I decided to color out my concept of Spike today, to how I see him in my mind. All images in the form of links to reduce loading strain.
I will start from my first pic of him, the concept.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/434053/PLatformed/09-15-2010/Demoris1_premarkup.pngMy first step is to mask out the areas on which I will color. I do this with the brush tool in GIMP, with an opacity of 90. I shift move my cursor, as my hand is terribly unsteady, to a point where it looks smooth.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/434053/PLatformed/09-15-2010/Demoris1_Color1.pngI then create a shadow mask. This allows me to stick with one color per major area and in the sketch allows me to accent areas that should get shadows. It is hastily done.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/434053/PLatformed/09-15-2010/Demoris1_Color2.pngThen I actually get to the part where I color. I use many, many different layers, each on a multiply setting, to keep the color and still retain the sketch underneath. This gives it a bit of a sketchy look, with more detail than when I have it simply with color. I keep the outlines through this stage, and perhaps through all of them. This is a light coloring step, and I even mess with the shadow mask some. This step took me 40 minutes.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/434053/PLatformed/09-15-2010/Demoris1_Color3.pngAfter times of shading and whatnot, I have created a more.. uh… well, I like it, version of the concept.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/434053/PLatformed/09-15-2010/Demoris1_Color4.pngI'll update as I go on with more.
Cool stuff!
@kilin, it has several features that make it useful. It includes onion skinning (see an adjacent frame lightly in the background so that you may work with a better transition), has a preview box (can change the speed or even pause it), can save in all the useful image formats including .ico, uses layers along with frames (something that gimp pisses me off with), adjustable color pallet (help keeps consistent colors), and I for one like the zoom box so that I can see the exact pixel I am clicking on.
I probably missed a few but those are my favorites.Also, I draw by mouse, sometimes touch pad. Thank god for line tool. (oh yeah, GfxGale also has a pretty cool line tool where you can automatically begin to draw another line from where you last ended a line)Like I mentioned before, GIMP kind of screws me over with some of its quirks. I just picked up InkScape and I find it a lot easier to do simple things, except selecting and copying to layers. Other than that, it's a neat little program for vector art.
And as far as I know, GIMP is raster.I actually did grab Photoshop, though I really should've gotten Illustrator instead. It's built for vector art where Photoshop isn't, and reeeeally has some nice inking features.