Warning, the full-size image is pretty big.

Hopefully Syke will forgive my flagrant use of her character, but Chatin was perfect for this project. Using her I could color hair, clothes, and both light- and dark-toned fur. (That and I'm kinda hoping Syke will let me help with one of her comics >.> )

Though some of these were used as steps in creating others, there isn't necessarily a progression here.

Counting left then right, then top to bottom...

1. Original. This was only about three inches tall when drawn, but scanned at 600 dpi, so while I was coloring it the image was about four times this size.

2. Original - hatch marks. I wanted the two outlines to match up perfectly, so rather than scan before and after hatching, I removed the hatching in Photoshop.

3. Solid color. The only thing fancy about this one is the multiply layer with a vector pattern to put a design on the clothing, which was the same on all the colored pieces.

4. Minimal cel shading. Looks nicer than the flat colors and is very easy to do. Can add a little bit of dimension in just a few minutes.

5. Cel shading. I don't like the way the clothing came out on this one. I think I'm going to redo it at some point (maybe soon). I do like how the hair and fur turned out, but of course those took forever to do.

6. "Itchy" 3-pixel brush. Not really sure why I think of this style as "itchy". Maybe because it reminds me a bit of scratchboard, maybe because scribbling motion of coloring like that is somewhat like scratching... or maybe all the little wiggly lines remind me of itching... not sure. Anyways, other brush sizes for some of the base work, but most of it was colored with a 3-pixel brush, by hand, with lots of scribbles and lines. (No, that's not a filter) I really like this one, but shrunk down like this it's hard to really get a feel for the texture. I might post a bigger version in scraps.

7. "Itchy" 5-pixel brush. I was trying to simply make the texture show up better by doing it over with a larger brush, but the larger brush size ended up changing how it came out. Seems less like wiggly lines and more like oddly-shaped specks.

8. Smooth. Took the cel shade and went nuts with smudge. Shading definitely looks better than the cel example, and I prefer doing this to cel shading. Actually, I prefer just about anything to cel shading, since the cels demand precision lines and I have a mouse (no tablet) and semi-shaky hands. That's probably WHY it looks better.

9. Smooth +. Added extra shading by blending in more color, plus burn and dodge (I know some people don't like it, but just like any tool, it has its uses... I think some people just tend to rely on it too much). I might post a larger version of this too, since you can't see the fur texture at this resolution.

10. Fun. After all this attention to detail and attempt at perfection, I needed a break, so I pulled out the 9-pixel brush, set the edges to hard and the flow to 30% and went nuts. I didn't worry about perfection and only corrected a couple of spots where I went entirely outside the lines. Needless to say, I love it muchly.


Sorry for the huge post and huger drawing. I'm probably going to try out a few other things too. I'm open to advice or suggestions of other styles to try.

Oh, also, Chatin is copyright Syke, and is a character in the Cyantian Chronicles.