How To Draw Muscle Elves

Hello everyone! Ah, well here I am waiting for my Wacom to arrive but still nothing in the mailbox :( So I was bored and fiddled around with CamStudio and I thought, hey I got some spare oC4 event files. Why not make a video? :D

So, I did! I used some elf guy in classic briefs cause his event file was small and clean :P Then I found some music tracks at Freeplaymusic, and pathed 'em all up using VirtualDub and uploaded it to Youtube. Now here's the free vid! Keep practicing :)

PS - Hey, do any of you collect art tutorials? :O Cause like, uhm, I need 'em too lol. Put something in the comments page if any of you have some art links :)

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How To Color Your Muscle Men In OpenCanvas4 : Part 2 - Hair & Clothes

Continued from How To Color Your Muscle Men In OpenCanvas4 : Part 1 - Skin Tones

Ok, next installment of this measly tutorial. Hmm, where did we left of? Oh yes, hair and clothes! Now you've already done the skin colors, open up another layer on top of the skin layer and fill it in with the base color of your choice.



So you want to keep it clean and color within the hair area only? No, problem, just click on the preserve transparency button.



Next, it's time to color! Choose the appropriate shadows for the hair. Tip: If you're too lazy to use the erase tool, press Ctrl + Z to undo your mistakes fast.



Ah, we're all done with the hair! Now it's time to fill in some colors for the clothes. Make another layer. Set it on top of your skin layer, and do what you did for the hair layer. Fill in the base color -> Use the preserve transparency button -> Color the shadows within the area.





Ah, the picture looks empty? Then lets add some color to the background. Make another layer, and set it at the very bottom. Fill in the colors that you like. I chose a greyish thingy...While I was at it, I also tweaked the skin tones by adding more darker shadows.



After all that, why not put in some bright highlights? Open another layer and set the layer to "Addition". I don't know exactly how it works but it just makes these really bright highlights when you color in the layer. Something like the Dodge tool in Photoshop I think. Choose a light color. It works best. I chose a pale yellow.



After you've added the highlights, I though of tweaking the colors a bit more. So I added some purples in the shadow area.



Not enough, I wanted to make it more purpley, so I flattened the layers (In the layers pallette, Edit -> Merge Visible) then I played around with the Gamma sliders (FIlter -> Tone of Color -> Gamma) and I ended up with the final picture! Last but not least, I added the juices, heheh. We're done :)

Messy version here.

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How To Color Your Muscle Men In OpenCanvas4 : Part 1 - Skin Tones

I had this Kingdom Hearts 2 Squall x Cloud picture that was lying around. So, to give it some use I decided to make a tutorial out of it while I colored it.

So here's what you will need;

1. A pen tablet. This is pretty essential if you want to color digitally. Well you can use a mouse but why kill yourself? :P The best brand in the world in my opinion is by Wacom.

2. OpenCanvas4 (OC). You can get it here.

3. A lineart. If you have a pencil sketch, just scan it in or you can always draw a digital sketch straight in OC. You can also search for some outlines on the net. Here's the lineart used for this tutorial if you want to try your hand at coloring.



Open your lineart in OC. Before you color, think about where your light is coming from.



You can put your light source anywhere you want!

After you've decided where you want it to be, it's time to put the base color on your muscle men. First set your lineart layer to "multiply".



In the Layers palette, go to Layer -> Create Multiply Layer. Put this new layer underneath your lineart layer.



Now choose the base color for skin and fill in all the areas of skin on your muscle men. I don't mind getting the colors bleed out of the line. If you're not like me, you can fill in the skin areas properly and then click on the Protect Layer Mask button. This will make your colors not bleed out of the skin area.



Next, choose a slightly darker shade for the skin and color the areas that are blocked by the light. Remember where your light source is!



After that, choose another darker shade for the skin. The more different shades you put, the more life like your muscle men would look like. Here, I've also added a different tint of skin tone to the nipples and Squall's tool :P



There you have it.

Stay tuned for Part 2 - Hair & Clothes

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