Basic Coloring Techniques

Kyle Runciman / July 19, 2012

Tutorial created in SketchBook Pro 2011, 5 Series
Techniques are useful in any version of SketchBook Pro.
Tools for the Job

Airbrush (standard) Hard Eraser (standard)

Soft Eraser (standard) Paintbrush (standard)

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 Tools for the Job

1 2 3

1. Pencil HB (Based on Preset 2 > Brush 3) 3. Tapered Hard Eraser (custom)

2. Tapered Airbrush (custom)

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 Tools for the Job

4 5 6

4. Tapered Soft Eraser (custom) 6. Tapered Felt Tip Pen (custom)

5. Tapered Paintbrush (custom)
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1 Coloring Start Point
Prepare a sketch.

2 Getting Started
The most important step is the first step.
Create a new layer. This will insure your sketch
throughout the process.
Once youve added a new layer, position it
below the sketch layer (Background). First Paint Layer

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3 Prepare the Fill
There are several ways of going about coloring
a sketch. This is just one technique.
First, the standard paintbrush is used to out-
line the main region of the sketch.

4 Lock Layer Transparency

At this point, you can use a bunch of layers to
build up form with shading and highlights.
But to keep things quick and easy, Lock the
Transparency of the Layer.

5 Airbrushing Form
With the Layer Transparency locked, only the painted area of that layer can be edited.
So take a big airbrush and go to town with darker shades near the bottom and lighter
shades up top to start giving the region shape.
For this exercise, well stick with a basic top-down light source.

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6 The Almighty Erase Back
From here, there is a procedure combining layers, airbrushing and erasing that some call Erase Back
It allows you to paint without worrying about staying in the lines, and focus on building form.
Create a new Layer on top of the Original Paint Layer.
Throw down a darker shade with a large airbrush. Feather back certain areas with a soft Eraser.
And clean up areas entirely with the Hard Eraser set to 100%.

7 Keep Layers Organized

The Erase Back technique can do wonders to your layer stack quickly.
To prevent time wasted looking for specific layers later, merge the ones you
know are solid and are confident with.

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8 Highlight Layers Trick
Creating a glossy/satin look requires some
highlighting finesse.
Start with a big swipe of a white airbrush.
Create your highlight edge by erasing back
with a small hard eraser.

Put down a temporary layer with a contrasting

base color underneath to see where you went
with the airbrush. This makes for a cleaner file
later on.

Get rid of any white in areas that dont need it.

(You can avoid all this with layers built on top
of these highlights, theres a million different
techniques)

9 Hinting at Reflection
There are many ways to deal with glossy fin-
ishes and reflections.
Without stressing over photo-realistic results,
you can carve a horizon
line out of a dark airbrush stoke, and remove
all the extra above.

Like so.

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 Now use a solid white brush to loosely build a reflection coming from the floor.
Fade the top of that layer back with a soft eraser.

10 Wrapping up the Body

When youre happy with all the different layers of shading and highlight,
Merge all the layers and add a new layer underneath to repeat the process.
This can be tedious at first, but practice and tweaking can make this almost brainless work.

11 Base Coats
You might think of this technique as similar to
a real paint job.
Laying down the base coat and adding coats
of candy and clear to finish.
Keep the different base colors on separate lay-
ers to keep things easy.

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12 Lighting and Top Highlights
To create glow from headlights or strong highlights, add a layer above the sketch.

13 Ground It
A simple way to plant the subject down in an environment is to drop a solid color at the bottom of the
stack.
This is where that light-source can really makes the piece pop.

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 Add a layer on top of the background color.
Lay down some white aggressively with the airbrush under all the sketch layers.
Hit the lower corners and upper regions with some black.

14 Textures
Bring in an image with a desired texture.
File > Add Image.
Make sure this is done on a fresh layer, or that
the [import into a new layer] option is selected
in Preferences.
Otherwise, you will lose any work underneath
the imported image.

When the image is brought in,

youll see the Layer Navigation
puck.
Use this to scale, position and
rotate the texture initially.
Select the area you need or erase
away everything you dont.

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 Build up the finish with shading and highlights using the same steps as earlier.
Essentially thats it. You can take an image as far as you like this way.
The only limitations being patience and time.

15 Finish
Sign it.

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