I'm looking for an artist to help add color to one of my sketches. I have no skill when it comes to that. The sketch is entitled "Home" and it is listed under 'my character sketches' in this section of the forum. Any volunteers?

Hmm...

Well, I'm going to have to be honest here. Because that particular image is done in pencils and has some detailing with same, it will be a nightmare to try and color. Most images done in an anime style will be straight black and white, inked line art. To color this picture as it is would require a level of patience over and above the norm because the details will have to added as one works.

I would suggest first of all - and you're going to hate me for this - a tracing of the original image as line art. Light tables are relatively cheap these days and are availble at most Art and Crafts franchises, or, if you're strapped for cash, you can place a clean sheet of paper over the original image, then carefully tape the whole thing to a window and use natural light to see and lightly trace your original image. Once that's done, ink the lines (leave Keith's hair 'open' as that can be filled in with solid black), scan and...you're gonna hate me again, because I'm going to suggest that you try to color the image too. Once you have a scanned piece of artwork to play with, you can practice to your heart's content. And that's a big thing, that "P" word. Your skills only improve as you practice, practice, practice. You can't stay in sketch-land forever if you're planning to tackle some serious anime images on down the road.

-- ZWM

hey Z. Thanks for all the tips! I am having some issues with paint. It's unfortunately the only program on my comp that I can use to color. When I try to get the pic from my scanner, it won't detect it. And if I try to just open the jpg file it's waaaaaaaaaaay too big for paint. Any suggestions?

quote:

Originally posted by BlueLionSTL:
hey Z. Thanks for all the tips! I am having some issues with paint. It's unfortunately the only program on my comp that I can use to color.

Paint isn't the best art software in the world, but things can still be done with it. As a matter of fact, attached is an image I scanned and colored with Paint just to prove my point once to someone.

quote:

When I try to get the pic from my scanner, it won't detect it.

Do you mean the scanner is not working now, or something else? I know that with my scanner, when I start the software, it has an image of the last thing I scanned in the Preview window. But it doesn't mean the image is actually there unless the drawing is still physically in the scanner itself.

quote:

And if I try to just open the jpg file it's waaaaaaaaaaay too big for paint. Any suggestions?

You need to adjust your resolution, I think. In my scanner software (I have a Canon scanner), the resolutions are in a drop-down list. See below:



If Paint is choking on the image, then the resolution may very well be the problem.

So, here is my suggestion list:

1) Create a good ink line drawing of the image.

2) Scan at a relatively small resolution (around 150 - 200 dpi)

3) See if Paint can handle that resolution. If not, reduce it futher.

4) Once you have a decent file size that Paint will handle, practice with colors.

jess.jpg (50 Kb, 10 downloads) An image of line art and PAINT ONLY. Believe it.

Z, as always, you have given me awesome advice and I truly appreciate all your knowledge and expertise! You are amazingly talented and I know all of us on the board are lucky to have an artist like you love Voltron too