Barrel 'o' CyberMonkeys

[forfeit]

That is freaking awesome! and the joker is a cool take on the character, really dark, how the joker should be

 

[CyberMonkeytron]

Thanks forfeit

Glad you liked it. I love Sonics lines, so I just had to colour them.

 

[CHIZO]

your gallery is simply amazing man.

 

[K-pax]

Do you use a tablet for all of the pieces when you paint them?

 

[CyberMonkeytron]

Thanks Chizo- im a fan of your stuff as well- so stylised.

K-pax- Yeah, I use a tablet. Ive got a pretty nice wacom that I do all my colouring with. The lines are all hand drawn and scanned though- im not that cool with drawing with it yet.

 

[K-pax]

Sweet. But how do you recolour the original lines? Like, make them lightbrown instead of black, do you fill in the original lines by hand with the tablet or do you lower the opacity or something?

 

[Unleashed]

that joker scares me

 

[Zolland]

Sweet. But how do you recolour the original lines? Like, make them lightbrown instead of black, do you fill in the original lines by hand with the tablet or do you lower the opacity or something?

create a layer above the line art.

hold alt and hover the mouse over the space between that new layer and the line art ...it should look like two over lapping circles. click.

now when you color on that new layer itll only show up over the lines.

 

[Zolland]

Forgot to mention - Congrats on winning the Art Contest, homie

 

[CyberMonkeytron]

create a layer above the line art.

hold alt and hover the mouse over the space between that new layer and the line art ...it should look like two over lapping circles. click.

now when you color on that new layer itll only show up over the lines.

I'll have to try that

The way I do it is a little different, when I want to change the colour of the line i just lasso a section and press Ctrl U (Hue/ Saturation)- increase the lightness (so the line isnt black and you can see the colour change), and move the hue, saturation bar around til i get a colour that i want.

I used Ctrl U a lot because instead of finding the exact colour that I want to use straight away, I can paint with any old colour, and change it later.

Quite often you end up with colour combinations that you would never actually think of using.

Forgot to mention - Congrats on winning the Art Contest, homie

Heh- Thanks man- I just found out . I think I may celebrate by spamming somewhere and get myself a avatar

 

[G-Man]

Just wondering, cuase i see this mentioned all the time. so, What is a "TABLET?"

 

[Zolland]

an electronic drawing board with an electronic pen that mimics your pen movements to the screen. the pen is pressure sensitive so the harder you press the thicker the line becomes.

there are also uber-expensive tablet computers/boards which project the image on the board or let you draw directly on the monitor.

 

[CyberMonkeytron]

Heres something I did for a friend....I got a bit lazy in the end- but I'm kinda happy how it turned out.

The space up the top is going to have some text.

EDIT: i didnt have anything to do with the character design.

EDIT 2: Yes, his sword is compensating for something

 

[Odin's Fury]

you kno, with some slight modifications, this guy could be a green lantern. pretty sweet

 

[Zolland]

i like the reflection in the sword...but should it be there? it looks like the sword is tilted the other way...

oh yes and "great work" is implied because its reeeeeally good

 

[CyberMonkeytron]

you kno, with some slight modifications, this guy could be a green lantern. pretty sweet

hehe- i guess

i like the reflection in the sword...but should it be there? it looks like the sword is tilted the other way...

oh yes and "great work" is implied because its reeeeeally good

Thats the one of the biggest problems i had, trying to juggle what I thought looked cool with what should actually be there. The reflection was something I thought would look cool, but the idea came after I had already drawn the picture. By then I couldnt be bothered re-drawn the sword (or drawing what the actual reflection would look like ).

Im not offically entering the contest this month- but I am going to do an entry. I plan to post my progress as I go- so if anyone is interested in a step by step- watch this space.

 

[Aquaman]

CyberMonkeytron, I have to say you do some of the most professional work on the boards here. Your stuff is always of the highest quality and its something one day I hope to be able to accomplish. Your ability to add lighting and effects is amazing to me. I really wanted you to know that I definatly look up to you, and always enjoy looking at your art.

Just thought I'd get that out of the way.

And that latest pic is really cool. I agree with the reflection. It looks great, no matter the incorrect angle.

 

[CyberMonkeytron]

Wow- thanks Aquaman- thats probably the nicest compliment ive ever gotten. Its always great to hear people like your stuff. I credit a lot of my improvement over the last year with posting on sites like these. Not only for the comments and crits that you get- but the inspiration that you get from other artists.

So I should really be thanking you guys.

 

[CyberMonkeytron]

So Ive had a few people ask about the way I colour and the like, so I thought id do a simple step by step guide to how I do a picture. Im not sure myself how this picture is going to turn out (it was going to be for this months contest, but i kinda forgot that feb only had 28 days ).

Ill try and update this a bit every night.

ok so heres

CyberMonkeytrons' Tutorial to colouring and doing some other stuff


Ok lets just start with a disclaimer. This the the way I do things. If you search the internet for a "this is how you colour in photoshop" tutorial- your going to get a million different views on how to do things. This is my way- not the only way. But hopefully some of the techniques and shortcuts I use may help some of you out.

Im gonna start slow but start to use bigger words a bit later.

Scanning

Ok to start off with your gonna have to get your picture into the computer. There are a few ways, take a photo of it with a digital camera, folding it up and ramming it into the disc drive, or scanning it in using a.......scanner...umm yeah..

If your scanning line art (like I am) set your scanner to produce a greyscale image from anything between 300 and 600 dpi. Sure you can go higher- feel free if your computer can run it, but as a rule of thumb 300-600 will suit most of your needs.

(note- before you scan, make sure you rub out your pencils, it will save you LOTS of time later having to clean it in photoshop)

Getting Ready to colour

Right. Scanned in? Good. Open it in Photoshop- havent got Photoshop? Turn back now. Im not talking to you. Depending on how well your scanner works you should end up with something like this :

Its a bit...well.... dark.

If you go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and slide the bars around- you can fix that though.

Much better.

Now to set up the work so you can start colouring.

RGB? CYMK?
Before you do anything you are going to have to decide what colour system you are going to use. There are two main ones RBG, or CYMK- now they may look the same (both have red, both have green etc), but they represent two completely different ways of displaying colour, so depending on what you plan to have as your end result, it will affect what colour system you should use (in order to get the best result)

If you plan to just have you picture on you computer, or the internet etc, your going to wanna use RBG (Red, Blue Green). RGB is called an 'additive colour system'. Im not going to explain it but you can read about it here

If you plan to print whatever you have done- its best to choose CYMK (Cyan, Yellow, Magneta and Black....yes K stands for black). CYMK is a 'subtractive colour system. Once again im not going to go into it but if you want to punish yourself here you go.

You can convert them later on- but you can run the risk of cetain colours not coming out as well as you had hoped.

As im just going to be working on the computer- i want to use RGB
Image>Mode>RGB

Seperating the lines

There are a few ways to do this- some faster and easier to do than others, but those ways can often have limitations on what you can do to the piece later on. So I use a Channel selection.

If you look next to the layers tab there should be a tab called Channels. Click on it to open and you should see 4 'options'.

Hold ctrl and click anyone of the R, G or B boxes (B is my favourite)

The lines on you work should now have the 'marching ants' around them.

Now what you have done is just selected everything but your black lines.

Click back on the layers tab and create a new layer (the little folded page icon next to the rubbish bin- or Shift+Ctrl+N).

Name your layers
Double click on the words next to the little thumbnail picture on the new layer (if you didn't Shift+Ctrl+N) and name it 'lines'. Its important to make sure that you keep a handle on your layers my naming them when you create a new one. It helps keeps a tidy working space- plus some other reasons ill go into probably later on.

Now you should still have the white areas selected- hold down Shift+Ctrl+I or Select>Inverse (try and learn the quick keys as soon as you can- it will save you lots of time later on).

Now instead of the white being selected- your lines are- sweet.

While on your new layer called 'lines'-click the paintbucket tool (or press 'G') and click somewhere on the canvas. Now you have filled the selected area with a colour (hopefully a black type colour).

now our lines are on a seperate layer. as long as we make our new layers under 'lines' then we can happily colour away- safe in the knowledge that our lines are safe.

The last thing im going to do is create a new layer- call it 'background'- choose a random colour and use the paint bucket ti fill in the area.

When ever you colour, its never a good idea to work with a white background- its better to put something in there.

NEXT TIME

I'm gonna start blocking in this sucker with selection tools, paint bucket and layers- lots of layers.

 

[ampersand]

Awesome, I love the way you color stuff. I can't wait until the next part!

 

[Zolland]

this is worse than the last episode of a smallville season!

you evil, evil man!
no, its cool...i just cant wait to see when things start to make me change my pants.

 

[The Top Hat]

I've seen your art in the contests, and they're always amazing. I'm glad I checked out this thread because youur other art is equally as good.

Can't wait to see how the Halo picture turns out.

 

[Roma]

Cool a tutorial by CyberMonkeytron, I'm staying tunned

 

[ComicChick]

thanks for doing this tutorial. i'm gonna try and learn it and thanks for breaking it down and using words and stuff that even I (who am an idiot when it comes to ps) can understand.

 

[ampersand]

I Want Part Two!