but not on other areas (like hair, or eyes or clothes or accessories, etc). Layers make this possible! (three cheers for the computer genius who invented layers!). Layers also make it possible to delete large amounts of colors, without getting red of the others (for instance, if you realize you totally botched the hair, but the skin looks gorgeous? Delete only the hair layer ^_^)

About channels: You will probably only need to use the channels in the very beginning. This is a tool to get red of the white around your black line art. I’ll show you how to do that in step 2.

NOTES:
1: If some of this stuff seems hard to do…I am using a tablet, but the steps are pretty much the same for the mouse, and I don’t think that they would really be too hard to follow (it’ll probably just take longer ^_~).

2: On my computer, if you try to do too many things at one time, GIMP can close or stall out. Try to avoid doing too many actions and SAVE AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE! I save my pictures as GIMP XCF files, so as to keep the layers separate.
For this tutorial, I am using a picture of Leon’s character, Seira Hakami! (I juz wuv him ta pieces <3) ahem, anyway, LET’S BEGIN!!!

Step #2

Step 2: Getting transparent line art!
Okay, assuming your line art is already pretty neat, but you still have the white with the black, let’s get rid of the white! (If you already know how to do this, go ahead, I’ll catch up )

Illustrated in the first picture
1: Right-click your background layer (at this point, that is probably your only layer).
2: Click “Add Alpha channel”
3: Then click on your “Channels” tab.

Illustrated in the second picture
1: You should have 4 channels: Alpha, blue, green and red. If all of your channels are selected, click Alpha to unselect it. (NOTE: It will totally mess you up BIG TIME if you DO have Alpha selected! This is essentially the channel your entire art is on, so when we start deleting the white, if this channel is selected, your line art will go away too).
2: Right click any of the other channels (besides Alpha) and then click “Channel to selection”. This should select the area around your lines.
3: Okay, after you do that…(make sure ALL channels are selected EXCEPT Alpha) press ctrl – X, and voila! Lovely line art! (NOTE: if some of your lines are really thin, or light, or not very connected –aka dots or something- You may have lost them in the process. This tool is pretty good at picking up the white and leaving the black, but sometimes it’s not sensitive enough.)
(Third picture)
Now then, to set up for coloring, select Alpha again (in other words, ALL channels should be selected now) and click on the Layers tab. We’re all done with channels now

Step #3

Almost everybody I know starts with skin…why? I dunno. I start with skin because that’s the easiest for me. In this tutorial, we’re going to do simple cell-shading, so that it’s not too much info in one step (or too many steps, I guess).
Anyway, first add a new layer, by clicking the “New Layer” tab. First create a layer that will hold a background color (I’ve cleverly named mine: Background #1) as well as another layer for the skin (again, a clever name: “Skin”. (NOTE: As a default, your layers should be set to transparency, but if they aren’t…make it so ) Background #1 will make it easier to color, without the slightly distracting checked background. Skin…well, you can guess what that layer will be for!
Fill Background #1 with whatever color you think you will end up using the LEAST. We aren’t making the final background here, and we want the greatest contrast possible. That way, it’ll be easier to see any colors that are out of place (especially when erasing ^_^). Also, it’s not really a good idea to choose black. Yes it contrasts pretty much all of the colors, but it will also match your lines (egad), making them impossible to see.
Next, click and drag the layers into the following order from top to bottom:
BACKGROUND (layer with the line art)
SKIN (Or whatever you’re starting with)
BACKGROUND #1 (layer with the background color
It’s important that your lines are on top, so you can see them!
So, with that note, lets start giving Seira some skin!!
First, since we’re only doing cell-shading, we’ll just need 3 tones for the skin: The actuall skin tone, the shadow tone and the highlight tone (typically white, or close to it). So double-click your color palette to bring up the color selection options.
For most skin tones, the area you should look in is smack in the middle between red and yellow: orange. And, contrary to what you might think, to get a darker tone DO NOT SIMPLY DRAG THE SELECTION TO THE LEFT! That will get you a grayish tone, and typically, that doesn’t look as good. Instead, pull the selection diagonally left-up. This will keep the tone rich and full, instead of faded. (And obviously, don’t drag it straight up, unless you want VERY orange shadows O.o)
Then, after you find the tones you like, click the arrow button next to the colored squares to add them. (If you have never used this before, you won’t have all of the colored squares I do so ignore those). (NOTE: I close the color box, because I hate having too many boxes open around my picture. You can either leave it open or close it. The colors will be the same when you open it later ^_^) Now we can slap on some colors!

Step #4

I will be using the paint brush first. (There is another way, but I think this way is faster. I’ll show the other way later ^_~)
First I follow the outline using the Brush tool. This tool doesn’t really get very big (I think) but that’s okay! I scribbled a lot, instead of a nice clean line, because it’s easier for me to see (and make sure I didn’t leave any area disconnected). It’s perfectly fine if it’s messy, because I’ll clean it up later ^_~.
Now we are going to fill. First (after you click the fill tool) make sure that the color you’re filling with is in the back. The Fill tool uses the back color, for some reason…_-_ Then you can fill in the area! (If it doesn’t fill neatly, and it has little specs of non-filled area, try filling the area again, on top of the first fill. If you still have specs…cover ‘em with the brush.)

Step #5

Okay, so select your shadow skin tone (obviously the darker one) and first color over the areas that are blocked by something else: i.e., shadows cast by the hair, by the jaw/chin, by the nose and/or lips. Cast shadows increase the depth of your art IMENSELY. For the most part, people remember the shadows cast by hair and the jaw/chin, but usually forget that the lips and nose cast small shadows as well. Plus, the eyelid isn’t flat, so it should have a small shadow as well. (And just a note to whom it may concern: The brighter the light, the darker and more solid the shadow. For this picture, it’s probably a pretty soft light, coming from the right side of the page.)
For a lot of artists, it looks just fine if normal rules don’t REALLY apply to highlights and shines. Sometimes, instead of realistically trying to figure out where the light hits the brightest, the put little highlights and the places that come out the most (i.e., the nose, the lips, the muscles on the neck, the cheekbones etc). This kind of decision is a matter of style and taste ^_^. For myself, I think it helps to ignore the rules for highlights and simply place them in the spots mentioned above. Also, how big, how bright etc. are also matters of taste/style, so experiment with ‘em!

Step #6

Hair! Okay, this can be very daunting to most artists, both experienced and beginners. Out of all the coloring steps in manga/anime art, hair is the most varied, because it can be very unique to one’s style. So, if you know another way to color hair that you like better, you can go ahead and use it ^_^ I have my own style, so it’s okay if you like another style better!

First off, make a new layer (mine has a genius name: hair. Oh yeah, dude. Dig it.) I put my layer over “skin” because…well, I like having the skin layer on bottom (dunno why, so don’t ask )

Since he has blond hair, I’ll choose a yellow-ish color for the base tone. I emphasize the “ish” because for blonds, I don’t really like having bright, lemon-colored yellow for the hair. It just messes it up…(To compare: Look at the cover for HAKAMI LEGACY in my gallery and compare it to my other colored pic of Seira. One is more gold-like, and the other is…lemon yellow *embarrassingly so*) So, I go for a little more brown in my blonds. Then, once I have the color selected, I color the same way I did with the skin. (Again, it’s okay to be messy). Then, I use the darker tone to add shading.

Now for the highlights. There are a lot of tutorials already on cell-shading hair, so (as I said) if my style ain’t whatcha looking for, ne’er ye fear, there are other hair styles out there!
First, I took a much lighter shade of the hair (not quite white, though) and drew the basic shape of the highlight. Notice that it gets smaller and the left. Why? Because (speaking in 3D terms) technically, it’s going farther away AND it’s also getting farther from the light source (which is on the right, btw). Then I selected the main tone, and added some various sized lines (which, if you care, I think of as the sides of locks of hair, where the light doesn’t hit). Then, just as a style thing, I added a little bit of white, to make it look a little shinier.

Step #7

Shirt. Okay, this IS cell-shading, so I’m not going to create any fancy textures or anything on his shirt (tch, as if I could!). Anyway, as you may or may not know, Seira always wears his black shirt, so that’s what we’ll be coloring him in now.
FREEZE!
This is partially a style thing, but it does improve your art somewhat. Instead of simply filling in the shirt with black (which can look okay) I prefer to use a very dark gray, and then give it very heavy shading with black. It gives it a slightly more rounded look.
Of course, you know your style, so…^_~
Anyway, make a new layer (mine is called “Shirt” awesome, no? No, I know…. Then, I filled it the same way as before. Then I shade with black.
Now when it comes to shading clothes (with folds, and wrinkles and stuff) how do you make it look good? Either make the person wear a box (sorry for the joke) OR…atience!! Don’t rush it, unless you really know what you are doing! It’ll look bad, believe me! I know, because…well, let’s just say that I am experienced when it comes to creating bad-looking pictures. So, how do you know where/what/how to shade?
Think of each fold/wrinkle as a cylinder. It really helps with all shading if you change it to geometric shapes (either in your head, or in another layer even ^_^) So with that in mind, I’ve shaded the shirt (Of course, the picture is zoomed in, so I didn’t have many wrinkles to shade lol).

Step #8

Clean up! To do this, it’s easiest to hide all of the layers EXCEPT the one you’re working on (to hide a layer –not deleting it-, click the eye next to the layer name). I’ll just clean up skin, for ya, ‘cause it’s exactly the same for all layers, so…
Okay, I hid all of the layers except for skin (and the background, for the line art, and Background #1, ‘cause then I can see better). Simply grab the eraser tool, and start erasing!
NOTES:
1: If the area is cover by another layer, it’ll be fine to leave it. (like on the skin layer, where it will be covered by the hair layer.
2: This is one of those many things in drawing where it pays to take your time! So, get out that big ole’ bag o’ patience!
3: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT LAYER SELECTED! Even if the layer is hidden, you can still draw on it! For instance, I accidentally had the shirt selected when I started to erase the skin, so I had to undo the erasing on the shirt (easily done, though: crtl-Z undoes a lot of steps!
Okay, I ended up erasing a lot of skin tones that would have ended up being hidden anyhow, because that gives me a better idea of what the skin looks like! (Of course, if it bothers you to have it messy, you can erase the excess at anytime!)
So, I went ahead and erased the rest of the extra stuff too!

Step #9

The eyes!!!
The eyes are pretty much the most recognizable features in manga/anime. In this particular image, there is a profile of the eye, and that’s not the best way to look at an eye. But, anyway, here we go!
Make a new layer (guess what I named mine…_-_) and fill in with white first. (at least, fill the area of the eye, of course.) Then, select 3 tones of the eye color (in my case, purple). Fill first with the lightest shade, and then the darker, and then the darkest.
Then, the highlights! (again…. When adding highlights to the eye, keep in mind, it’s not shiny in the same way as the hair, or the skin. Eyes are ‘shiny’ because they’re wet and ‘glassy’, so that’s the effect you want to achieve. I only added one highlight, because…that’s what suited my taste. (Again, it can very style/taste controlled).

Step #10

This is the finished product! You can merge the layers by right clicking any layer and then clicking “Flatten image”. I hope this tutorial helped you to some degree, and if you have any problems with the steps I’ve given, post a message on my profile
(Whew, this took a long time because of all the different pics _-_ *faint*)