#gradient maps please save me

[witherfide]

i found a new brush it’s over for you guys

[moofbat]

hi! i’m opening some comms to save for uni. here are some guidelines for what’s available for different prices but i’m very happy to accommodate! please give me your rogues, dwarves, dilfs and sparkly characters…

my portfolio can be found in my carrd alongside my kofi! shoot me a message if you have any questions :]

ID: moofbat’s commission sheet showing the prices of various states of rendering for full body and bust drawings, as well as a list of will and won’t do’s.

The prices for full body drawings per character are: lines £5, gradient map £10, basic colours £15, and fully shaded £20.

Prices for bust drawings per character are: lines £5 or fully rendered £20.

Bust drawings have more details than full body drawings at the same state of rendering. Detailed description per rendered state after the extra information.

A bullet pointed list shows that moofbat will not do backgrounds, can do up to 3 characters per commission, appreciates visual references, and requires payment on approval of sketch. They will do: suggestive, anthro, and real people. They won’t do: mech stuff, rendered armour and explicit.

The full body examples all show a thin white person with a spiky mullet. They are hunched into a ball, balancing on their tiptoes with their arms wrapped around their knees. They are wearing a cropped tank top over long sleeves, baggy trousers tucked into knee length striped socks and mid calf boots.

There are two gradient map versions, one in a warm greyscale and one in shades of brown and peach. In both gradient maps each distinct item (clothing, skin, hair) is coloured with a single colour, with the exception of the face which has some highlights and shadows. The basic colour version has brighter and a wider variety of colours and has some added shadows. The fully shaded version has a more detailed range of shadows and highlights with more blending, as well as light red stripes on the sleeves.

The two bust drawings are of a middle aged bald black man with a large, slightly wavy beard that goes down to the middle of his chest, looking off softly to the left. He has stretched ears, thick eyebrows, and is wearing a t-shirt. Compared to the full body line art, the bust drawing has more realistic detailing in the face, such as wrinkles and more defined hairs. The fully rendered version is warm and lifelike. End ID

[alpinelogy]

HELLO could you tell me PRETTY PLEASE how did you make the halftone colored effect on your latest gr63 poster? tysm!

Of course!! I love talking about my graphics!!

I learned how to create the halftone effect from a guide I cannot find right now but my steps are as follows. heads up that I work in photoshop so everything is photoshop specific I fear.

Under the cut since there is a ton of images here o7

For the halftone effect

Import image of my choice and convert it to a smart object. This guide should theoretically work without a smart object with clipping and/or layer masks but smart objects look better + they keep my workspace more organized

In the smart object I create a new layer with a solid fill of #808080, convert it for smart filters (Filter > Convert for Smart Filters) and also set it to Hard Mix in the layer blending modes menu

Open the smart filters menu for the layer (Filter > Filter Gallery) and I create two layers, first Halftone Pattern with the following settings and on top of it Torn Edges with the following settings

You can fiddle with these obviously but I have never changed these since I started using this for my halftone effect

4. Now your image probably looks like this, really wonky and bright

To fix it I create a new adjustment layer, usually Levels but I have used Curves before as well and fiddle with it until I like it. Dont be afraid to use multiple and just mask it! For example here Tadejs jersey is white but the background is black so to keep the texture I masked the jersey and adjusted it separately.

Final effect vs adjustments to keep the background texture vs adjustments to keep the jersey texture. By combining the latter two I achieved what I wanted

If I want my image in grayscale I also add a Black & White adjustment layer in between my initial image and the Levels layer, though for the effect I achieved with the George graphic we dont want that.

Gradient colors

First of all I make all my multicolored graphics using gradient maps. I am not particularly knowledgeable so my apologies but I cannot even try to begin explaining gradient maps.

So for a multi colored effect I create a gradient map once I have an image that I am satisfied with and adjust it until it looks good. Important that the color fully on your right on the gradient map is the color you want to have in the background which in my case is the beige I use everywhere.

After that I save my smart object as I would usually do (Ctrl + S) and exit to the main graphic and ideally, it should look the same in your graphic as the smart object looked.

Unfortunately I cannot help with color choices/color theory for the actual gradient map since I barely understand what is going on myself lmao. Fwiw personally I think Synth (@/jamesvowles) is awesome with colors and how they work together in his paintings so maybe he could be of any help o7

Solid colors

This is for cases like this, where all my colors are solid flat, no matter how many colors

This is where the Black & White adjustment layer mentioned comes into play. For when I do solid colors only, even with multiple like in this graphic, I create a new color layer on top of all my other layers, fill it with the color of choice, and set the blending mode to screen. no idea why screen works, someone smarter with blending modes would probably be able to explain though.

For different colors I just mask out the areas I want the color to appear in.

Final step is to combine all my layers into a folder and under that folder I create a new solid color layer with the background color of my choice, in my case beige, and set the folder blending mode to darken. Once again, I have no idea how it works but it does and that what counts to me haha, someone smarter with blending modes would be able to explain most likely.

On a final note, do experiment!! Oftentimes I like getting to the point of where I would have usually used a gradient map (so no B&W layer) and then see what I can do with blending modes! Thats how I ended up with this image of Primož, its just a yellow color fill layer set to Hue blending mode

Hopefully everything makes sense, feel free to ask more if you are confused or want to know more about any part of my graphics <3

[spicyvampire]

hi, your edit for wandee goodday is cool https://www.tumblr.com/spicyvampire/750559639385587712?source=share

would you please make a tutorials for those gifs? 

Hi anon sorry for the long wait for this, unfortunately the more I looked at my psds for this gifset the more things I saw that just aren't like basic gifing knowledge. I simply did not know where to start. Anyways I tried to go and find the tutorials that helped me when I was just learning those techniques or wtv inspired me to use them instead, because they are all very details and explain way better than I could, along the way I'll give you a few tips to make your life easier

My very first tip would be to not do all those things at the same time, learn one technique at a time please, for your own sanity

Everything else under keep reading

STEP 0 : basic gifs

You need to have basic gifmaking knowledge, if you don't here's a good tutorial that pretty much touch everything

Gifmaking for beginners by hayaosmiyazaki

gif sizes and sharpening for tumblr by anya-chalotra

Here's a few tips for when you are about to start :

You need to have an idea of what you want to do before you start cutting anything aka

what's the theme of the gifset : that will help you separate how many concepts you gonna have because of that theme

once you have the concept : how many gifs are necessary to get the concept across and what lines from the show are you gonna use, how would you write those lines and your own comments to be as clear as possible (I advises test them by sending them to friends when you are done before publishing)

what is the layout of each gif gonna look like, do you need to search (pixabay or vectorstock) for some shapes in png

Once you have like most of that, you can start choosing scenes and cutting but not before because trust me you gonna over work if you don't do this

Example : So my theme was Yak being a green flag, I have 6 big gifs and 9 concepts, I fit a lot of those concepts together, but in total I have base 23 gifs

It is important that every gifs of a concept that is gonna end on the same background gif have the same amount of frames as the big gif

Make, color and save each gifs individually, so if you fuck up, you can always just go get your base gif again, name them in relationship of the final gif

Example : the final gif is named green1 so every gif in there are named green1,1 - green1,2 - green1,3

Please for the love of god, name and/or give numbers to everything and make groups in the PSD! You won't be able to find yourself in this mess if you don't do this : To make groups you can either, select what you want to group -> CTRL + G or select what you want to group -> right click -> Group from layers

You need to be able to manipulate colors, to enhance them, change them and neutralize them

becca’s mega coloring tutorial by nataliescatorccio

This was done with Step 4 of Becca's tutorial, because the colors of the scene was easy to manipulate

the beginner's guide to channel mixer by audrey-plaza

gradient map + gradient fill by ruanbaijie

This was done by making the gif as neutral as possible with channel mixer and then putting a gradient fill on because I was lazy, gradient fill is a mix of step 3 of becca's tutorial and hanyi's gradient fill, I usually do that when I can't just manipulate the colors the gif already has easily

STEP 2 : clipping mask

The easiest way to me to have a bunch of other gifs on a bigger gif in any kinda shapes to me is clipping

clipping mask + layer mask by usergif

Tips :

Start by making your shape on the background gif to know so you can play with the layout of everything and see what looks good before adding any gif

When you make shapes (in my case a rectangle) in photoshop it tells you the height and the width of the shape, so when you are gonna clip your gif to that shape, I suggest cropping it in your base gif around like 30px more than what those are before you duplicate it in your big gif, that helps to have room to move your duplicated gif around when you are done clipping it to the shape

When you are done cropping the gif you gonna clip into the shape, convert to smart -> dupplicate in your big gif -> clip to shape

Example : the rectangle is around 150px width and 240px (or something), my duplicated gif was cut 180px 270px (or something) just so i can be free to move it when it's clipped

The yellow and green sticking out of the shapes are drop shadow added for drama and the tape is literally just searching for a tape png I put on it

STEP 3 : layout from scratch

The 3rd gif layout was made from scratch because I only had 3 gifs for that idea, and also I didn't want to look like the others so the gifset wouldn't be too one tone because I'm genuinely mentally ill

layouts from scratch by eddiediaaz

tutorial: using layer masks to format multiple gifs by yuutta

I used the 2nd tutorial like word of word and it gave me this

STEP 4 : fonts and other minor stuff

gradient text by anya-chalotra

I'm only gonna explain the GREEN FLAGS text because all the other colored texts are just a variation of that without the outline and with a different font, Gradient text tutorial says it all, here are my settings for this gifset

Kate's quick textstyles tutorial by aubrey-plaza

I use the technique on Gif 3 from step 4 and on (minus the outer glow) of Kate's tutorial, and made the stroke layer italic to make the outline of GREEN FLAGS

In the end, the layers are stacked like this

Now for the rest there isn't really any tutorial but here goes nothing

For the white text, I just put enough drop shadow for everything to be easy enough to read, for that I play with the opacity of the layer

And the little white lines are made with the line tool, to make the line continues just hold shift while you are making them

I hope all of this made sense, my biggest tip for all of this is literally to play with every setting until you find something your eyes tell you looks good, If you need more advice on something in particular feel free to send another ask

[leavemetoplaythesims]

shading and lighting tutorial!

this was requested by an anon. a little before we start! i use procreate on my ipad pro with an apple pencil. unfortunately procreate is the only program i know but i imagine similar features exist in other programs as well. i feel like i need to say that i am in no way an expert on shading and i know it's not always accurate. also if you end up using this tutorial in some of your edits please feel free to tag me, i would love to see it! if i've missed something or if i explained something badly don't be afraid to ask me about it. okay long post ahead!

so i'm going to just make a little simple edit of my girl. this is a screenshot taken from cas that has the sunscreen filter on it from the built in windows photo editor on 20% intensity.

now i've added my normal little touch ups that i usually do, eyelashes, catch lights and highlights as well as touching up her scars. everything is painted with the soft airbrush except for some highlights that are painted with the 2B compressed charcoal brush. before adding highlights however you should figure out where you want the light to come from. i've drawn a little ugly sun for you to see where i've placed my light.

now i use the soft airbrush and paint with black where the shadows would be. if i would have fixed up the hair (which i didn't for this one because it's my least favorite part and i didn't have the energy) i would have made sure to make the shadow layer behind the hair ones since i think it looks better if the hair isn't shaded the way the face is. then i blend all of the black out with the smudge tool with the soft airbrush so it looks a little softer.

then change the layer to soft light and change the opacity to 60% and voilà! you have soft shadows! if some shadows still look to harsh for your liking just go back in with the smudge tool a little more.

now do a layer on top of everything and kind of circle the part you want lit up the most with black again, smudge it and set the layer to soft light at 60% opacity.

this step is not a must, i don't do it very often anymore but if you want some extra color or light you can do this. choose a color you want your light source to be. i tend to feel like intense colors look the best. paint it where you want the light to come from, then use the gaussian blur tool until your satisfied.

now you can leave it in the normal layer setting or play around a bit with different ones until you find something that you feel fits. for this one i decided on using the difference layer setting on 70% opacity.

a step i always almost forget is shading the eyes! to do that you just repeat the normal shadow process. paint it black, smudge and put the layer to soft light on 60% opacity. it adds so much, i highly recommend this step! now you're done with the first part. now save it as an image and start a new canvas with that image.

if you want to use gaussian, motion or perspective blur now would be the time. i didn't for this one but i almost always do. this next step is also totally optional. we are going to use chromatic aberration in the displace setting on 90% opacity and slightly pull it to the side. then use the normal chromatic aberration between 5-10%. it just adds a lot of fun and weird color that i just love and makes the edit look so much more alive. then use sharpen, i usually do 10-15%. and after that use bloom. my edits are almost always dark so i use a lot of it. i think i did 35% for this one to give it a little glow. then use noise. my go to is 3% on max octaves. then go into hue, saturation, brightness and change the saturation to 55% (you can do however much you want but these are my go to's) and brightness to 49%.

now go into curves and play around. i always make the gamma brighter but the colors i play around with so much.

completely optional again but i've recently started to add a gradient map, especially instant or noir. for this one i used noir on 20%. and that's it, we are done!

before/after.

hopefully this is understandable and helpful. have fun!!

[rebvilla]

your colour choices are so fcking beautiful, do u have any advice re. colour theory or whatever for other artists that u could ramble about? no pressure AT ALL tho!!! just if u're up for it :D

thank u so much!!! I’m very much still learning colors myself so please excuse me if I made a mistake, but this is just my own experience and tips I think would be helpful:

GET THIS BOOK!!! this should cover all the basics AND advanced color theories and applications. if you can’t get a physical copy there should be a lot of free pdf downloads out there too!

now I’m just gonna list some little tips that I find super helpful for digital art:

1. color palettes! for me trying out color palettes is a great way to step out of my comfort zone and put those color theories to practice. here are two that I’ve been really enjoying:

2. turn on your painting brush’s color variation/color dynamics (mostly hue variation). you don’t need to set the value too high otherwise it’ll look too trippy (I set mine at 6-8%). it’ll make your colors so much more vibrant and lively, such a game changer for me.

3. I sometimes put a gradient map on top of a piece when I feel it’s too dull. just pick one and put it on top of all the layers and then mess with blending modes and opacity. different combos can sometimes give you surprising results!

4. lastly, save references or just anything that you find inspiring on your devices/pinterest/wherever you think it’s convenient. they’d definitely come in handy when you’re feeling dry.

sorry this is very unorganized but I hope this little rambling helps! <333

[sungtaro]

hi, i'm that yannqi who asked you about making gifs, it really helped me to make yangyang gifs and upload them into tenor, thank you so much!! can i ask about the sharpness, smart sharpen, curves etc. settings for your gifs, you really helped me so much, I'm so grateful.

aw hi friend !! i'm so glad <3 and i hope you'll post your yangyang gifs here on tumblr too so i can see them !!! tag me !!! hehe

as for my settings - they are different with every gifset. i make all of my coloring from scratch and i adjust sharpening based on the source video depending on the quality, lighting, etc. but i'll try to share my most often used options, so you can play around and see what you like.

sharpening:

opt 1 (what i'm using most often currently, creates a smoothing and fine detail sharpening effect) - i use camera raw filter with texture to +25 and noise reduction to +15

opt 2 (for a quick, easy way to create HD sharpening) - i use high pass at 4.0 px in soft light blending mode

opt 3 (for a classic look with fine detail and definition) - i use smart sharpen in these settings

you can also combine some of these together! and if i am not using the camera raw noise reduction, i often will add a gaussian blur layer. usually just 1 px at ~20% opacity.

coloring:

you can see some examples of my psds here ! they are not the most up to date for me now but they are a place to start. some other coloring things i pretty much almost always do:

set my darkest point with curves (always always my first step!)

increase reds and blacks in selective color

mattify / even out overexposure (esp of stage lights) with a gradient map layer in black&white, reverse box checked, soft light blending, 50% opacity 50% fill

color correct with color lookup, color balance, and/or color fill layers

add a top coat with an exposure layer set to multiply or soft light at 25% opacity

as always ... try things out and see what you like and what makes your own style come together :) if there is a specific set of mine you want the exact settings for, let me know, and i'll pull them if i have it saved ! i don't save a lot rip but i can also try to remember what i did ahbghsb . good luck, happy giffing, and PLEASE TAG ME IN UR YANGYANG GIFS 🫶🏻

[yuujies]

Your gifs are beautiful! I’ve really been wanting to get into making gifs myself, so I was just wondering how you make yours? Like what program you use, how you get them so clear, kind of thing. :)

Hey! Sorry for not answering this immediately, I figured a more thought out answer might be more helpful in this situation. I have also not put in basic info on how to make gifs, or get episodes - there are plenty of better written guides out there, and I feel like I would just be confusing.

I've tried to create a list of 'tips'/ things that I do:

I use photoshop to make my gifs. There are alternatives (e.g. GIMP), but photoshop is what I am most used to

Try to get 1080p versions of episodes if you can, or at least 720p if it's an older anime. Starting off with high quality frames puts you in an easier position

Remember that the more editing you do to the gif, the lower quality it can become. I.e. increasing saturation, changing colour balance. I wish to preface here that I am not trying to imply that more colourful / edited gifs are bad - they are wonderful, I have just found that it's a balance, and you need to go with what you want to do!

Practice. I have been making gifs pretty much daily for the better part of 3.5 years.

Choose scenes that are easiest to gif, at least to start with. Really dark scenes are harder to colour, at least in my experience.

How you sharpen your gifs can have a big impact on the end result.

I'll put an example below of one of my gifs, and some screenshots of what I did, and the sharpening settings I use. As a caveat, please note this is meant to be a guide, and I am also presuming you are familiar with making gifs and the terms I am using. If you let me know I can explain some things further, I just don't want this getting too long.

This is from the latest JJK ep. I made sure to get a 1080p version of the episode.

I then edited the colours slightly - in this case I increased the black and magenta level in the black layer only in 'selective colour', reduced vibrancy slightly, then I increased 'gamma correction' using the exposure level

That's all I did. Feel free to do more though - find your own style! On most gifs I'll put a 'gradient map' layer set to 'soft light' or a 'color lookup' layer, but as this scene is quite dark and saturated already, I didn't see the need in this particular case.

If I'd saved the gif now it would look like this:

Next comes the sharpening. I've screenshotted my sharpening settings and put them below. I used what I consider quite a 'harsh' sharpening - it really seems to bring out the outlines.

My sharpening action also sets a frame delay and converts to frame animation for me - very useful as I am usually feeling lazy.

After that you need to save, and here's another screenshot showing the save settings I use for pretty much every gif:

Main points are that I use adaptive pattern, and for image size under quality I use 'bicubic smoother'.

And tadaa:

Here's your finished gif.

[alecatmew]

Reflections on Tableturf

This blog post goes through a few of my Tableturf inspired artworks from 2023, ending with a quick timelapse of this painting:

With the launch of Splatoon 3 came a new game mode, Tableturf! I got quite into the idea of Tableturf, even being a part of coordinating an art collab project – Arty Siege – which paid homage to the in-game cards. I did lots of work for that – creating various design elements, having fun data merging artwork in InDesign, thinking about how the physical game would really play out, coordinating artists and creating artwork!

The art that I worked on included assets for the card backgrounds, and I illustrated one of the cards.

These background images were ink paintings traced from game screenshots. After doing a little photography tour in the game I exported the screenshots and used the Find Edges filter in Photoshop. I printed these reference lines to carbon paper and transferred them to watercolour paper.

After scanning the ink paintings, I applied some gradient map adjustments to them to adapt them into the card background.

I chose to illustrate the Splattershot Jr. as my designated card for the project. I’ve drawn the newbie squid before and as a Junior player (I became a Junior main because of having to unlock kits on many, many systems) I just feel a certain connection to the default loadout.

During initial project advertising, I used this artwork. The pose is taken directly from the pose of the original Tableturf card. With this version of the artwork, I mocked up the first version of how the cards would appear, including tweaks to the card UI and creating a 3D view of the card.

My motivations for changing the UI were to make the Arty Siege cards distinct from the in-game works, but also to think about what would make sense for a real card game. The original cards put all their important information at their base, but I wanted to make all the pertinent information visible easily from a fanned out hand of cards. So I moved the grid and special costs to the left side.

I also straightened the alignment of the block grid. The angled grid was cool, and saved a little space, but I felt that when looking down at the game board and determining how to make a move, it was easier to visualise the move you wanted to play by having an aligned grid. Maybe that was just me, it’s not like things in the real world would be completely squared anyway.

Anyhow, relatively late into the project I started feeling a bit insecure about that version of the Junior being my entry into the project. I was surrounded by an incredibly talented pool of artists and felt like I needed to step up to the standards of my peers! I still like my original artwork but I also felt inspired by the work I’d done on the backgrounds to do a piece in ink and use gradient mapping to add colour.

This time, I based the pose on some promotional artwork from Splatoon 2 – I wanted to show off the square ink tank because while the flat ink pack of Splatoon 3 features in some of the cards, many of the other ones seem to take cues from Splatoon 2’s fashion options.

Here’s the final version of the Splattershot Jr. card. Please do check out the Arty Siege website for all of the other works!

One of the things I did at the end of this project was to print out all the cards, which was a lot of fun! I felt like I built a new connection with each of the artists and their artwork in the process of printing, cutting and sleeving the cards.

While wrapping up Arty Siege I had a vague idea of running a promotional Tableturf tournament – maybe something in a casual vein, or with a bit of a team gimmick to allow a mix of player skills among drafted teams. The team angle was influenced by my favourite anime – Chihayafuru – a show that features a competitive karuta game based on the Ogura hyakunin isshu.

Chihayafuru is beautiful, and the way it depicts friendly competition really hits home. And there’s just something so great about the earnest enthusiasm of the players – they’re engaging in a pretty niche hobby so having the opportunity to play is something they’re truly grateful for. Coming from a grassroots Splatoon scene, I feel the parallels between the competition depicted in the show and some of my favourite times being a member of the Australian (and broader) Splatoon community.

I wish competitive video gaming was filled with people as kind and grateful for the opportunity to play with others as the karuta players in Chihayafuru.

— David Michael Kinne (@Mewd462) May 18, 2019

This kinda sums it up!

Although I didn’t end up running a Tableturf tournament, the imagery and the idea for an art piece stuck with me.

As much as I adore Chihayafuru, I’ve never felt brave enough to try to tackle fan art for it. The gorgeous scenes, the sense of movement, the game that I only have the most superficial understanding of… it all felt quite intimidating.

But Splatoon, I feel comfortable in that universe…

(A universe which coincidentally seems to have a version of karuta already!)

However, my painting is not an attempt to retcon that karuta into Tableturf. In my headcanon, the two coexist. I just wanted to borrow the aesthetics of karuta for my Tableturf scene. I was inspired by the glowing sunset scenes of karuta which I associated with the characters practicing in the school clubroom, but also by the tournament games played while wearing kimono.

Before starting this painting I did two “mood studies” – just getting a feel for whether I could tame the contrast of yellows, oranges and purples before I started. Watercolour can be a tricky medium, and it’d be hubris to walk into this kind of endeavour without a plan.

That first image is sort of a Chihayafuru fanart, I guess – the scene is most likely Arata sitting alone with his cards – but that wasn’t the purpose of the sketch. I wanted to get a feel for how I’d depict the trees in the windows, and the light entering the room. The second sketch really sets up the composition that I’d ultimately use for the final piece.

After deciding on that sketch, I made simple 3D version of the scene in Blender.

A digital sketch then filled in the character details

Which was then printed out and transferred to stretched watercolour paper, then painted over the span of a few weeks.

I also wrote a poem to go with this painting. It’s based on poem 77 of the Ogura hyakunin isshu. Here’s one blogger’s translation and writeup about the poem (I chose to highlight this blogger because they also have a post about the Karuta that appears in Splatoon 2!)

The translation included in that post is credited to Joshua Mostow,

Because the current is swift, even though the rapids, blocked by a boulder, are divided, like them, in the end, we will surely meet, I know

Other translations summarise the scene as

Swift waters parted by the jagged rocks are joined at river's end.

The overall mood that I get from this poem, having only experienced it through translations, is a mix of urgency and yet steadfast certainty that comes from love. Apparently, the “swift currents” were not in the original poem, and were a later edit, but I think the imagery is certainly much stronger with the idea of rapid waters.

I felt the scenario could be mapped quite closely to the energy and movement of Turf War, and by extension, Tableturf. The rapid currents can be whirls of paint instead, and the boulder standing in the way of the lovers could well be a grey block, created in Tableturf when both players play their cards over the same squares.

I chose to write my poem following the rough syllabic rules of the original poetry, the lines having 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. But I put a western poetic spin on them as well, making use of rhyme throughout.

Our rapid advance, Blocked by chance or wit wherefore. Must we halt our dance? No - surge forth in this turf war! We'll unite our ink once more.

The rapid advance describes that rush to claim turf, as well as for the rivals/lovers to meet at the middle of the map. “Chance or wit wherefore” refers to how the grey block ended up in their way. Was it coincidence that they played in the same tile, or was it cunning strategising from one of the players? With this obstacle in place, the shape of their relationship (whether it be a rivalry or a romance) is affected.

The ending couplet describes the characters choosing to rise above (or work around) adversity – in-game the boulders would not be passable at all, so they must certainly have some grit! Like the swift waters in the original poem, they’ll be sure to meet again.

I love how this artwork and poem came together. Reflecting upon them I feel all those warm fuzzy feels from all the ways that Splatoon – and more recently Tableturf – have made their impact on me. I’m grateful to have had another great year of art, friends and community and I’m looking forward to more good times in the future.

"Reflections on Tableturf" was originally published on Proairesis

[rexferguson]

How do you color your gifs? They look so natural!

thank you! honestly, i've been making gifs for years and i look at a bunch of tutorials. i don't really use set psds for gifs because all sets are different. even in the same gifset i'm altering something depending on the colouring, lighting, etc. you just have to find what works for you! 💙 my typical colouring format once i have the gif made and sharpened is:

curves layer (use the lightest dropper and select the lightest point on your gif and the darkest dropper to select darkest point on your gif or even just an auto curves layer and adjust from there if need be)

levels layer

exposure layer

if i'm going to use a channel mixer layer this is absolutely where i put it every time so i can see what it looks like before i do anything else that's really going to touch the colouring process of a gif

colour balance layer (this is another one where you really just have to play around with it and hope something works out to your liking. you don't want to mess around with this too much unless you're hoping for a more colourful gif but it does work to even out skin tones before you add selective colour layer. at least, that's what i use it for. and to balance the actual full scenes colouring since warmer scenes need some coolness to really make them work and cooler scenes need some warmth. this is a great tool to bring that back in where it's lacking)

sometimes i go in with a brightness and contrast layer here if there's anything i want to fix up before i start dealing with the actual colouring but i usually like to save that until later on which is just a preference of mine because if i can avoid using the brightness i will but at some point i always add some contrast at least. i only usually put a brightness and contrast layer in this spot if the scene is particularly dark so i can see what i'm working with.

selective colour layer (very specifically the whites and blacks which i usually turn the whites to anywhere from -75 to -92 but it depends on the scene and the blacks are usually no higher than +7)

selective colour layer (here i mess around with the yellows and reds mostly for the skin tone purposes and play around with it until it looks the way i want which is usually more on the natural side or at least as natural as i can get it)

now i may go in with another selective colour layer here for all the other shades depending on the scene and/or if i want certain colours in the background or on the clothing to pop which i usually do and it's mostly blues and greens i play around with. i never, ever touch the neutrals option except on very rare occasions if i want to change the entire colour of the gif.

hue/saturation layer (i use this about 50% of the time and mainly just turn the saturation up but usually i don't go above like... +5)

sometimes i'll add a gradient map layer here of some aqua/blue shade, set it to soft light, and turn the opacity down to about 10-20%) OR i'll add a black and white layer and do the same. mostly, it's the latter of these two.

lastly (well, kinda) this is 95% of the time where i'll put my brightness and contrast layer if the scene isn't particularly dark. if it is, i'll usually add another here as well as the one listed above. regardless - i usually end up with one in this position. never too much but again just to whatever your personal preference is.

other options: another curves layer (if i add one here it's typically an auto curves) or you can add a vibrance layer (which is my personal preference)

i actually have no idea what i'm doing so please don't take my word as holy grail! i appreciate the compliment, but i promise you - there are so many people who have made so many beautiful tutorials and i highly recommend sifting through the colouring tutorial tags for more comprehensible, in depth versions. this is just what works for me 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

[rhodeys]

✨ COLORING GIFS FOR RAINBOW SETS ✨

hello!! so this ask had just been sitting in my inbox for days, and since i finally got some free time (and an incentive) i thought i’d put together a general coloring tutorial - especially for those who are interested in rainbow sets, or just want to get freaky with their gifs, hehe.

photoshop: cc 2021, but tbh this tutorial is compatible with most versions of photoshop for: beginners / anyone with a basic understanding of adjustment layers and brush tool (optional)

the tutorial will show how you can: (1) enhance colors in a neutral/washed out scene (2) change the overall color of a shot (3) make the colors bolder/stronger (4) convert the dominant color to another color

in other words: i rarely save my psds so this is what we’re stuck with

1. 

usually, when i’m making a color set, the first thing i do is open the hues/saturation layer and pull the saturation to a 100. this gives me a pretty good idea of the colour palette i can work with. and since this shot is more on the dark side, i brightened the gif a bit, and then moved saturation to a 100. this is what i get:

now that i know the dominant colour is yellow, i can drag the saturation back to 0 and start working on the actual coloring! i go to curves, and brighten the gif a little. most of the time, the white and black points (the first and the third inkdropper) does wonders in color correcting your gif. buut, marking the white point of for this gif would remove what little yellow we have, so i just did a manual adjustment until i was happy with the result.  

(since he’s a poc, i used a brush tool at 35% capacity over his face on the curves layer mask. it’s soft, and barely noticeable, but it stopped him from looking lighter, which would become a problem once we move on to the vibrance layers. basically, the lighter the subject, the more susceptible it is to being affected by color enhancing layers.)  

next, i go to the yellow hue/saturation option, and increase yellow saturation to 50. i usually don’t do this much, but the yellows are very very light in this scene, so we’re enhancing the colors wherever we can. i also lowered the intensity of the reds using these settings:

the reason i’m reducing red saturation is because - remember the dominant color on his face was red/yellow? - i don’t want my vibrance layers to end up reddening his skin too much. we already tackled a portion of this when we used the brush tool with curves, but this just ensures that the final product doesn’t have his skin looking too yellowy/funny, hehe. this is my gif after the saturation settings:

honestly, the difference is minimal, but now we have an actual color to work with. now it’s just a matter of enhancing that color. at this point, his skin may also look washed out, but the color will return once we get started with the vibrance/color layers. 

now, i open the vibrance layer, and - this is always dependent on the gif, btw - drag the sliders around until the colors are bolder. this is my gif now:

the yellows are much more evident now, and there’s a bit more color in his face - so yay! at this stage there’s really no need for selective coloring - so i’ll just add a brightness layer and another vibrance layer:

and voila!! mans lookin good

2. 

changing the overall color of the gif is a fairly easy process. i think one thing to look out for is if there are people/a lot of skin that would end up being affected by the coloring – unless there’s minimal movement that you can use a brush tool for. 

loki is more or less a silhouette in this shot, and all i’d need to do would be increase the contrast between him and the fog, and slap on a color. this can be done one of three ways: selective coloring, color balance, and gradient map. i’ll be using selective coloring here because i felt that worked best and it’s also an adjustment layer i’m most comfortable with. 

enhancing the contrast comes first, and since the brightness/contrast layer didn’t work as well as i’d hoped, i opened up the exposure layer and put in these settings:

and i get this:

now that loki is much more prominent against the fog, we can move on to the coloring. since i want it to be pink, i’m gonna open the neutral selective coloring, and use these settings:

just make sure your selective coloring is on “absolute” because it colors your gif independent of the original gif and makes your colors more strong, whereas ‘relative’ colors your gif relative to the original gif – which doesn’t work all that well for color sets. (read: makes it look ugly)

i got the color, but methinks its still a little too dull, so i’ll add a brightness/contrast layer to make the color pop

and done!!

3. 

animation gifs are much more easier to color because the colours are easily isolated, which is just chefs kiss when you use selective coloring. for this one, i just want to enhance the blues / reds, and remove the magenta tone so that the colours are more vivid. first, i increase the contrast:

it’s sharpened the colors a bit, and reduced the dullness:

now, because i want to enhance the blues/reds, and reduce the magenta, i’m going to use these settings in my selective coloring layer: 

i didn’t want to make the red too bright, since red has an annoying tendency to pixelate, and lowered the magentas just enough so that the three of them still have a bit of color on their face. now the blues: 

now that that’s done, all we need is to brighten up the gif. i’ll use curves for this:

i selected my white point (the white inkdropper) from the white part on baymax’s face (which i just realized makes no sense bc his entire face is white) which immediately brightened up the gif and erased the excess magenta. 

if you want, you could still make it brighter by selecting your white point a little towards the shadows in baymax’s face - but methinks this gif looks fine by itself ehehe 

4.

this one will be fairly easy - especially for a shot like this where it’s just blues and black - and will only require selective color and some brightness layers. so, i want to make this a violet gif. the very first thing i’ll do is open up selective coloring and enhance the blues:

idk if this is a thing others do djsajskl i feel like they do, but i do this because i’ve always found it easier to do color convert when the colors are enhanced - so, the more enhanced my blues are, the easier it is to convert to violet. this is what i have now:

now it’s time for violet!!! yee!!!

i increased the magenta in the whites because the highlights in the cloud were looking VERY white, and would end up looking very weird once i increased brightness. so this is just for…. consistency

now we can get on with brightening!! i open up the brightness/contrast layer and use these settings:

and another curves layer, where i’ve intense-ified the dark parts (the grey slider is at input: 27) and lightened the rest (the white slider is at input: 220) 

(i just feel like it makes the coloring look crispy)

and tada!!! 

i hope this helped! i’m still in the learning process when it comes to coloring, but if you have any questions/clarifications, please don’t hesitate to reach out! 

[clubgif]

Gifs on Gifs

Like in this amazing set by @thankunnext AKA #userdre, I will explain how to add a shaped color gif with a border over a black and white gif with this as our example:

↓ LEARN HOW TO DO THIS UNDER THE CUT ↓

—

1. THE GIF ON GIF PART

—

[1.1] Create your small gif

Make the gif like you normally would (just the basic brightening/coloring and sharpening) then save. If you don’t know how to make gifs yet, click here for some great tutorials.

We'll leave this for now and move on to the big gif.

[1.2] Create a new document for the big gif

To do this, press command for Mac / Ctrl for Windows + N.

The size is up to you :) Just make sure the width is 540px, the standard Tumblr post width. In the example above, the dimensions are 540px (width) by 615px (height).

[1.3] Click Create Frame Animation

This button can be found in the Timeline window, which is normally found at the bottom portion of Photoshop. If it's not there, go to Windows > ✓ Timeline.

[1.4] Convert to Timeline

To do this, select the button at the bottom left part of the Timeline window, encircled in orange below:

We'll leave this for now and go back to the small gif.

[1.5] Open your saved small gif then turn it into a Smart Object

If you don't know how, here's a quick tutorial on how to do it.

[1.6] Transfer the small gif into the new document

If you don't know how, check out the super easy Duplicate layer method here!

[1.7] Delete the white Background layer after transferring the small gif

[1.8] Drag the playhead to the start of the timeline if it's not at the start of the timeline

Do this before adding text/layers/adjustment layers in order to align them with your gif as demonstrated below:

[1.9] Duplicate the small gif layer

Shortcut keys:

Mac: command + J Windows: Ctrl + J

[1.10] Enlarge the original small gif layer to fill the canvas

This is what it looks like now:

So this is basically how you put a gif over a gif! You can stop here or keep reading to know about the shape, coloring and effects :)

—

2. THE SMALL GIF PART

—

NOTE: Make sure you have the small gif copy layer selected.

[2.1] Add a rounded rectangle shape (or any shape you prefer)

This can be found under the Rectangle Tool (U).

Next, click on the new document/canvas once and this window will pop out:

These are my settings.

NOTE: Make sure the shape's dimensions are the same as the small gif's dimensions or smaller (for step [2.3]). The Radii is for the rounded corners—the bigger the px, the rounder the corner. Feel free to change it :)

[2.2] Align your small gif copy to the shape

My shape and small gif copy are at the center of the big gif. To center your objects perfectly, view step [5B] Move tool here.

[2.3] Clip mask the small gif copy over the shape

To do this:

Make sure the small gif copy layer is above the shape layer

Right click on the small gif copy layer

Select "Create Clipping Mask"

[2.4] Add a stroke to the shape layer

This is for the border around the small gif.

To do this, click the fx button at the bottom of the Layers window. These are my settings:

[2.5] Add a Gradient Map over the small gif copy

This can be found by clicking the circle button at the bottom of the Layers window, as demonstrated here:

Next, clip mask the Gradient Map layer over the small gif layer. To do this, right click on the Gradient Map layer and select Create Clipping Mask.

To edit the Gradient Map colors, double click on the color stop, the one circled in blue below:

TIP: As demonstrated above, drag the color stop near the middle to increase the highlights/brightness of the gif (this would also depend on your chosen color).

—

3. THE BIG GIF PART —

[3.1] Add gaussian blur to the big gif

To do this:

Select the big gif / original small gif layer (the first layer)

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

These are my settings:

Enlarged gifs/photos tend to become pixelated as opposed to reducing the size of big gifs/photos. Other than being a creative gifset effect, adding the gaussian blur softens the rough pixels. So feel free to increase the blur to your liking :)

[3.2] Add a gradient map over the big gif layer

To do this, check out step [2.5]. The colors I've chosen for this are grey for the highlights and black for the shadows. (I've reached the ten photo limit so you're only getting a description 😂)

〰️

Please like/reblog if this has helped you and feel free to hit me up for any questions and concerns! ♥︎

[simotonin]

Saccharine Deluxe .atn for PS [SFS]

ok here it is, my clay hair action available for the public! took me a while to put this together, but here’s the final result. this was made using Photoshop CS5, so YMMV with older/newer versions. please let me know if there’s any issues with the action file, this is my first time sharing something like this! here’s my hair recolor checklist if anyone wants to take a crack at it to kick off this download :)

before you download, however, you must read the info below in order for this to work properly! a quick visual tutorial is below the cut:

PREREQUISITES:

Photoshop

pastry-box’s editing actions (1/2)

simandy’s hair gradient (you need the gradient labeled ‘10′)

.DDS Plugin

Topaz Clean 3

Topaz DeNoise 5

first, you absolutely need the ‘dirty blonde’ base color from whatever hair you’re recoloring (e.g., miniculesim always uses this for her blonde, whereas spottedonsixam does not)

1. to start, locate the ‘blonde’ .package file for whatever hair you want to recolor, fire it up in SimPE. then use ‘Export’ to create a .png of the hair. save it wherever, then boot up photoshop. 

note: depending on your version, you may have to open photoshop via dds64.8bi like I do in order for it to work properly

2. open your .png file, then use ‘Save As’ to save as a .dds file. close the .png, then open the .dds to start recoloring

3a. there’s a [PLAY ALL] action that will take care of the whole recoloring process for you and will create layers of each color for you to individually save. you can either use this one button or go through the whole tutorial below

3b. assuming you’ve already downloaded simandy’s gradients, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map, and click ‘Ok’

you should see a square labeled ‘10′ (it doesn’t show up in the pic), this is the one you want...

... and your file should look like this

click ‘Merge Visible’ to merge the layers

4. in the action folder, click [BASE COLOR] to run the base, then click [SHARP & SMOOTH] for photoshop to use topaz clean and denoise. your file should look like this now

note: the base color also doubles for the fam2 gray called ‘milk’, so if you use the shortcut action the [PLAY ALL] action will take care of this, otherwise ignore the action labeled ‘22 // unsweetened milk (gray2)’, that’s there for completionist’s sake

5. now you can start using the numbered color actions. quickest way to go through them all is to save each color one at a time, ctrl+alt+Z to unmerge the colored layers and delete them, then move down to the next number

save your files as .dds, I recommend saving them in folders and naming them something recognizable like ‘fam4 hazelnut’ so you won’t get confused

my setup is like this

and that’s it! for those who know how to make hair packages in bodyshop, this tutorial is done, but for those who don’t...

6. first thing, drop the hair .package labeled ‘black’ into your cc folder, we need to copy from black to get the gray. boot up bodyshop and create a new genetics project. hit ‘Export Selected Textures’

this is the naming system I use for my hairs so I know which one to group up.  repeat step 6 for the remaining hair colors of the family you’re using. close bodyshop when you’re finished

7. now boot up cat’s hairbinner. depending on the hair you’re recoloring, there may not be life stages available (like a hair without a toddler stage), so deselect the unavailable ages before you hit ‘Bin’. to link all 4+1 colors together. wait for the hairbinner to bin and close the program after it’s done

note: I deselect ‘make backup files’ but it’s up to you how you do this. my hairs all have gray link to the black for simplicity sake

8. this step, we’re gonna add our recolored .dds files to our binned packages. load SimPE, click ‘New’, then 'Open’ your binned hair file. go to the ‘Texture Image’ tab and right-click ‘Import DDS’ on the hair you’re replacing. locate the new hair color, click ‘Open’. hit ‘Commit’. repeat this step for the other 3 files

9. (this step is optional for those who merge packages, skip if you don’t) now you’re gonna merge these files together. once you’re done with step 8, hit ‘New’ for a new package, then click ‘Add’ for the files you just edited. you can add a tooltip so people can know this is something you made, then hit ‘Save As’ to save your newly merged package

10. to get in the habit, use the Compressorizer to compress your merged/separate package(s), it’ll help cut down the file size. you can now boot bodyshop back up to see the finished product

aaaand you’re done, share your recolored hairs to the world

[heidzou]

 Ripped paper edges on gifs + text tutorial

Some people was asking me about how to make ripped edges on gifs like on mine destiel giset, so i decided to make a tutorial for this and give you some tips for text on your gif graphics. For making this you'll need photoshop and basic knowledge for making gifs with the timeline.

First of all, you need to make your basic gif and gif that you wanna make with edges. I prefer to make gifs in black and white or with gradient maps when i make graphics. When you wanna make a multiplue gif, please be sure that all gifs have the same count of frames. My basic gif is just b&w and the second gif i made with black and dark yellow gradient map, and now they look like this:

Here’s some tips for your gifs:

Use HQ videos. I use only 1080p videos, because I’m addicted to big beautiful gifs. 720p will be okay too, but try to use highest quality.

I recommend you use 0,5 for frame delay, because for me this have the best looks of gif. When you done with your gifs, open them in photoshop again and change delay to 0,5 - for some reason ps change delay when we convert frames to timeline. In this tutorial I forget about this step because I’m stupid lol.

Don’t forget about dimensions! Right now it’s 540px width for one gif, 268px for two and 177px for three (with 178px for the middle gif).

Now you need to drag smart object of your second gif on the top of the first, and it will look like this (i put all in the different groups because it makes all much easier and faster):

And now we gonna do the funniest part! There’s a lot of ways to make a paper effect on your gif, I’m gonna show you two of them that I love to use. Now you need to google some ripped paper textures/pngs, choose your favorites and start. For this way i choose a png. Just drag the texture on your gif, put this under smart object of your second gif, then right click on the smart object and choose ‘create clipping mask’.

Ta-da, now we have a paper effect. You just need to put it in the place where you want this to be, mine is on the middle of gif, and it looks like this now:

That’s the easiest way. Now i wanna show you how i created effect on my destiel set. For this way we still can use whatever we want (texture/png), but I decided to use texture. I just cut out the edges and put this on my gif (set blending option on ‘screen’), now it looks like this:

Now I duplicate this layer, flip this horizontal and vertical (or just rotate layer on 180 degrees lol) and play around with this two layer while I’ll like the result. Use ereser if you need, then merge layers and add brightness to make it white.

Now just duplicate layer again, flip and drag on the inner corner of your second gif.  Put a layer mask on the group with your gif layers and erase the areas outside our texture.

Now we need to put a text on this. Working with text is my favorite part of making graphics. Here I put just an air date of the episode, title and quote. For quotes I always use Avenir or Arial fonts with the same settings:

I love playing with letters scale in this part and when i want to highlight part of quote, I just select this part and set this with ‘bold’ option. For blending option most of time i use ‘difference’ or just ‘normal’. After this I’m adding episode title, playing with blending options and fonts and my final result looks like this:

Here’s my saving settings, but I highly reccomend you to make your own settings. Just click on the ‘4-up’. Here you can test different saving settings and choose what you prefer.

Voila, you created your creative gif! I hope this tutorial was helpful for you, but don’t be afraid to ask me if you don’t understand something. My english is very bad and I’m a bad explainer, but I will try to help you.

[killingsboys]

Your Brokeback Mountain gifset is so gorgeous I’m 😭🗣💞 how do you make the coloring look so pretty in B&W? Everytime I try mine look so ugly :( either way I can’t stop looking at your gifset, the color palette you used is absolutely delightful! X

anon you are so so kind omg!!!!! thank you so much for your sweet words 🥺💛✨ here are my tips for black & white coloring!!!!

don't use the black and white button or the vibrance controls, use the gradient map!!!

this makes a small but noticeable difference: the gradient map (using black and white) is slightly softer than the other options. (i don't have the PSDs saved from the brokeback set so i'll use a gif from a set i'm making rn as an example)

again, a small difference, but a difference all the same!

i also like to do some brightening with curves beneath the gradient map, and then brighting with levels above the gradient map, so my layers look like this!

and to keep the lighting soft, i specifically use the middle arrow when coloring with levels!

important note: be mindful when coloring with this tool in particular, because it will make skin more pale, and you do not want to palewash/whitewash people of color. here and here you can find tutorials on doing pale and pastel colorings while staying true to skintone.

i hope that this helps you!!! if you have any other questions, please let me know!!! i hope you are doing well and staying safe 💛

[paisky]

coloring tutorial by ramsking;

first of all: sorry, i’m not good explaining things.

what you’ll need:

photoshop (i’m using cs6);

basic knowledge about using photoshop and how to make gifs.

please like or reblog if you find this tutorial useful

p.s.: english isn’t my first language so sorry for any mistakes.

LEVELS: the first thing i usually do is work with levels. i think they are simple and easier then curves, ‘cause it will brighten or darken the whole gif, not just specific parts.

RESULT:

SELECTIVE COLOR: i add a selective color layer to give more life to the colors.

RESULT: 

HUE/SATURATION: now i increase the reds and decrease the yellows

RESULT:

COLOR BALANCE: the gif looks too red, so we’re making it look more natural. in shadows, i go for the blues and cyans, ‘cause i want to cancel the red tones at the background and shadows. for the midtones, i increase the reds and decrease the yellows, so we don’t lose the skin color

RESULT:

GRADIENT MAP: noise usually comes from too much saturation. to solve that, some people add a brightness/contrast layer and decrease the contrast. i use gradient map, i change the blending mode to “exclusion” and change the opacity to 15% or 20%.

RESULT:

HUE/SATURATION: i add another layer increasing the reds bc gradient map took some of the color

RESULT:

SELECTIVE COLOR: in this house we don’t stan whitewashing, so since asians have yellow undertone, we’re increasing the cyans (if you decrease the cyans, it will look more red, and that’s not a look we’re going for) and yellows, and decreasing the magent, so it won’t look pinkish. 

you can see that mix’s hair is kinda red, so we fix that with blacks, increasing the cyans and the yellows to cancel this red. i also increase the the black color, bc when you save your gif, it won’t create noise.

RESULT:

LEVELS: ok, this is finally the last step. i feel like it was too bright, so i moved the black arrow (the first one) and the gray arrow (the middle one) to the right

RESULT:

ok, this is it y’all. hope you guys have learned anything. you can use this as a base and change whatever you want. and most important: you can always change the layer’s opacity or even the psd’s opacity if they look too strong. if you need any help or have questions, just ask me!