Bitmap illustration part 2: Coloring line art with Adobe Photoshop

Video tutorial for this chapter.

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See part 1 of the tutorial. 

To begin with, we're going to apply base colors, the so-called flats, to our artwork. Create another layer between background and line art, call it "flats". Use the Paint Bucket Tool (G) set to "Contiguous" and "All Layers" to fill the according areas of the frog with appropriate base colors.

Use the Selection Tool, the Gradient Tool and the Paint Bucket Tool to color the background layer. Create a gradient which is lighter in color on the left - suggesting light incidence from the left.

Insert 2 more layers above the "flats": A shadow layer, blend mode set to "Multiply" and a layer for the lights, set to "Screen". Uses Brushes of various size and structure to create light and shadow effect. On the shadow and on the light layer, you should always start painting with with the according underlying colors from the "flats" layer (use eventually the Eyedropper Tool to get them), then try darker or lighter variants. The airbrush is an outstanding tool for this stage.

Create an overlay and a highlights layer. Use the overlay layer (in overlay or soft light mode) to add more structure and integrating textures to the illustration. Try various texture brushes from the Brush Presets.

The highlights layer (blend mode: Normal) should be on top of everything. Use plain white to set the final highlights, especially reflections in the eyes and other exposed areas. Adjust the transparency of both layers, if the result should be too harsh.

Finally, add lights, shadows and texture to the background. Use 2 separate layers on top of the background layer, set the blend modes to Screen (for the lighter parts) and Multiply for the darker areas. Experiment with various texture brushes.

Voilá: the final result:

Happy drawing! Hope you enjoyed...