Syndicate of Colour

[HarJIT 97]

Attached:

• The latest version of my character colour-guide chart, based on the work of shadowinthelight.
• The latest version of my cargo (clothing and furniture) colour chart.
• The latest version of my chart of "classic" (largely Sister2-era) colours.
• The latest version I had saved of the original work by shadowinthelight which I based it upon.

As the Art section has not been re-created (it is debatable whether there is much point, considering the extremely low traffic which it received), I thought that a singular thread devoted to colour made sense.  Hence this is the place for colourisations, colour charts, the lot!

The attachments were all orignally available from the now-deceased colour-key thread.

http://imgur.com/a/ePUYA

Updates: Current version of mine.

Edited July 17, 2016 by HarJIT
New version (again).

[HarJIT 97]

... and apparently the attachment mass limit is somehow cumulative, so I can't now upload my colourisations as attachments.

Nevermind, my contributions: http://imgur.com/a/2bA4N

Also, as an additional thing which may have been partly lost, the extensive colourisation work of The Vagabond (NOT ME), posted largely to the forum before it (the forum) died (some to Reddit): http://imgur.com/a/tJppQ

Edited March 6, 2016 by HarJIT
Clarify further.

[Wixelt 18]

Good to see these are still around. It would a shame for fan artists if this resource was lost in the forum reset.

[HarJIT 97]

As an update, here is the current version of mine, with pony colours.

[HarJIT 97]

Minor update:

[Scotty 1,061]

I'm guessing Ellen has fur colours because of the time she copied Brownie (and well, there is that sketchbook as well), but I'm surprised you don't have fur colour set for Elliot.

[HarJIT 97]

55 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I'm guessing Ellen has fur colours because of the time she copied Brownie (and well, there is that sketchbook as well), but I'm surprised you don't have fur colour set for Elliot.

The sketchbook entry is the one I was referring to, but thanks for the Elliot link.  I also forgot about the Werewolf Susan SB.  Anyway:

[Don Edwards 548]

I'd be hesitant about some of these as they are currently done. Not saying they are wrong, but because they are not necessarily always right. For example, the chart lists Ellen's fur color based on one specific time she had fur, but she's had fur on at least two occasions and the colors may not have been the same - the fur color is not person-specific, it's form-specific or person-and-form-specific.

[HarJIT 97]

48 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I'd be hesitant about some of these as they are currently done. Not saying they are wrong, but because they are not necessarily always right. For example, the chart lists Ellen's fur color based on one specific time she had fur, but she's had fur on at least two occasions and the colors may not have been the same - the fur color is not person-specific, it's form-specific or person-and-form-specific.

True... although my intention with the fur colours is less a matter of documenting an attribute inherent to the character per se, but primarily documenting information which may be needed by a colourist.  Hence what it would be reasonable to colourise a given character's fur to is such a datum.

(I previously had my avatar colourised using the one labelled as CAT2, which is the colour which was associated with the specific cat form depicted in its original Patreon-SB appearance.  I later calculated compromise colours (I forget how) for the typical fur-colour Tedd seems to fluctuate around, as visible in the strip at the top of that square, and re-colourised the fur to use them (or some illumination thereof) for some reason - I forget precisely why.)

You're probably right that it doesn't really belong alongside the others, but I didn't really have a better place to put them, at least not at the time (I created the "Cargo chart" some time afterward).

[Scotty 1,061]

Yeah, there might come a time where separating colours for default forms and colours for various animal or alternate forms into their own tables would make things easier. Like having 1 table with just the cast's default colours, then a table with colours for their furry or alternate forms, Elliot might have his own table with all his various female forms and their colours.

Another one I just remembered, was the January patreon pinup of Ellen and Nanase as cow girls, Ellen has white in her hair for that one.

[Scotty 1,061]

So, I'm curious, how do people go about recolouring an image? Like taking a greyscale original and giving it colour. It's more than just using the fill tool right?

[Matoyak 51]

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

So, I'm curious, how do people go about recolouring an image? Like taking a greyscale original and giving it colour. It's more than just using the fill tool right?

Couple of different ways to do it. The more skillful likely use layers with specific properties. The few times I've done it has been purely by hand painting over it and adjusting the colors for shadows based on the differences between the grayscale colors.

As for specific tools, that'll depend on what software you're using. I use a combination of Sai, Photoshop CS6, and occasionally Paint.Net.* The most helpful for me are the magic wand tool with anti-aliasing, and then just...painting on a new layer. I don't tend to use layer properties like multiply or what have you as I don't know how.** ~shrug~. I'd love to learn, just haven't had the time.

*I've also started looking into Krita and Clip Studio Paint (the later I got on a super sale, and is supposedly actually the same product under a different name as Manga Studio 5?). Krita looks very promising, but I need to watch some tuts in order to understand that program. Editing and selecting brushes is weird, and I can't seem to decouple opacity and brush size from pen pressure on certain brushes? I dunno, haven't spent much time in it, been focused more on programming than art lately, as the former is what I'm actually applying for jobs in

EDIT:** To clarify, I know how to use layer properties and blend modes and what they do, I just don't know how to use them in this instance of colorizing greyscale images).

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

• Make two copies of the original image, and remove everything but the lines from the one in front.
• clean up as needed.
• Turn the other layer into an overlay, and hide it.
• make a third layer behind both, and use bucket fill to put solid color on the new layer using line layer as a guide.
• use paintbrush/pen tools to fill in any distorted edges/corners.
• Turn overlay back on, and fiddle with opacities of layers until desired effect is achieved, trying other modes besides overlay if needed.

[HarJIT 97]

1 hour ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

• Make two copies of the original image, and remove everything but the lines from the one in front.
• clean up as needed.
• Turn the other layer into an overlay, and hide it.
• make a third layer behind both, and use bucket fill to put solid color on the new layer using line layer as a guide.
• use paintbrush/pen tools to fill in any distorted edges/corners.
• Turn overlay back on, and fiddle with opacities of layers until desired effect is achieved, trying other modes besides overlay if needed.

Alternately (In GIMP, YMMV):

• 1 - Duplicate the layer, and set the one on top to value mode.
• For each area:
  • 2 - Colour-pick the lighter (unshadowed) shade in the area in question, open the colour dialogue and note the value from the red slider (not the value slider as it is on a different scale than the one needed for step 5)
  • 3 - Select the lighter colour from the chart.  Again, open the colour dialogue and read/note the value - again not from the value slider but by turning saturation to zero, reading it off the red slider, and clicking cancel.
  • 4 - Lasso the area in question, including both shadowed and unshadowed parts, lassoing down the middle of black lines where possible.
  • 5 - Select the top layer, open Colours->Levels, type the value from step 2 in the rightmost box on the top slider and the value from step 3 in the rightmost box of the bottom slider.  Apply the adjustment.
  • 6 - Select the bottom layer and floodfill the entire selection (Shift-floodfill I think) with the colour.

Edited May 26, 2016 by HarJIT
palette -> chart

[Scotty 1,061]

Ok, I think I got it. Thanks.

 

[Scotty 1,061]

Well, here's one of my attempts:

The Angel and Devil Diane outfit colours are custom, and I snagged the coat colour in the last panel from Diane's appearance in Squirrel Prophet. I attempted to change the colours of the "D" on the outfits but it didn't work out too well so I left them coloured. Didn't bother with the background either. I tell you though, even with the freehand select tool going point to point (as opposed to holding down the button and dragging along the outlines) was still a pain on my wrist, especially around the faces because I needed to outline around the eyes and mouth to keep from covering them with the skin colour. I think it turned out alright though. I got another that I'll post as soon as I'm able.

[Matoyak 51]

10 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Well, here's one of my attempts:

 

The Angel and Devil Diane outfit colours are custom, and I snagged the coat colour in the last panel from Diane's appearance in Squirrel Prophet. I attempted to change the colours of the "D" on the outfits but it didn't work out too well so I left them coloured. Didn't bother with the background either. I tell you though, even with the freehand select tool going point to point (as opposed to holding down the button and dragging along the outlines) was still a pain on my wrist, especially around the faces because I needed to outline around the eyes and mouth to keep from covering them with the skin colour. I think it turned out alright though. I got another that I'll post as soon as I'm able.

Looks good man (Though be careful, as IIRC Dan has requested that no full pages [as in, all panels] be colored. Or something like that).

And I'd recommend grabbing a cheap tablet* if you're wanting to get more into digital art. Mouses can work, but they'll be painful (physically and mentally). *EDIT: By this I mean a drawing tablet like a cheap wacom or a knockoff brand. My first one was a great starter one that I got for 20 bucks on Amazon.

[Scotty 1,061]

25 minutes ago, Matoyak said:

Looks good man (Though be careful, as IIRC Dan has requested that no full pages [as in, all panels] be colored. Or something like that).

And I'd recommend grabbing a cheap tablet if you're wanting to get more into digital art. Mouses can work, but they'll be painful (physically and mentally).

Technically, it's not the full page, it's the enlarged top 4 panels that Dan released on patreon a while back. I figured it was OK because no one had mentioned anything about Vagabond's full page colourizations.

I doubt I'd get too deep into doing this to warrant needing fancy tools. I was just in one of those moods where I wanted to do something different for a change. I have spurs of inspiration like that sometimes, my mind gets going and such and just gotta get it out there (hence the theories I have, hehe).

[Scotty 1,061]

Alrighty, just noticed that Dan removed patron exclusivity on the image so here's my coloured version!

The outfit uses the colour palette from the Nanase Playing Dress up pinup.

[HarJIT 97]

Also, http://waifu2x.udp.jp/ is often useful for enlarging panels in the absence of a more reliable hires version, thought I'd mention it here.

[Matoyak 51]

8 hours ago, HarJIT said:

Also, http://waifu2x.udp.jp/ is often useful for enlarging panels in the absence of a more reliable hires version, thought I'd mention it here.

Thank you, this is very helpful.

[Scotty 1,061]

So...I did another thing, made use of that waifu2x page as well, then ended up shrinking it down a bit after I was done. Had to make use of several references for colours.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

A better looking uniform than her Uryuom worker's suit.

[Stature 96]

Seconded, Grace is better in (a lot of) color.

S/N: I only color clothes, with good reasons. But, can someone extract Amanda's and Lisa's color palettes?

[Scotty 1,061]

7 hours ago, Stature said:

Seconded, Grace is better in (a lot of) color.

S/N: I only color clothes, with good reasons. But, can someone extract Amanda's and Lisa's color palettes?

Has Dan ever done any of the Germahn Labs group in colour?

I guess we could mix and match from other character palettes, Diane's palette could work for Amanda easily enough, Lisa would be trickier, maybe Rhoda's palette? At least Rhoda's skin tone and eyes. Lisa's hair could be either black, or dark brown. Dark brown could be taken from Rhoda as well.