colouring question

[Raging Wiener]

I'm on step 7 at http://www.steeldolphin.com/digital_coloring4.php

I'm colouring the image that's linked to in my sig, right now I'm working on Zod in the first panel.

Using the polygonal tool, I carefully selected his face/body/hair in pieces and filled them in, using the colours I wanted. My complaints are:

1. Is there a quicker way to do this?
2. When two facial polygonal lassos overlap, that little area is coloured darker than the flesh tones around it. Does this with all colours I've used.

[Dash Martin]

Yes...the best way to do it is to select the entire figure and fill it in with one color with your fill bucket. Then go back in and select the hair and fill that in and select the body and fill that in. After those, you can go in and do the details. The benefit of doing it that way is you only have to be careful where say the hair meets the face. The rest of the selection can look however because the outer edges of the hair have already been defined by the full figure fill you did in the first place.

As for the other thing...make sure Anti-Alias is turned OFF on the polygonal lasso tool and OFF on the fill tool. It's very important.

Check out this tutorial that better explains the flatting process, but still use the polygonal lasso tool...it's a lot easier than using the standard one like they suggest.

http://www.hifidesign.com/insider/ii_flat_tutorial/Flat01.html

[Raging Wiener]

Thanks, but now I've got a new question.

My polygonal tool will scroll the screen to the right, up, and down, but not to the left. I'm getting trapped.

Also, is there a way to undo the last polygonal tool line, but not get rid of everything you've placed so far?

[Raging Wiener]

How do I return to selecting the full figure fill when I'm adding in details?

[Dash Martin]

Don't maximize the window of the image you're working on. Just leave it windowed and work on it like that instead of fullscreen. As for undoing the polygonal lasso while making a selection...nope. I wish there was though. However, using the + and - keys on the keyboard lets you zoom in and out while making a selection...so that may reduce the need for an undo.

[Raging Wiener]

The de-maximizing advice helped, mucho gracias.

I've got a new question:

I'm using the gradient fill tool.
I've selected the darker side of his face.
I drop the tool in the centre of the selection, click, and drag. It gets a little bit darker.

And I can't get it darker than that without selecting a different colour from the palette. What am I not doing?

Thanks. I know newbies are a pain in the ass.

[Dash Martin]

Well...I suppose you could set your fill tool to like Color Burn or something...but you shouldn't have to make things darker. The base tones should be dark enough to act as your shadows so all you have to do is highlight.

[Raging Wiener]

That's what I thought, but the Steel Dolphin tutorial told me to add shadows so that's what I'm trying to do. The link you gave me was a bit too advanced for me.

[Raging Wiener]

I'm getting really frustrated. I can't get my gradient tool to lighten or darken. I've tried the settings: lighten, darken, colour burn. Nada.

Can you point me to colouring tutorial for luddite dummies?

[Dash Martin]

Try setting it to Multiply.