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Join my fantastic guild!
Hey there, Chums! This is Dox instructing you on how to draw and color like a pro! So what is it you want to go over? Simply follow the menu to your left. If there's anything that you're not clear on or not answered here, Neomail me!
This is a log journal of the progress and updates I make.
3/17/06- Ok! I put up a lineart that people can use to try out the tutorial. It's a random little cute thing that's not a Neopet, so you can't use it for the AG or BC.=3 If you want to color it and then show off your work, host it and send me a link and I'll post it.
2/22/06- Wow, it's been a loooong time. I was without internet for a while, so that's the reason for the lack of updates. Sorry about that, chums. ^.^; Anyway, to make it up to ya'll. I plan on completely revamping this page ASAP. I really want to change the 5-second background and the top banner. And then I'm going to add some new things, like tips on backgrounds, how to make water scenes, a more complete tutorial on Open Canvas, more helpful links, how to draw Rukis, Boris, Lennys, Korbats, and I'll be posting a generic coloring page for people to test out their skills on, including a page to display the finished ones people decide to submit to me.=3 So there's all that to look foward to, my little minions. Please Neomail me if you think of anything else I should add.
3/14/05- I just typed about two or three pages worth of help in the Open Canvas section, but it was deleted when the browser flipped out and went back for no reason at all. Sorry, but stuff like that makes me want to punch my monitor right in the face. I won't attempt it again at least for another three weeks. ~.~*
2/23/05- Ok, I'm going to put up what I have so far of my Open Canvas tutorial, since I've had a lot of requests for help with that program. I don't know if I can finish it now or not, but we'll see.
2/1/05- Wow! Almost 8,000 hits! That's just 2,000 less than what I have at my DeviantArt Gallery and I've had that for way longer than this. You people rock!=3
Right, well, I'm planning on adding some new stuff, but I'm internet-less at the moment. (If you're wondering, I'm doing this from my college computer lab, not home...where it counts). So, keep your eyes peeled. I've got a wing tutorial in the making. Not to mention that my big OC tutorial breakdown is being worked on. :)
11/8/04- It's been a while. I'm trying to come up with something on Cell-styling, but I'm not that great at it. I gotta do a few more Celled pictures I'm proud of before I seriously make one. I'm also working on a few simple lineart pictures that people can practise their coloring skills on.
10/26/04- Added Drawing Tutorials on Nimmos and Yurbles. Kacheeks and Rukis are on the way. Hopefully, I can have them up to by the end of the night.
10/24/04- Working on new banners for all the sections. Once I finish, I'm going to submit to site spotlight.=3 I also finally centered the main banner. Was I the only one bugged by that? o0
10/21/04- Added a link to the fire tutorial, fixed some of the funky text colors, finished the sophisticated coloring tutorial, and added to the FAQ.
Coming soon!!!
Practise Sheets
Drawing Kacheeks
Drawing Rukis
Before we go on, I'm going to say this once and once only, if you steal any of these images (That includes claiming them as your own, using them in the Beauty Contest or submitting them into the Art Gallery, or anything like that) you will be reported by myself and several other people and promptly frozen. And I'll take all of these down. I'm making these to help people develop their own techniques, not to steal mine. Please, this is an act of kindness. Don't abuse it!
General Tips n' hints
Everyone struggles at first. So I'm going to be makings a little guide for beginners or for people who just don't know anything about drawing. So here's a few rules that should be followed when starting a drawing:
#1) Start Lightly! Lots of pencils are very dark and heavy. Try going to a local art or crafts store and buying some professional drawing pencils. They're a good investment, if you're serious about drawing. They'll come in ranges of H-6H or B-6B. The differences:
H, 2H, ~ 6H=hard lead pencils. They tend to be lighter in value and harder as the number goes up. Good for sketching lightly and the such.
HB=middle.
B, 2B, ~ 6B=Soft lead. 6B and above tends to start to feel like charcoal in darkness, but have a shinny texture when rubbed in. These are mostly for real media pencil-work and graphite art, but they can be used to finally outline your drawing and make a skeleton to trace over in ink, if you decide to ink your drawing.
I rarely use anything above a 3B or below a 2H. Always keep a white plastic or vinyl eraser by your side, since even the best of us make mistakes. White Vinyl ones can usually be bought in a package with Kneaded and Art gum Erasers, which are all very handy. Never use those dastardly pink ones that come on the top of #2 Pencils! *Shudders* They'll smudge your beautiful pencil-work and tear up your paper. We're artists, not paper-maulers!
#2) Ink Carefully! For those of you who ink your drawings in real inks, like me, be careful. It's very easy to slip and mess up...and ink doesn't erase. Luckily, computers have made it so that we don't have to crumple up our 3-hour endevours. Most ink-messes can be cleaned off in PSP8 or OC, but we don't want to spend time we could be using to color pictures scrubbing ink away, hm? So keep a steady hand and don't rush!
#3) Try to develope your own style! Alright, come now. If everyone drew Neopets exactly like the TNT does them, Art Contests would be quite boring. Add a bit of your own flare into a drawing. Do you draw large hands? Have you got a habit of making your pictures exceedingly cute? I notice that I tend to make my heads larger than normal and have my own style of eyes I draw...and I tend to 'humanize' things by giving them human-like mouths and fingers. Here's my Ruki Joshurix for example:
(Ignore the terrible coloring job please. It was just for reference.) Notice how there's a LOT of difference between the original Neopets drawing and my own, yet you can still tell that Joshurix is a ruki. A nice easy way to help find a style is to find a base for your character. Again, Joshurix for example. When the Ruki came out, I instantly knew I had to make him Centaur-like (With four legs and two arms who can resist?!), but I didn't want him to be much like a horse...so I tried to make him more cat-like by using cat references for his poses and designs. But this wasn't enough. He wasn't a cat, he was a bug with armor covering his body. So I needed another component to mix in to make him tough, but agile. So after some thinking, I came up with the perfect character: MEGAMAN!! :D Now, I'm not a huge Megaman fan, but I just remembered his blue outfit with the big shoulders and solid forearms and found it to be a perfect design. (I couldn't find any decent pictures of Megaman, but here's one that shows the basic idea: "http://mmxz.zophar.net/megamanxz/megamanx6/mmx6_box.jpg") And I can probably name off the Inspirations for my other Neopets. (If you're curious, I got Docos's from Bakuryu of Bloody Roar 3 and Andy's from Patches of the webcomic Catena. Cloptorix just crawled out of the bowels of my mind. o0)
Don't be afraid to experiment until you get a style you like. I know mine keeps changing.
#4) Give your Characters...Character! All pictures would be very dull if no character was incorporated into them. Just think about what you want your character to be like. I'll use Docos for an example. He's dark, sarcastic, grumpy, anti-social, and keeps to himself. So I try to incorporate that into him whenever I draw him. When I designed him, I gave him pupiless white eyes that are usually narrowed and a mouth that, whenever open, was usually sharp as if yelling and had a few fangs in it. Like so:
See how the faces are all dynamic and give off a dark, grumpy, sarcastic character? And notice the very bland lame-looking non-characterized face at the bottom. And just to show the other side of the rainbow, here's Andy:
When I designed her, I kept in mind that I wanted a bubbly, cheerful, sassy, sickeningly sweet Chicka. So I make sure that she smiles practically all the time and I keep her eyes open wide with little light spots in them. Her ears just about always stay up too.
When you design your character, remember what kind of features you want them to have about them.
#5) Add features! Pets are kinda boring unless they have something significantly their own. Docos has his trademark glowing eyes and red scarf, Andy has her blue bandana and dress. This'll help people remember your pet...and make it more distinctive. Does he/she have scars? Tattoos? Earings? Markings? Make them unique!
#6) Bring it to Life! Some drawings look just fine without color, but usually color gives them a lot more life.
When you choose to color your pets, make sure you choose colors that go well together. As well as your character. I wanted Docos to have a very forboding look about him, so I made him Shadow, which is what he's painted anyway, and gave him a blood-red scarf that trails behind him. Andy, on the other hand, is white, pink, and light blue, all of whihc are considered happy peppy colors. If you want your pet to be a scary monster, consider making it black or dark green rather than pink....unless your pet has a sense of humor. o0
#7) Switching it up! More of a warning than a tip: Try to keep all your drawings different! You don't want to get used to drawing in one style or perspective or else you'll have trouble getting out of it. One example of this is people who only draw profile pictures. Profile is a fine way of placing your character, but try doing different angles once in a while too. 3/4s is my favorite point of view, just because it gives more depth to your character and makes them really seem to have a sense of body...not to mention shows that you really know what you're doing. Drawing profile a lot can actually hurt your drawing by making it look flat and shapeless.
#8) PRACTISE!!!! I have never heard of any artist who is just effortlessly talented. In fact, I strongly doubt it even exsists (Except in extremely rare cases). I know I worked very hard to get to the level of skill I am at now. In fact, It took me four years of hard practising just for me to feel competent enough to get an online gallery. I used to stay up all night just practising techniques I was told to try, get frustrated when I couldn't get it right, draw characters several dozen times before finding a picture/pose/style I liked, etc... It was never easy and it still isn't. If you're serious about bettering yourself artistically, you have to make a commitment to study hard and practise a LOT!!!
Tools of the Trade
A good knowledge of what you'll be working with might mean the life or death of your picture. Here's a briefing on what you should be using!
Paint Shop Pro8: An amazing painting program that's more sophisticated than MSpaint and a lot less expensive and less complicated than Photoshop. I got mine for $98 and it came with Animation3 for free, so it's a pretty good deal. I use it to color most of my drawings. Since it still takes a while to get the hang of, I'm going to explain some of the features.
Let's start with the Buttons: 
 Zoom: This is probably the most used of all your buttons aside from the Paintbrush. It's pretty self-explainitory: Right click to zoom in and Left click to zoom out. It allows you to get into the tiniest of crevices to get real strong detail.
Helpful with: Everything.
 Crop- The crop tool is not used often, but definitely helpful for those instances that you need it. Say you happen to scan too much of a particular picture in; Simply click and drag over the length of picture you wish to keep and double click to crop the rest off. Very basic use.
Helpful for: Cropping off bits of picture you don't like, resizing, making collages.
 Magic Wand: Now this is something you should get yourself acquainted with. It's easily one of the most helpful tools you have on the toolbar. It allows you to manipulate one certain area of a picture without doing so to the rest of it. Just click the area you wish to color or shade or whatever and it will be highlighted in moving dotted lines, allowing you to fill the space without going outside the dotted border. Clicking on the arrow beside it will bring up to other selection tools called the Free hand Selection (I like to call it the Magic Lasso) and the regular old Selection. They work in the same basic fashion; allowing you to select a certain area and manipulate it without the rest of the picture, but with a few differences.
 Free hand Selection- With the Free hand Selection, you have to actually physically click and traces over the area you wish to select, making it a little more time-consuming, but helpful if you want to be extremely detailed or picky.
Selection- The regular Selection is similar to the crop tool in that you simply click and drag over the area you want selected, though it only works in rectangular form. The Magic Wand is probably the one you'll use most though.
Helpful for: Selecting specific areas of a picture, having a neat outcome, staying inside lines while coloring, staying inside lines while shading/highlighting.
 Dropper- The Dropper tool is great for when you need to replicate a specific color for a drawing. For example, I want to color a picture of my Maraquan Buzz, but I want to make it very accurate by using the same colors as Neopets does. So I save a picture of the Maraquan Buzz onto my computer, open it in Paintshop Pro8, use the Dropper tool to select the colors I need, then open my picture and color using them. Very simple. You can also get the HTML number for whatever color you're using by double-clicking the color swatch and pulling up the Material menu. That's great for when you're trying to build a web page and you need the exact coding of certain colors.
Helpful For: Getting exact colors, finding the HTML number for colors, replicating pictures.
 Paint Brush- Ah, now we come to the one we've all been waiting for. The Paint Brush tool is, without a doubt, the most used and most recognized out of any tool. Just select the colors you wish to use and paint away. You can easily customize the brush's size, hardness, opacity, density, thickness, style, shape, and even different presets to your liking by using the toolbar just over the picture. You can preset your brush to make anything from animal fur to twisters. The other two tools you can get from the Paint Brush by clicking the side arrow are the Airbrush and the Warp Brush (Note: The Warp Brush isn't present in PSP7).
Airbrush- The Airbrush is excellent for shading and highlighting using the sophisticated way of painting. It has a flow of its own, rather than just an even coat of color. So if you hold the brush over a particular area for a longer amount of time, it'll create a more solid blob of paint. That's one thing you have to be careful about with the Airbrush. Just make sure you evenly coat whatever area you use.
Warp Brush- The Warp Brush is a little more unique. Rather than color, it 'warps' your picture in different directions. It's extremely tricky to use and can get rather annoying at times so I don't use it much, but it can give nice blending effects if used correctly. I'd recommend practicing with this before using it seriously.
Helpful for: Coloring (Duh), making markings, blending, highlighting/shading, creating special effects, blending.
Dodge- (This button has a lot of tools you don't use much since they're more for specializations, but I'll go over all of them quickly anyway.) Not a tool I like much. It makes your colors a shade whiter with no gradual change. Some people use it with cell styling, but I don't like the way it comes out. Feel free to experiment with it though.
Burn- Again, not a tool I like much. Works in the opposite way of Dodge, by making your colors a shade blacker.
Smudge- Smudge is mostly used in the same was the Warp Brush is except it's a little more predictable and safer to use. By tweaking the hardness, strength, and opacity down, you can make some very nice fur and blending effects. It's good for making wispy fur or giving your flames flickering tips.
Push- Works pretty much as the title says: click an area and drag to 'push' it. I've never used it. Another tool I don't like much.
 Soften- This is one you might actually use! Soften is basically adds blur to whatever area you click over. It's good for trying to add a softer appearance to a certain area or trying to show something fuzzed-out by camera work or something.
Sharpen- Working in the opposite way of Soften, it sharpens whatever you click over. I don't use it as much as Soften, but it's nice to know in case you need it.
Emboss- Another tool I've never used. It has the same exact function of the Emboss effect, except in brush form: embossing over your picture with a yucky gray coating and enhancing the line art.
Helpful for: Any effects you may want to make, blending, blurring.
 Lighten/Darken- This is a tool I used to use all the time. It's sort of a shortcut way of shading: click to darken and right click to lighten. I recently started inching away from it as I've picked up that shading and highlighting with black and white do more harm than good, but if you're a beginner it might be better for you to start out using this. Also nice for making a cool fur effect.
Saturation Up/Down- Not a tool I use, but it's fun to play around with. Again, the title pretty much explains the function: click to make the saturation go up and right click to make it go down. I've never seriously used it in a drawing, but sometimes I just fool around with it.
Hue Up/Down- Another fun tool rather than a serious one. Another self-explanatory one. I can think of a few uses for it, like if I ever wanted to make a neat picture of a rainbow pet, but other than that I don't use it. It's kind cool to use it after you finish something just to see it in pretty rainbowy colors.
Change to Target- Again, it's a really really cool tool and probably a very helpful tool, but one I rarely use. It changes your colors to whatever you have selected without damaging the shading and highlighting. So, if you make a picture of your blue blumaroo and later want to change it to pink, simply use the Change to Target tool too change it from blue to pink without messing up the shading. The most helpful scenario I can see this in is when making adoptables.
 Eraser- If you don't know what this does you're plain daft, but simply click and whatever mistake you made vanishes before your very eyes!
Background Eraser- I never use this one, but it erases the darker shades in your picture and eventually gets up to the lighter ones. I can't see many instances when it would be helpful, but it's there.
 Picture Tube- Here's another fun one. Select a tube from the dozens of little icons and click all over your picture to see what's inside. There are so many different images that can be made that I can't list them all, but some of my favorites are Eagles, Flames, Fireworks, Butterflies, Purple Lightning, Water Droplets, and Bubbles. Experiment a lot with this.
 Flood Fill Tool- More commonly known as the Bucket tool, the Bucket simply allows you to fill areas with color. It saves a bit of time over the Paint Brush, though it lacks all the fancy customizing options.
 Text- When you finish a picture, it's a good idea to put your name on it or at least some form of a watermark (That way, no one can steal it. Or you'll at least be able to claim it's yours) and that's where this tool comes in handy. There's a nice selection of fonts too, depending on how many you have, and you can easily change the size, font width, or make it bold italics if you wish.
 Preset Shapes- Another rarely used tool, but one that's good to at least know. It allows you to use a variety of preset shapes to make anything from perfect squares to arrows to callout bubbles for comic speech. I only use it when making a comic, but you might find a more pliable use for it.
Well, that covers about all of the tools you'll use for PSP8. The ones I skipped over are ones that I've never used once and see no need to explain them, but feel free to experiment with them on your own.
Now I'll roughly go over the toolbars of some of the tools!
With the Magic Wand and other selecting tools, you'll get this bar. The only one you really need to know is Tolerance. Tolerance is how much variation you'll be allowed to select. For example: If the Tolerance is set very low, it won't select more than a few colors. If the tolerance is set high, it will select many variations or even the whole picture. If you picture is one solid color, the wand will select it no matter what the Tolerance is set at since there's no variation. If you don't understand, just try it out and you'll get the idea.
The other important toolbar is the one for the brushes.
Size- Allows you to select the size of your brush. Careful, as the larger the brush gets the more it'll slow your computer.
Hardness- Allows you to make your brush either a hard solid circle or a soft fuzzy poof. The hard circle is better for just filling empty spaces or making spots and tattoos on skin. The soft poof is better for making effects like differences in fur color, patterns, or glowy spots.
Step- Step is difficult to explain, but It allows you to either make a straight brush line or a segmented one. Step is basically the distance between each stroke of your brush (If that makes much sense) If you don't understand, just fool around with it and you'll get the idea.
Density- Allows you to control how solid your brush is. Low Density will make your brush kinda dotty like the Airbrush while a high Density will keep your brush very solid.
Thickness- Allows you to control how thick or thin your brush is. Helpful for when the presets don't have the exact kind of brush you need. Personally, I use this most when I'm trying to make eyeballs and pupils.
Rotation- Doesn't do much with the circular brush, but it's useful for when trying to get a certain shape on a certain angle.
Opacity- This shows the visibility of your brush. Low Opacity makes it less visible while high Opacity makes it more visible. Pretty useful with special effects and things of that sort.
(Work in progress...)
(More to come...)
First! We're going to go over how to draw blumaroos, since that's the #1 requested creature Dox gets asked how to draw. Here's a diagram. Follow along!
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Well, I had a few people ask me how I draw kougras all scary and mean-like...then I had people ask me to draw a cute kougra as a baby or something...So to appease both groups, and because I'm just so darn nice, I'll show how I draw both!
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Alright, I did the Lupe one. Now please don't ask me anymore. XD
Drawing Nimmos
Well, Nimmos are one of my favorite pets. It'd be kind of unfair if I didn't make a tutorial for them. ^^
Drawing Yurbles
People seem to like the way I depict Yurbles so here we go!
Drawing Kacheeks
I'm not too fond of kacheeks because their cuteness freaks me out, but I'll do a tutorial on them anyway since they're very simple to draw.
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Keyword here- FREEEEE! Open Canvas is just about the best FREE painting program out there. In certain circumstances, it totally surpasses all other programs. Though it lacks the fun extras and options PSP8 offers, it's incredible for scribbles, getting a watercolory look, and greatly compliments a tablet. I find myself doodling in it just about all the time. Also makes for fantastic inking, if you have the time.
Since OC is less complicated than PSP8, I won't be as in-depth. But here're the basics:
First of all, since a lot of people ask about this, if your copy of Open Canvas happens to be in Japanese, don't panic! Simply click on the very last menu at the top of the screen and select 'English'. Magic!
1. Menus- Like most programs, there's the menus. Not much to explain here. Clicking 'file' will allow you to create new files, open old ones, save, etc. Open Canvas also has a nifty online feature, but I don't use it much since I don't really know many people with the program.
2. Tools- These are pretty self-explainitory. The pencil allows you to use the brushes and drawing tools. The dropper beneath it allows you to select colors off an image. Ignore the funky negative and positive boxes. I don't know how to use them effectively and whenever I do use them all it does is make a big ol' black or white blotch. They have something to do with dodge and burn, which are tools I fear. The swiveling boxes beneath them rotate your picture. The magnifying glasses are obviously 'zoom in' and 'zoom out'. The arrowy tool on the top right side is the move tool and the one beneath it will make straight lines.
3. Palette- The palette is virtually the same as any other program. Simply select your color on the color bar and it will be displayed in every hue in the main box.
4. Brushes- The brushes in Open Canvas are more like brushes in Photoshop than Paintshop. They're tablet-sensitive, which is nice, and have a very soft watery look rather than a hard opaque look. The first one is the pencil/pen. It's much like the regular paintbrush in PSP8, but it has a much softer feel to it. Depending on whether you have a tablet or not, pressure can really make this tool work well....
(to be continued...)
I had a few people ask for help with Lineart. Problem is, there's not much to help with.=3 At least, with real media inking. But I can give pointers on Computer linearting!
Right, well, firstly, PSP8 is NO GOOD for inking. It's wobbly and squiggly and pretty dang awful. I've never used it for lineart. Bleh. Whenever I do so, I use Open Canvas, which is a nifty little free program you can download somewhere online_________________________. It's gotten a little rare, and the place I got it from has discontinued it for bandwidth reasons, but you can download it here: "http://www.purrhead.thj.no/reccomendations.html
Right well, start with a nifty sketch. Clean it up as best you can and make it spiffly clean! Somewhat like this:
Hee, Doesn't Docos look nifty?=3 *ahem* Anywho. - mismatched tags - NewLayer(MultiplyMode/Default). This makes a new layer over which to do nice crisp even lineart on.
Ok, now make sure you're on your new layer and start carefully tracing the sketch. (I hope you have yourself some sort of tablet, because if not this is going to be difficult. oo) Once you finish, delete the sketch layer (and make sure it's actually the sketched layer, not the lineart layer!) Now you should have a pretty clean even linearted drawing like this-a!!!
Get the picture you would like to color and scan it onto the computer. Make sure it's inked, so it'll be easier to color. Some people ink their drawings on the computer. I prefer just doing it with actual inking pens (Microns with about a .005 width tip). Anyway, scan it BIG (At least 600 or something). I'll use the picture of Andy I did before. It's 677x551.
- mismatched tags - 16 Million Colors (24 bit). This'll make it so that you can color it in every color again. - mismatched tags - Delete. I know, I know, at this point everyone says, "WTH Dox?!" Just do it. Ok! Now that lineart prep is done, time to actually color! :D
Click on the little magic wand tool on the sidebar. It should be the fifth one down. (You may have to fish for it. If there's something that looks like a magic lasso, click the arrow next to it and find the magic wand in the drop-down menu) This thing allows you to color in large fill-in blobs without getting color all over your pretty lineart. Click on a section that you wish to color. There should be a weird moving dotted-line thing around the section. Now click on the paintbrush tool, pick a color from the color pallette. (Andy is white, so I'm using white) Use the brush to fill in the selection.
Blumaroos have cute pink noses, so now pick a pink you like. (Or if you know the program better, save a picture of a blumaroo off Neopets and use the dropper tool to get the exact shade of pink) Now color the tip of the nose with it. You can play with the Hardness to make it a soft fuzzy blend or a hard blend. If you want to, you can use the Smudge Tool to create a realistic fur blending between the colors.
Onto shading! (This is soft-shading, not cell-shading, btw.) Select the Lightness/Darkness Tool, which looks like a circle thats half black and half white. Make sure the opacity is low as well as the hardness, both around the 30s or lower (High Opacity will make your shading too dark and blotchy. High Hardness will give you a cell-styled look). Shade around the edges of the picture for a nice 3D look. Lighten the parts that stick out like the nose and forehead. Alternate between the left and right mouse buttons for Lighting and Darkening.
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Here's a part that can be skipped, because it takes a long time and it's not necessary, but it really helps convey a furry more realistic appearence! Get out the Lightness/Darkness Tool again, set the Size to 1, set the Opacity very high (80†), and set the hardness at 100. Now make lotsa little lines going in the direction of the fur flow. It'll give a stridented appearence and look extremely kewl.
There isn't much more to guide through. Use the same techniques on other parts of the picture. You can add in a background if you want. (I did a cheapo one) And remember to resize it down to a reasonable image. Hope you did well! :D
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Sophisticated Coloring on PSP8
Ok, this is for people who know the basics of the program and are experienced in coloring on PSP8. If you're a beginner you should stick with the other style of coloring for now. This type of coloring takes a little longer, but gives a more professional look and much more flexibility in the coloring process.
Start out like you usually would. Open the drawing you wish to use (I'm going to use a group portrait of all my pets on my spare account Doxor) and decrease the color depth to 2 colors (Image:Decrease Color Depth:2 Colors(1bit)) then increase it back up to 16 million colors again (Image:Increase Color Depth:16 Million colors(24 bit)). Put a Mask layer over it (Layers:New Mask Layer:From Image(Source Luminance and Invert Mask Data checked)) then delete it (Layers:Delete). Should look like this:
Now here's what we do differently. Rename your current layer Lineart so you don't get confused. Set the Blend mode to Multiply (Rightclick:Properties:Blend mode:Multiply). Make a second layer and drag it under Lineart. Name this one Color, since you shall be coloring on this one.
Now make sure you're on the Color layer, take out the paintbrush tool, and start coloring. It'll take a good long while, since you don't have the nifty little magic wand to help you stay in the lines. Just make sure you go back and erase where you go outside the lines. Do this until the entire image is colored in flat colors and everything is inside the lines. Shading comes in later.
Once your finished filling in all the color, create another layer called "Shadows" and drag it over Color. Double click on your color palette and get your Material menu. Choose a color a little darker and grayer then the one you're currently using. It'll show you the difference between your previous color and the one you're choosing in the boxes below.
Now we get to use that nice little magic wand again! (Yay!) Get it out, move on over to the Color layer and select the color you want to start shading. Select the Shadow Layer again so that you don't accidentally shade on the color layer. (I actually did this myself while making the tutorial and had to start over) Now get out your Airbrush by clicking on the little arrow next to the Paintbrush and begin shading around your character. I suggest keeping the Opacity light, around 15, and the Step low, around 3. The Airbrush is nice because it comes out with it's own flow. Keep selecting new areas of color, shading them, and moving onto the next until you finish shading. Just DON'T forget to select your color on the Color layer then switch to the Shading layer to shade!
Almost finished! Don't fret! Create another layer, call it Highlights, and drag it over Shadows. Now you're going to do basically the opposite. Select a lighter whiter shade of color, use the Magic Wand to select the color you wish to highlight on the Color layer, and airbrush highlights onto the Highlight layer. See the difference between the plainly shaded picture and the shaded/highlighted picture? See how much more depth the one on the right has?
Keep on shading and highlighting until you've done everything in your picture. Now you're just about done. If there's any finishing touches you want to add, like a bit of fur blending, extra highlighted spots, glowy flashy effects, text, or a background do them now. I added their names next to each of them and my name at the bottom. (It's always good to sign your pictures or work a logo into them somehow to prevent art theft.) For a background, I simply double-clicked the color swatch, selected the gradient menu, and found a gradient I liked. You can do patterns or make your own, or even leave it blank if you want. I made a smooth light blue transition.
Another thing you can do for a nice professional look is coloring the black lineart. If you go back to the lineart layer and select all the black lines, you can color over them. Select a color slightly darker than your darkest shade on that particular section and color. Be careful to make sure you don't color the lineart where the colors would look weird. (For example, I wouldn't use the same dark blue to color the lineart on Joshurix's fingers as I would on his head, since they're two different blues.) And if you have joined characters, like I do, be careful not to mix the colors on the lineart. Some pictures look fine with just black lineart. (Usually pictures that have a dynamic look to them look better with black lineart while pictures that want a calm, peaceful, or stationary look seem better with colored line art. For examples, compare my Bori picture with this.)
Your end result should be something along like this! Hope you did well! If you forget, simply refer back to this!
Test your skills!
So, you think you've remembered everything? Are you ready to test out what you've learned? Well, for those of you who don't have scanners, or simply aren't comfortable trying out these programs on your own picture, I've made this:
Meet Nestie. She's not a Neopet, so you can't submit her into the Art Gallery or Beauty Contest. ^.^ She's a Krilli, a creature I created. Anyway, this is here for you to 'test your might'. Use whatever coloring skills you have to make her beautiful!
Just go to the link below and save the larger version. When you finish it, upload it to a host of your own and send me the link I'll post it so everyone can see how well you can use the program. You can also put it on Deviantart/Elfwood/Shezzy/your website/whatever as long as you say somewhere that the lineart was done by The Unorthodox. ^.^
http://www.-blocked-/theunorthodox/randomcute.jpg
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Glowing can help enhance certain features and make special effects really eye-catching. Best of all, it's very simple to do. :D - mismatched tags - Delete.) If you already have an image open and just want to glowify it, just make a new layer over the image and do this technique on there.
Right, take a slab of color. Light ones usually work best. I'm going to go ahead and use purple. Set the hardness to around 50 and slap it on. Then get a smaller brush size, set the hardness to about 80, click on the color palette and select a color a few shades lighter than the one you're using now. I pick a light white-ish purple. Make a single dot in the center, so the glow looks like its radiating off something. If you want to, you can make a background layer and set it to black so you can see the glow better. I usually do this. You should have something like this so far.
Now this is already glowy, but it's very plain. I mean, there's nothing snazzy or special about it. We're going to spice this faerie up a bit.
Go up to the top where the brush menu is and click on the small button next to "Presets". It should have a fuzzy black dot on it. Select the brush called, "Coarse Hair Twist".
Now make a new layer over this one. Set the opacity to around 70 and make big circles around the glowy spot (Or however you see fit). This makes an interesting ghostly wavey pattern that looks pretty cool and looks almost like a magic dust trail. Now to add a bit of sparkle to it. Click on "Presets" (The button with the brush on it). Select "Colored Noise". Now scribble that everywhere. It makes a nice sparkly dotted pattern all over your glowyness. You can go ahead and use just about any brush to make it even more showy. Try taking the Star and Twirly Star brushes out, shrinking them to about a size 20, and dotting them around for a 'Universe' kind of look. Take the normal brush and set it to a low hardness, low opacity, and light color and dot around to make tiny glowing sparkles. You should end up with something like this.
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Making fire:
There's two ways to make fire on PSP8: The Do-It-Yourself lengthy way or the Picture-Tube-Cheater easy way.
Do-It-Yourself lengthy way- Get out some oranges and yellows (Or whatever color you want your flames to be. You can use blues and reds too). Make a big blob of orange and a smaller one of yellow in the center. Now use the smudge and warp tools to make flickering flames extend upwards. To add a little flare, you can select a few lighter colors, set the opacity low, and make it a little glowy. You can also make little sparks and smoke and embers simply by experimenting with brush presets. You gotta figure out SOME things on your own. ;)
Picture-Tube-Cheater easy way- Get out the fire tube and make little flames everywhere. Cheater! Cheeeaaaater!!!! XP
Some people want to know how to save pictures and save with as much quality as they possibly can. This is easy!
Ok, when you save, go to Save As:Options. There's a little bar that you can slide over so that it saves with the most quality and the lowest compression. If you wanna go further than that, go to Run Optimizer and set the compression value to 1.
If you want it even nicer than that, you can save it as a BMP, but the file sizes are so huge I won't bother with them. o0
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Drawing FAQ
1) I downloaded Open Canvas, but it's in Japanese. How do I change the language?
Go to the very last drop-down menu on the right. That's the Help menu. Click on it and there should be a selection that allows you to check off the language English(E).
2) What's a tablet?
A Tablet is a type of Digital drawing tool that works like a pencil and paper for an Art Program:A necesity for the serious digital artist. Simply use the Tablet pen to draw on the Tablet surface and the image will come up on the computer screen! It's a wonderful tool that helps with details and makes Computer Coloring much quicker and easier. My tablet is a Wacom Intuos 2 Graphics tablet. It cost me about $300, but it was one of the more expensive brands. If you're a begginer without a lot of cash you can probably pick up a cheap second-hand one online for around $50 or less. Wacom makes the best quality tablets as far as I know, but there are other companies that make them just as well and less expensive.
3) The music is annoying. How do I stop it? e.e/ I love the music! What song is it? ^^
You can stop the music by clicking the 'Stop Load' button on the top of your browser or the invalid tagEsc) on your keyboard. Unfortunately, This will also stop the page from loading anything new so make sure all the pictures are loaded before hitting it. If not, you can simply right click on broken images and go to 'Show picture'.
The song is called, "House of the Rising sun" by The Animals. It was a big hit in the 70s and has several wonderful covers. I love it. ^^
4) How often do you update this page?
Just about every day! o.o
5) I'm having a problem that isn't explained on your page! What should I do?
Neomail me. I'm on just about every day. If you have a question, I'll get to you right away.
6) Could you link me? :) Pretty please?
Sorry, but the answer is probably no. I really only link sites that are related to my site in some way (Usually, by being art or help-related) or if I find them to be extremely useful and resourceful. You can send me your site if you'd like, but chances are I won't link you. Sorry.
6) I was using PSP8 and clicked the Back button when little blocks of my picture appeared in a different part of my picture! How do I fix this?
This is a problem I've simply learned to deal with. I don't know whether it's a glitch in the program or just a problem that blips up after being used for too long. The only way I've learned to combat it is by using lots of layers and trying to Clone-brush it away. I'll put up instructions on the Clone Brush soon.
7) Where can I download Open Canvas?
Please, stop neomailing me about this. I had it all over this page and so I'll put it down this one last time.
http://www.purrhead.thj.no/reccomendations.html
That's the address. You can get Open Canvas there as well as GIMP, so please stop nagging me about it!
If you have a question that isn't answered here, feel free to neomail me! Also, my AIM username is 'TheUnorthodoxMrS'. Please only IM me if you have a question. ^.^
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If this tutorial helped you, it can probably help other people too! Please, link me. ^.^
Other help sites
Mindsend is a great friend and an excellent artist, as well. Here are some tutorials she made.
Mindsend's drawing tutorials.
If you have or know of a art help site that's not listed here, please neomail it to me. (It doesn't have to be on Neopets.)
Sites/people who rock:
Tannirix's page has some useful HTML†CSS bits and peices. And he also belongs to my darling little sister, Wolfbabe9000.
This thing cracks me up!
A nice little index on everything.
Click Here
Read the risks of pet transfer here!
If you're new to Neopets, please PLEASE read this!
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