How to cheat at drawing - Part 2

Evening Bloggerati,

last week I started a series of posts on how I put together cartoons for my other site (www.satiricalblog.com) using Inkscape and Gimp2. Which can be found here:-

• http://inkscape.org/
• http://www.gimp.org/

The first part of this three part guide focussed on the use of Inkscape to trace an outline (and can be found here Part 1)

This second part looks at using Gimp to colour the sketch.

Before I start colouring I duplicate the base layer by right clicking on the background layer and select 'duplicate layer'. One of these we will then use to colour the drawing; the other will remain to provide an outline.

I also paste in the original photo for reference

 

which often needs to be aligned using the 'move' tool...

Selecting the tool from the left hand tool-box or by using the short-cut key 'm'

The layer can then either be moved using the mouse or the arrow keys. 

Now comes the colouring part.
This is done by using the 'colour picker' tool to pick colours from the reference layer

Then using the 'bucket fill' tool to colour the corresponding section of the colour layer.

Leaving something looking like this:-

I tend to paint eyes in as a separate layer - as it the allows different filters to easily be applied.

So I add in a new layer on the right hand layers section... 

...and give it a name

Next I use the 'paintbrush' tool to paint in the colour of the eyes.

Leaving the base colouring complete...

Next week comes shading, text and finishing touches.

Peace

G