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I began with the skin layer. You'll note in the above picture that the selection goes outside of the skin and also seems to include other colors. But those colors won't actually change any because those colors are on their own layer, and arn't affected.
I use the Polygonal lasso tool to select the areas on the skin that I know will be shaded. Again - using the Shift key to add to the selection with new selections.Since the 'Cell Style' type of coloring is based on the solid shades of color used in animation on cells, the colors you use will be few. In anime, the animators don't have time to paint in detailed shades to every frame of animation, so the darker areas are minimized into one solid color, and the lighter areas are also a lighter solid color. Once you have selected the area that you know will be a darker or lighter version of the current color, choose 'Image > Adjust > Brightness\Contrast' and change the brightness accordingly.
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The highlights on the hair, is one of the parts that many people find they have trouble with, when it comes to 'cell style' coloring. Some people select a very obvious 'zig-zag' pattern, and others simply have a randomly jagged highlight. The highlights are usually concentrated in a band along the hair where there is some sort of curve. But the highlights are not limited to this.
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Once I had finished the shades to all the main layers, I did the eyes. It really doesn't matter what order you add the shades in, I have simply aquired the habbit of doing the eyes last. The initial flat shading I do to the entire eye, not just the pupil. But it's the pupil where the most important shading takes place, so once I've shaded the entire eye, I make a selection around just the pupil so that nothing I do from here on will effect the white part of the eye. This is also the only place where I use the airbrush tool. This is optional, you can actually make a selection and fill with solid colors to get the black pupil and the white highlights, however I prefer the soft look of the airbrush when it comes to the eyes.
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And Guess What? We're finished! Hope this helps you out. I'm sorry if there are a lot of typos - I don't doubt that there are - I'm not much one for correcting my typing errors. ^_^ If you have any further questions, feel free to post them on the message board - I check it almost every day.
Bye bye!
- completed 5-31-00