Cel tutorial

I saw Aki11's post on the IllustTeam's staff discussion area and thought I'd post a tutorial. It's not final because I'm not sure how the team wants the style to be.
But it's so easy you don't even have to know how to draw, ANYBODY can help with this.

I didn't know where to add this post, so I just added it here.
This tutorial is done in Photoshop Elements 3, but I'm sure it'll work with most programs.

Line art
This will probably be done by the Anim and Illust teams so I won't be too detailed. If you look around the forum, you'll see many wonderful sketches on Red. I just started looking back at the comic so I'm still getting used to him, so bare with me:

1) I started out with the resolution of the final product, in this case 1920x1080. So, on a new layer, I drew the sketch. (I never draw on the background layer)

2) Reduce the opacity of the rough sketch layer to around 20-30%. Add a new layer and clean up your sketch.

3) Reduce the opacity of the new clean up layer to 20-30%. Double the size of the image and using a hard brush at size 3 draw the line art. (zoomed) (final)

Coloring

1) Create a new layer and move it under the line art layer which should be at the very top. Now, if everything went as planned, this will be easy.

2) Using the paint bucket tool at around 150-200 tolerance, just click in the area with the needed color. Be sure to separate colors or important parts in different layers. (Here's where Photoshop Element's lack of layer group folders becomes a problem.)

2-B) Any less tolerance on the paint bucket will cause some spots being missed. So if it didn't work, here's an alternative. Use the magic wand tool. Select the area you want to fill. Go to Select>Modify>Expand and expand by 1 pixel. Then choose the lasso tool and right-click on the selected area. Then choose "Fill Selection" from the menu. Then just click ok.

3) Check if you missed anything by making a new layer under all of your layers, right above the Background layer. Then fill this layer with a bright color. The bright color will show through the parts you missed.

Shadows and Highlights

1) Add a new layer under your line art and above all the colors. The shadows will be drawn the same way the line art was and will be provided by the Illust and Anim teams. Color it the same way as you did the rest, but in black. Then reduce the opacity to around 10-20%. (final)

2) The highlights will be done the same way. Make a new layer above the shadow layer. Fill the lines white and the reduce the opacity to around 60-80%.

-Final Product-

Extra
Adding a film-like effect.

1) Flatten the image

2) Duplicate it twice.

3) Set the middle layer to "Multiply" and lower the opacity to around 50%. Then add a "Gaussian Blur" filter at about a 2-3 pixel radius.

4) Set the top layer to "Overlay" and lower the opacity to around 50%. Add a Gaussian blur filter at around 2-3 pixel radius. (Final) (zoom)
Play around with the blur and opacity of both layers to get different effects. (For those romantic moments)

That last part was not needed since it can be easily done in a film editor such as Adobe Premier after the animation is done. Which is better because there wil be a consistent look throughout.

So, that's it. Please correct me if I did anything wrong. And I hope it was helpful.

I'm book marking this tutorial. I definitely learned something today. (Didn't know you could do that with the fill bucket)


Edit://

Tested out the tutorial on one of my characters. The results were great:

http://akie-tara.deviantart.com/art/Setaro-PokeSpe-Anime-Style-166700224

lol, thanks for the tut, I have no complaints about it cept for this project we are using 990X550 for the canvas size>W< (pardon me asking, but do you have skype? it'll be easier for us to organize meetings and distribute work and such if every member of the team has it. But if you can't download it/have problems with it, feel free to provide an alternate way to contact youC: post it in the skype/msn thread yea)

and i agree that using a filter by premiere or after effects would be better, tho, that last tip was useful nonetheless>W< This would prove very useful to the photoshop colourists me thinksC:

Ohoho, using the gaussian blur trick huh? Well for lineart, we're taking a bit of a different approach because there's so much stuff to line, doing it all manually would be hell. XD Instead, I use the pen tool in photoshop, or the curve tool in Paint Tool SAI (amazing program, by the way.)

@Joy:

Not all versions of Photoshop have the pen tool. I'm pretty sure if Guest has PS Elements 3.0. (I have 5.0, and still don't have a pen tool)

Yeah, I don't have a pen tool. But is that the vector stuff? Those really look unnatural. That's why I use a brush that looks like a pencil, with jitter and stuff.

Quick question, does Red have an pokeball emblem on the back of his coat in this arc?

Yes Red dose have of an yellow pokeball symbol on his back. The symbol on his hat is black with a gold outline.

@guest: that's what I thought initially too. But truth is, animation companies tend to use line tool for their animations as well, because it saves a lot of time when they are animating. You don't have to keep restroking to get the lines you want. Here's an example from toei animation, working on the anime one piece.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5kb9q_anntv-inside-toei-animation-pt1_shortfilms

furthermore, using linetool would also standardize the linearting process, you won't get overly thick or thin lines in different or same scenes and all. The lineart version of the intro was done using line tool in sai painter. It's really easy to use once you get used to it, and you can vary the pressure in it as well such that it doesn't look unnatural. This is extremely important because more than 1 person is doing this. different people use different pressure to draw and all, even if it's supposedly the same pixels. You won't get shaky lines or lines varying in thickness when using a pen tool.

and yea, red does have a pokeball emblem thingy on his backXD

whoa...that's a sweet drawing of Red ^ ^

Also, nice tutorial, although I'm not much of an artist...

Am I the only one here that uses GIMP?