My Sonic art - Drawing (56k)

[Alastor]

Agh, i just use a pencil. >_<

[Master hunter]

Get a fineliner then and go over the lines you want, then delete the pencil. They're not exactly expensive or hard to find you know.

Even Black Biro works but it isn't all that good (http://www.deviantart.com/view/20103411/ - my first photoshop work and that was done using biro)

[Alastor]

I used to do pen all the time!

Then i realised it was pretty daft to CHOOSE pen over pencil.

Would you ever drawyour characters drawing blood or anything like that MH?

Im not psycho im just wondering if you would treat them like you would Sonic ond the crew.

[Master hunter]

You mean getting hurt? Yeah I would. An all powerful unhurtable character (besides Super Sonic, but I even found a way to hurt him) is just lame.

I haven't done it yet only because I haven't thought about doing it yet.

[Alastor]

Yeah, but with red stuf coming out a cut on their arm or something!

And how did you hurt Super Sonic?

[Master hunter]

I would but I haven't worked out how to make it look effective. I did mutate my main character which features some bloodstained fur (http://www.deviantart.com/view/23034421/).

I hurt Super Sonic in one of my fics. A demon made up of pure Negative Chaos Energy faced Super Sonic with Pure Positive Chaos Energy. The two cancelled each other out and any negative energy attack that hit Super Sonic hurt him.

[Master hunter]

Ok next stage, we're almost ready to colour, shade and add the finishing touches.

Now as the name suggests Flash Smoothing used Flash. I use Flash 5 which is outdated but I'm sure the same techniques will work in other versions.

Flash Smoothing

Start by Importing your saved PNG into Flash (File > Import Image (or just Import not sure which). Zoom as far out as possible and rescale until it fits on the screen properly.



When you've done that select MODIFY > TRACE BITMAP to change an image file into selectable lines (click OK on the pop up menu). Click somewhere away from the lines and zoom back to 100%.



Highlight a small section of the lineart using the black arrow tool (1) and then play about with the smooth and sharpen tools (3). Selected areas have those white dots on top of them, non selected areas do not (2). You should see that the section's lines are smooth (4) (at that point I continued on to do the full head).

Fairly easy but quite time consuming. When you have smoothed all the lines go to FILE > EXPORT IMAGE and save as PNG. Then fill out the entire image in black and choose FILE > EXPORT IMAGE. You should have



and

[Master hunter]

Open both images in photoshop again (hold CTRL when selecting more than one file), highlight the lineart one, press CTRL+A, then copy it and paste it on top of the Black one. It should look something like this (note look closely and you'll be able to make out the lineart on top of the black)



We are now ready to colour and shade.

[Master hunter]

Colouring

This is the first time I have actually coloured Jade and I'm still not sure on the main clothes. I wanted something dark but not black.

Anyway we start by hiding the backing layer by clicking the eye next to it (1). Then start a new layer (2) for every colour (3). Use the Paint bucket tool (right click the gradient tool if it's not there). Note always leave you lineart (4) at the top. If you look closely you can see the need for a backing layer especially on darker colours (5)

If you are doing official characters or someone else's character always eye drop an official picture, like so...



Click the eye next to the backing layer and you'll see a difference in line definition.

We should now have this

[Master hunter]

The first optional Shading layer - Complications

When Shading complicated areas such as Black or dark colours (I'm come back to that later), or say a face, I give that layer four grouped layers. Working from bottom to top the first is the Complication layer.

For lesser areas 3, sometimes even just 2 are enough.



To start off make 4 new layers and group them (highlight layer and press CTRL+G) to the colour layer. Arrows should appear next to them. Now whatever you do to those layers it will only affect the layer it's grouped too, i.e. In this case on the main body green.



Sectionise your face like above. Or in the case of Black/Dark colours use Edit > fill (choosing foreground color this time) on your complications layer with a BRIGHTER colour.

THIS LAYER WILL BE DELETED LATER.