Cell-Shade A Car
Hello again, at this time, you should have a complete black and white outline of your car. Every line, every detail. Lets take a look at your layers. The first picture is how your layers should look now. But you have to adjust your layers to look like the second picture. So, add another layer and name it "Base"; and put it over your "Original Car"; and under "Outline";
Select the "Base"; layer. Now, go over and select your entire car, but don't go inside the lines and don't go outside the line. Make your selection in the middle of the line. After you do that, press the Alt button and deselect the windows, all the chrome parts of the car, the wheels and tires, the seats, and everything else that will not be painted. So now we only have the metal of the car that will be painted. Select a color from the color palette that you want to paint the car with. Any color is fine as long as it matches the car.
For example a bright green wouldn't go along with the car I am doing. You can even make a two-tone custom paint job. I personally went with the crimson red and cream color, a take-off of the Starsky and Hutch car. Here are the colors I used. Crimson Red (R:216 G:24 :B24) and for the Cream (R:251 G:245 B:223) I think it suits the car nicely, don't you? Anyway, select the car like I said, DON'T GO OUTSIDE THE LINES, and fill the car in with the color you like. If you are going for a two-tone color combination, after you filled in the main color, select the places you want to be the second color and just fill it in. Be careful not to color any parts that you want to be chrome, glass, tires, or headlights.
Ok, you got the easy part down, but it looks kind of boring doesn't it? Lets add some shadows to jazz up the car. Add a new layer and name it "Shadow"; and place it over "Base"; but below "Outline";.
Ok great, you're almost done with the car paint. Now we draw the shadows that will add just enough realism and detail to make it look nice. For the following part, you have to have common sense. Where would you think the shadows go? Yes that's right, the part where the light doesn't reach. Lets get started. Pick a slightly darker version of your body paint. It really helps if you imagine a fixed light, lets say…at the top left corner of the screen going down on the car. That will make the shadows appear on the lower and right parts of the car. This means, under the front bumper, under the Side of the car, inside the grill area, under the side mirrors, next to the air-scoop. Here are some pics to help you; I made them black and white so you could see the shadows better.
Did you remember to make the shadows on the correct layer? :) Good. By the way, don't make the shadows black; make them a slightly darker color of your paint color. And remember, there are no gradients if you want to get the cell shaded look, its all clear crisp lines. But if you want to make your own look, you can go ahead and make a gradient shadow. Ok, you're almost through creating your car, now we just have to make the accessories.
Create a new layer, and name it "Accessories"; and put it under the "Outlines"; layer and above the "Shadow"; layer. The accessories include headlights, fog lights, mirrors, rusty pipes under the car, antenna, and anything else that is chrome. It does not include the windows, or the wheels and tires. Ok, select your "Accessories"; layer and get the Polygonal Lasso Tool. First lets do the chrome parts and then the lights. These parts will be chrome, so select a light silver (R:240 G:240 B:240). You can either select the parts you will paint with the Polygonal Lasso Tool, or if you have a steady hand, you can use a paintbrush to paint the small parts. Paint the chrome parts in the light silver. Then get a slightly darker color gray and paint the parts of the chrome that will be dark, use your imagination. For all the chrome parts I will show picture of how you should paint them, the picture will not have the black outlines showing, the headlights will are also shown, paint them as shown.:
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Ok, great, we finished out chrome parts, our headlights. Now we do the interior. I personally chose to do a cream interior, the same color as the cream paint I showed you earlier that I was going to do for my exterior paint. You want to paint the base color of the seats on the "Accessories"; layer, BUT you want to put the shadows of the seats on the "Shadow"; layer. For the chrome parts, don't worry, just put all the chrome parts on the accessories layer. HEY! You're almost done. Now make a new layer, name it "Windows"; and put it above all the layers, but under the outlines layer. Now use your Polygonal Lasso Tool and select all the glass parts that are to become windows, HEADLIGHTS DON'T COUNT AS GLASS. Now, paint the windows a light blue, and a darker blue for the reflections in the glass. And you can also put a couple of white streaks across the window as glare. After you do all that, bring the opacity of the "Windows"; layer down until you can see things behind it. I did mine to 14 opacity, but you can try out different opacities. Here's what I have:
Ok, now for the tires, its very simple to make tires. Make a new layer and call it "Tires";. Put it below "accessories";, but above "Shadow";. Now just color the tire a dark gray, and for the shadows, heck, we're so close to the end, just put the shadows in the same layer and color it a darker gray. VIOLA, you're finished. If you have other objects that are not colored in because you did another car, then go ahead and finish up. Questions or comments? Email me at razorblob@yahoo.com
So anyway, here's the finished product I have.
