Part Three: Let the Colouring begin!

Once you have your background and your background copy layers, you can start working on the colouring. To do so, make a new layer between these two by clicking on either layer --> new --> layer at the top of photoshop, or by clicking on the arrow next to Paths and choosing "new layer"

I personally work with a layer per colour, which makes things a lot easier when shadowing as the colours don't get mixed up. So that would leave me with a layer per area, more or less. Hair is the one I usually start with.

All new layers should go under the background copy, and none can go under the background itself (it is the canvas after all, remember?). This way, you'll always have the line work on top of the rest of the layers. See them as layers of paint, the ones on top are the ones you see the most, while the ones below are the ones that get covered by the ones over them. As long as you keep the background copy on top, then the lines will not get covered and you'll be able to colour under them thanks to the rest of the layer being transparent.

So you have your new layer under the background copy one. Now go to the Tools (the long thingie with loads of buttons at your left) and:

• choose the polygonal lasso
• choose a colour by clicking on the foreground colour. A new window should appear, choose one, accept and go on.
• select the area you want to paint on with the polygonal lasso. To do so, follow the line art. be sure to include the line more or less when selecting the area.
• make sure the active layer is the one you want to paint on (in this particular case, it would be the hair)
• choose the paint bucket
• fill the selected area with the paint bucket
• deselect

Follow the steps with each single area you want to colour, making a new layer for each area, in descending order (meaning each new layer should be under the last one you used)

Which should leave you with the drawing with flat colours, something like this:

Go to Part Four