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Planning Color Schemes with Photoshop Elements

By Dan “Funaka” Salaswww.funakatown.com

One of the best things about building Gunpla and Mecha Models as opposed to historical tanks and airplanes is that you’re allowed to

dream up whatever color scheme you want to paint on your model.

I like to create color schemes for my models using Photoshop Elements. You

can also use Photoshop and the freeware GIMP. The basic concepts apply across the

board.

What is Photoshop Elements?

Photoshop Elements (PSE) is a pixel-based image editing program. It is a stripped-way-down version of Photoshop (so it doesn’t cost $700). There are many versions, older ones work just fine for making color schemes, but may not work with newer operating systems. I had PSE 4 and it would not work with Windows 7.

Why use a computer program to plan your color schemes?

Because people literally laugh at you when you do it on paper.And when you do it on paper, every time you start a new version of the color scheme, you start from scratch.

Because you can add a level of detail in your color scheme in the computer that you probably can’t hold in your imagination and you

can SEE it on the screen and make judgments about how something

looks.

Because once you put in the basic work to rendering a color scheme

on the computer you can easily swap out colors and add and

remove details to work out several different versions of your color

scheme.

Because it’s creative and fun once you get the hang of it. And it will help you

on your way to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Seriously, you’re going to click your mouse about 1,000 times when you make a color scheme. Remember to stretch your mouse-clicking hand every so often.

Because you can make schemes you would never put on an actual model…

Or make a scheme you wouldn’t even show your friends…

Ever…

Start with black line art on a

white background.

There are several sources for line

art.

You can scan the line art from your Master Grade instruction manual if it

is an older kit that has the line art in it.

Or you can download somebody else’s scan.

Good sources are…• Dalong.net - don’t forget that

earlier kits (1.0) or HGUCs of the MS you are building may have line art.

• Hobby Magazine scans from Dengeki Hobby or Hobby Japan.

You can draw your own lineart or trace it and then scan your trace. Or you can trace and scan it and then render your trace into a nice line art in a program like Illustrator

or Corel Draw.

If you find a smaller scanned image you can blow it up in Photoshop

Elements (PSE).• Many old line art scans appear

smaller due to increases in screen resolution over the years. Some newer scans will be small because they are taken from small pictures in a magazine.

Open the line art in PSE. Go to Image Resize Image Size…

• I like to use percent. Since pixels are squares you’re probably best off going in multiples of 25% (like 200%).

• Make sure to check “Constrain Proportions” so you blow up width and height together.

• Resample the image using Bicubic Smoother so it doesn’t look like 8-bit graphics. Things may look a bit blurry but that will matter less once it’s colored in. Plus IMO blurry is better than tiny.

Once you have a workable line art, you can get to work. When you first open

your line art, it will appear in the layers organizer as “Background”

Right click it and select “Layer from Background…”

I usually call this layer “Lineart”. Set the mode to “Multiply”. This mode allows the

white in the line art to become transparent.

Make another layer by selecting Layer New Layer…

Call it “Main Color” and set the mode to “Normal”. Except for the Lineart layer, all

layers will be in Normal Mode.

Drag the Main Color layer beneath the Lineart layer in the layer organizer.

Now that this normal-mode Main Color layer is beneath the multiply-mode Lineart

layer, you can paint in it without overwriting the line art.

Note that the paint only appears in one layer. It’s very important to remember

what layer you are working in.

Now you want to use the Polygonal Lasso

tool to create a shape to fill in color.

PSE has lots of “smart” selection tools but none of

them has ever been smart enough in my

experience.

Choose the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make sure the “Anti-aliasing” box is unchecked.

The bottom of the lasso is the tip of the cursor. Click it repeatedly to draw

a series of straight lines around the edge of your mobile suit. Since the

lines in the line art are a bit fat you can cheat a little but basically you need to click every time the line in the line art

changes direction.

This part is a pain…

Eventually you get back around to the point you started at. As you hover

over the very first point you set, the icon will change slightly. Click again on

this point to close the polygon you clicked around the outline of the

mobile suit. The lines you drew will become an active selection with an animated “marching ants” effect.

“Marching Ants”

Now that you have established this shape, anything you do (paint brush, paint bucket,

eraser, enhancements, etc.) will only happen within this selection.

Choose the Paint Bucket Tool.

Next choose a color to fill with the Paint Bucket by clicking “Choose

Foreground Color”.

In the window that opens, move the slider on the right through the

“rainbow” of the color spectrum to get close to the color you want and then

move the cursor somewhere in the big square of color and select a shade of

that color.

Click inside the box.

You can also select the color from somewhere else in the picture (later, when you’ve

added some different colors) or from another picture you

open up in PSE using the Color Picker Tool. Select the tool and click the tip of the eye dropper on a color on the

screen.

Once you have your color, click the Paint Bucket inside the selection you drew with the Polygonal Lasso Tool. Bam! The whole

shape is filled with that color.

Note that the color stays inside the

“Marching Ants”selection.

Just like with the Polygonal Lasso Tool, I like to turn off anti-aliasing with the bucket. This gives you jagged hard-edged lines, but they disappear

behind the lineart.

Why am I anti-anti-aliasing???

Later on, when you are using the bucket tool to swap out the colors of your color

scheme, the soft edges made by anti-aliasing will become fuzzy and soft. It can

be fuzzy enough that it looks like you “colored outside the lines”.

There are often “holes” that have to be erased in the solid block of color you just

filled, often around the arms and hip armor.

Start by pressing “Esc” on the keyboard to turn off you “marching ants” selection.

Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the “hole” you need to erase.

There’s an erase tool and since you’ve made a selection you can grab the erase

tool and sloppily run it around the selection and it will only erase what is

inside the shape you selected. However, it’s even easier to just press “Delete” on your keyboard. Everything in that layer

within that selection will disappear.

Once I have my main color filled in behind my line art, I like to add a third layer called “Background” and fill it in

will a light, neutral color. This is especially helpful if you are working on a color scheme with lots of white in it. If the background is white, the white parts of your mobile suit can get lost.

No matter how much tan background I used, this picture was still butt-ugly…

The model came out better.

• Now you can start to add detail. I usually start with two layers, one called “Internals” where I paint all the joint mechanisms and things like that in a gray color. (or blinged out gold if you’re building a Strike Freedom).

• I add another layer called “Lenses” for the eyes and any other sensor lenses, assuming they’re all the same color.

Your basic monochromatic Mobile Suit

You want a layer for every color, and you want to place those layers between the Line Art layer and the Main Color layer. The order of the layers determines whether something you paint overlaps other parts of the picture or gets hidden below them.

Note how when I put the “Main Color”layer on top of the “Internals” layer, it

overlaps them, and the internals disappear.

Another way to make a layer disappear is to toggle the layer visibility. This is

much better than trying to hide layers behind other layers.

I can put the Internals back on top of the Main Color where they belong but still hide

them with a click using layer visibility.

Click it again to bring them back.

Now that you have a basic monochromatic mobile suit

with internals and lenses, you can start to add trim colors

on new layers. It helps to give them descriptive names because there’s a good

chance you’ll end up with 10 layers or more.

So whoopee… three hours later I’ve created

a picture that’s the same as the picture on

the side of the kit’s box, except in crappy

low resolution.

Just a side note. When I filled the white in this version of the scheme,

I did not have anti-aliasing turned off on the bucket tool. Look carefully and you can see in several places how the white shows “outside the lines”.

Now that you’ve madea basic color scheme, the hard part is over, and it’s time to get creative. For starters, this dark bird poop green and white color scheme has

got to go, so let’s recolor it purple.

Don’t ask why…

Why Purple?

Choose a new color. Choose the paint bucket tool. Make sure anti-aliasing is unchecked, and uncheck

“Contiguous”.

Click the bucket somewhere inside the green and now you’ve got a purple mobile suit.

Unchecking the “Contiguous” box means that everything this color on

this layer will be changed, and not just the one contiguous part you click on. That way you can change an entire color in one click. This means a lot

more when you get to the trim layers which have lots of little “islands” of

color.

With contiguous selected, I didn’t have to click each of these red bits one by

one; I got them all with one click.

This is good because that red is horrible so I want to pick a better

color and change it. Then I’ll change the rest of the colors in the layer until I get to something I like

a lot better…

If you’re having trouble choosing trim colors there are websites like http://www.colorpicker.com/ that

can help you choose complimentary colors.

It works like PSE and you can pick different color combos with the links

on the bottom.

Color you selected

Complimentary Colors

Click these links to see different

complimentary color combinations

I like this color scheme better but it’s still pretty boring. The ReZel is a

chunky polygon-filled mobile suit and all those nice shapes are really lost in what is a pretty monochromatic color

scheme.

So I chose a fifth color (a very pale green) to add to the scheme and used

it to pick out some panels.

I keep an eye on the instructions and pictures of the real model because I can add color in places

where the parts breakdown lets me avoid masking, or where a hard edge on the part

makes masking really easy.

With a little planning, you too can be a lazy model builder!

I used parts breakdown on most of the tan and green camo on my Cherudim. That way I only had to mask 7 or 8 pieces. I also avoided demarcations across two different pieces which made masking easier.

I decided the purple ReZel was STILL too boring so I started making optional

layers for the other colors until the ReZel looked like a funky mosaic.

Make separate layers for your optional

colors. This way you can turn them on and

off.

At this point it may be a bit much but I can keep messing with it.

Maybe that maroon is just too strong and I can tone it down

some.

Maybe reverse the purples?

Maybe not…

Somewhere during that process I looked and said, “Oh, hey, I missed

a spot.”

So I use the color picker tool to select the white color and move to the white trim layer and then color in the hoses

on the backs of the legs.

Don’t forget to go back to the layer with

the white trim

If you put the color on the wrong layer, the

next time you use the bucket to change

colors, the hoses won’t “follow” the other

white parts.

Any time you think you’ve got something good, use “Save As…” to

keep a PSD file with that version.

Choose a descriptive name since you may end up with many versions.

Once you have multiple versions, you can open several at once, both

to compare them and to use the Color Picker to swap colors

between them.

I also like to use “Save As…” to create a JPEG of any versions I’m serious about.

Select a file size and press “OK”.

You can view JPEG pictures in Windows in a slideshow and easily print them. I also tend to display them in my WIP posts so I can show people what my

plans are at the beginning of a project.

You can’t do all that stuff with a PSD file.

Advanced technique – Camouflage

Let’s start with better base colors for camouflage.

Select you Main Color layer and then select the “Magic Wand Tool”.

Click inside the main color and you will select the whole mobile suit.

Now make a new layer called “Camo”and place it just above the Main Color

layer. Choose a camouflage color. Select the “Brush Tool”. Select the size of the brush stroke with the slider and

then start painting camouflage.

The camouflage will only be painted within the selection so don’t worry

about going “outside the lines”.