Tutorial - How to color manga.

Manga Coloring Tutorial

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I'm working in Paint Shop Pro 9, but this should be translatable to Photoshop and other versions of PSP. I've never used any other image editing program, and I don't have Photoshop, so please don't ask me for help in them. ♥

First of all, as you can see, the image is not very straight. Let's fix that by rotating the original image (Image -> Rotate -> Free Rotate -> Right -> Free (1.5 degrees). This will leave a silly border in whatever your background color happens to be, but that doesn't matter in this situation since we're just going to crop Skuld anyway.

Grab your Selection Tool and crop the entire panel that Skuld resides in. Paste it as a new image. Note that it isn't perfectly straight, but it's certainly a lot closer. Try not to get any of the black border in your selection, because it'll end up in the icon.



Now, as you can see, she looks pretty washed out! We're going to fix that. First, adjust the brigtness/contrast (Adjust -> Brightness and Contrast -> Brightness/Contrast). This will be different for every image you use, but for this one I left the Brightness at 0 and changed the Contrast to 30. That's better, but I'd still rather have her darker. I duplicated the background layer and set it to Multiply 100%. NOW I have a nice, bright image.



Resize the image so the HEIGHT is at 100 pixels (Image -> Resize). If it's a little fuzzy, sharpen it (Adjust -> Sharpness -> Sharpen). If sharpening it outright makes it too sharp, play with the Unsharp Mask (Adjust -> Sharpness -> Unsharp Mask). If you don't like the Unsharp Mask, duplicate the image, sharpen the top layer, then play with the opacity until it's as sharp as you like.

Now, paste the image onto a blank 100x100 canvas and position it as you like. This is your base. Mine looks like this:



You can do the rest of these steps in whatever order you like; I chose to add my background next. I chose a texture by ownthesunshine, here. Paste it as a new layer on top of your base, and set it to Multiply at 100%. With a small, soft brush, erase everything over Skuld and let it sit in the background. I knew that my color scheme was going to be blue and I didn't want the background to be pink, so I colorized the layer (Adjust -> Hue and Saturation -> Colorize). The settings I used were Hue (194) and Saturation (188), but please play with this on your own - it will be different for each image because the colorscheme will be different!



Next, I decided to color the blush on her face. I did this before the skin color because I didn't want it to stand out too much, but you could always do it later and move the layer beneath the skin color layer. Grab a soft brush (I almost always use a default round one) and in a new layer color over the blush with a pink shade. (I used #fb99f5.) Set the layer to Soft Light 100%. After I did that I decided to color over her mouth, too, with the same color. The effect wasn't enough for me, so I duplicated the layer. As you can see below, even with the layer duplicated you can't see the difference all that much, but when you're all done the stark black/gray will stand out and you'll want to change it anyway.



Next, I colored her skin! With the same small, soft brush color over her skin (I used on a new layer and set it to Multiply 100%. The reason we set the last layer to Soft Light and this one to Multiply is that the previous layer had data that we were coloring over, but now we're coloring over something that's white. If her skin were gray we could use the Soft Light method, but then she'd just look dirty. :P Be sure to color over her neck, too.



Now her eyes and hair. Because they're the same shade of brown AND because I was going to use the same blend option (Soft Light) I put them on the same layer, but usually they need to go on separate layers. I chose a shade of brown (#7d6151) from an officially colored picture of Skuld I had on my laptop, but really, any brown will do. Color over her hair and irises with the same small, soft brush, then set the layer to soft light. I decided I wanted more color on her eyes so I set a new layer to Soft Light and colored over her eyes again. I didn't just duplicate the layer because I thought her hair was fine.



Now I was eager to get some of the blue I mentioned into the picture. I took a patten by _iconographer, here, pasted it as a new layer, and erased it everywhere except her clothing and bun covers. What a cute pattern, huh?



Then I went back and finished up her face; her Goddess markings are blue (which is why I knew I wanted a blue colorscheme. :P), so I chose a blue (#98a3ef) and colored over the markings. I set it to Soft Light, then duplicated the layer and set it to Multiply. I did both Soft Light and Multiply because the gray underneath the blue made it look kind of dirty - the Soft Light layer changed the gray to blue, so it looks more natural. As you can see I didn't color inside of her mouth - I did this mostly because most mangaka don't, either, but you are welcome to do so if you wish. ♥



Now for the finishing touches. I love the dreamy, fuzzy look, so I copied the merged picture (Edit -> Copy Merged) and pasted it as a new layer. I set the layer to Soft Light. Then used the Gaussian Blur (Adjust -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur), set at a radius of 3. That softened the picture a lot, didn't it?



Not everyone likes borders, but I'm sort of obsessed with them. I stamped this brush (I made it, but it's nothing special, haha.) in white on a new layer that I left at Normal.



And there you have it. Coloring manga really isn't difficult as long as you are capable of choosing colors and understand the layer's blending modes! Play around! I'd love to see what you come up with. ♥