COLOR TUTORIAL by Matteo Scalera

STEP II: FLAT COLORS

Hi guys, it’s me again, back to my pinup
Once you’ve prepared inks, you can start doin’ colors!
Just some new suggestions before the start:

-flat colors must absolutely have NO BLACK INSIDE (holy crap, it seems like a kind of title of an old racist porn movie ). Just create colors with Cyan, Yellow and Magenta

-even white parts must be filled with color; it doesn’t matter if you actually see them already white, it’s just the white background giving you that impression, but if you don’t fill that area with colors, it’ll obviously remain a simple empty area. So plz fill them with white, if necessary (I know, that was a stupid suggestion, I apologize )

-learn to use the ACTIONS (you can find the “actions” window right next the “history” one); they’ll help you a lot to speed up your work.
HOW TO RECORD AN ACTION: go to the action windows, then “new action…”, then name it, then assign a function key to it (f1, f2, f3… and then “record”; at this point a recorder will start to record every action you’re doing. Once you’ll have done your moves, press stop, and all those actions will be recorded under one single key.

-when you’re coloring, use the three fundamental contrasts to create depth into your image:
DARKNESS/BRIGHTNESS
SATURATED/UNSATURATED
WARM/COLD

The typical way to use these contrasts is:
The more an object is close to the observer, the more its color is dark
The more an object is close to the observer, the more its color is saturated
The more an object is close to the observer, the more its color is warm

There are obviously exceptions to these rules, especially for the dark/bright and the warm/cold contrasts. In fact, I think a good method consists in giving warm and bright tone on the point you want the observer’s attention focused on first (on the main character, for example)

Just to have a better idea of what I’m saying, plz take a look at these illustrations by Massimo Carnevale (actually one if the best Italian illustrators, IMHO), where he uses those contrasts in different ways, obtaining always great results.
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Another important rule to create contrast between objects is to use complementary colors: as you can perfectly see in Carnevale’s illustrations, YELLOW/VIOLET and BLUE/ORANGE are very good contrasts. There’s a third complementary contrast, GREEN/RED, but it’s a more particular kind, ‘cause red and green tend to have same values to the eye and this create a very strong movement (in a few words, the eye can’t focus on one of them first, and there’s a kind of “fight” between these two colors) so this contrast is usually indicated for extreme action scenes or special scenes anyway.

Ok, after this boring introduction, I can definitely start with the tutorial

STEP1
(ok, I’m using an italian version of Photoshop, hope it’s not a problem )
Create one layer for every element of the composition. In this case there are four elements: the Joint, Milla, the Slug and the Background. Every layer will contain the flat colors for his related element.
(note: I called the white sheet layer “fondo” and the inks layer is “chine”, just Italian terms )

STEP2
Take the magic wand (“W” key).
Important: at this point enable all the three magic wand options (Anti-alias, Contiguous, Sample all Layers)
Simply select an area.

STEP3
Record an action: EXPAND SELECTION
Give it the function key f2.
SELECT-MODIFY- EXPAND; Expand the selection by 1 or 2 pixels, you choose.
Stop recording.

STEP4
Record an action: FILL SELECTION (it already has a function key, shift+f5, but I don’t find it comfortable)
I prefer to have it on the function key f3.
EDIT-FILL; then leave all the options as they are, just give it the OK.
Stop recording.

In this way you’ll have a super-fast method to fill areas.
Just take the magic wand, select an area, then press f2 and f3 and the area will be magically filled with the foreground color you’ve chosen. All in half a second

STEP5
At this point, it’ll be very easy to do flat colors on the entire pinup in a few minutes.
Just watch out you’re doing Milla’s colors on Milla’s layer, Slug colors on Slug layer, etc…(“ooooh, thanx Matteo, I couldn’t get that without you!!!”


If you want to change a color, no problem:
Go to the layer where the color is, then take the magic wand, disable all the three options you enabled before and click on that color.
Then press ctrl+U (or go IMAGE-ADJUSTMENTS-HUE/SATURATION).
A small control panel will appear, play with the controls to find the tone you want.

IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE LEAVING:
As I already said, this is a method that fits with my style, it’s made for graphic works with clean inks, where areas are well separated one each other. If you have a more dirty and rough style this method will obviously suck

See you guys on next step!

CIAO!

Teo