Just yesterday, someone posted asking about how to go about painting an Anime style image - so here we go again. Pretty much exactly the same technique I used for Casper - just more of everything really.
I will say there are more ways than one to skin a cat, so this is how I would go about it - there’s nothing definitive about this but it does work and can provide great results.
So again my old friend the Bracket will be coming in for some heavy use. On FH4 it can be found here;
I basically use this shape to sketch out the image, providing me with an outline, I can ‘back fill’ - by that I mean I can place layers behind my sketched outline to fill/ colour it in.
This is where I’m at with 342 layers down. layer one is a big white rectangle, layers 2 - 5 are four circles from the primary shapes tab (two black, two white) I have used to create her eyes & the highlight in them. Layers 6 - 342 are all brackets.
Step two.
I’ve grouped together my Bracket outline to make it easier to navigate the design. The easiest way to do this when you have a large number of layers to group is just to press A on a layer, then select Highlight all layers. You will notice all of your layers now have a little red tag in the top right corner of them, to denote that they are selected. Any layers you don’t wish to include in your group, just go to that layer and click the right trigger once to deselect it. Once you’ve deselected the layers you don’t want to include in your group, just press A over one of the tagged layers and select Group.
So that leaves me with my outline grouped together as my top layer, a large white square for now as layer 1 and my eyes. Time to start colouring in. I’ve used the steps outlined in the next tutorial to get my first colours ready, now to start filling her in.
At this stage I’ve just pasted some large primitive layers of her base skin colour behind my outline to fill in her face/ ear. I’ve chosen not to worry too much about keeping within the lines on the left part of the image as when I do her hair, I can effectively paint over the overspill and it’ll save me a few layers in the end. I’ve also painted in a couple of white circles over the base skin to fill in the eyes. I’ve then grouped each of these bits for ease of location as the design builds up.
I ended up changing the colour of most of that group to the darker base skin colour and then placing a couple of lighter skin tone primitives to create the shadow down one side of her face and along the chin line.
I’ve also started to paint bits of her dress - bit slow progress as I stop every now and again to do a forzathon live event or race. Good excuse for me to save progress (always a good idea as you go along just in case).
Here’s where she’s at presently.
Been adding some more to her dress, little bit more progress.
Changed the background square colour, so I could more easily see what I was doing, whilst painting the ribbons on her dress. I’ve also started to fill in her arm, I’ve gone with the darker skin tone first, then will stack layers of the lighter skin tone over the top. I think this will save me a few layers as I can use a few curved primitives (either circles or the ‘dog tooth’ shapes to get the shape of the shading right.
We’re getting somewhere now. Still a bit more of her dress to paint & then to tackle the hair. I must admit, my eyes aren’t what they used to be, so top tip - sit closer to the telly if you’re struggling to keep your paint within the lines!
Another little tip for helping to stay between the lines or spot when you have gone outside them, is to change up the colour of the background square she’s sat on. I did that and noticed a couple of areas that needed touching up. In this next picture I’ve started to fill her hair in, this section on the righthand side of the picture is in shadow and the colour is quite dark, not black but close enough to make filling in the outline a little tricky. So I’m just going to paint it a nice bright colour initially and then when I group those layers together, I will change the colour of them to what they should be (Press A on any vinyl group and you will have the option to change colour).
Just about done with the darker, shadowed areas of her hair;
Then finish off with the lighter sections & Job done.
Well job done on that layer group at any rate. Now just need to figure out what to do with it.
