Color Blocking
Added 2019-06-03 05:00:07 +0000 UTCMini tutorial!
Just a lil example to show color blocking - what I call sectioning off where all the different colors on a character are. Useful for many things, especially color planning or general art. Think of it like painter's tape.
To the left you can see each color layer says "lock" which means any brush stroke I make will not go over that designated or "locked" area. Works with the fill bucket too.
- To lock a layer, most programs will have a little padlock symbol on the controls for that layer. To check specifically with any program, you want to find the symbol that "locks transparency."
- For those unfamiliar with the red lines on the the left of the color layers, that means they are "clipped" to the base gray color layer. This makes the color layers only show up on the gray base layer and nowhere else - so you won't accidentally paint all over the background. Again it's like painter's tape where the color layers are restricted, or clipped, to the base. Most programs have the clip toggle in the same area as the transparency lock. Clipped layers are clipped top to bottom, not reverse.
- The simplest way to select your section is to use the magic wand tool (if there are no holes in the line art). Otherwise you can just manually color the section, then lock it.
- Using a rainbow of colors helps you spot the different sections. When I finalize all my color decisions, I'll flatten everything into the base at the end.
Note, this is how people make adoptables that use bases. They just have a base layer with many more layers clipped on top with colors and patterns that they simply recolor and turn on and off.
