Digital Illustration:
Drawing and Coloring a Picture

The following was drawn and written by NetRaptor. I do not claim to be an expert with Adobe Photoshop, or any other art program, for that matter. These are just some nice tips I've come up with, and my opinions on how to use them. You may be a better artist than me, in which case, please try to refrain from belly-laughs.
Start with your preliminary sketch. Put as much or as little detail as you like--the important thing is to get the details outlined enough to making inking fairly simple. At this stage, you want to figure out perspective, angles, etc. The inital drawing is the hardest part, and you'll have to consult the other tutorials if you want tips on that.
Next, go back over the sketch and trace it in ink. Make sure you join all your lines, or when you scan it and start coloring, you'll spend all your time patching holes. The more complex your drawing, the longer the inking stage will take. Once it's all done and the ink has dried, go back over it with an eraser and erase all the pencil lines. You want as clean a scan as possible.
Scan your image as a black and white drawing, or two colors. You don't want any of those annoying white blocks beside your lines when you start coloring. Open your image in a raster imaging program (I use Adobe Photoshop), and block in your colors. Pretend it's a coloring book, and fill everything in solid color. This is to get an idea for how the colors will look and where the shadows are. I filled in the sky behind Sonic with a dark blue, to give the image a dark, ethereal feel.


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