Photoshop Tutorial: Colorizing Graphite Drawings

This is a technique for colorizing a graphite drawing or sketch to make it look like it was drawn in colored pencil. I use Photoshop, so that's how the tutorial is presented, but it should be possible to modify this technique and use it in GIMP.


The techniques used here work best on a detailed pencil drawing with a lot of tonal variation. It's designed to keep the texture of the original pencil strokes in tact while creating an explosion of colour to add interest to the piece. By that I mean, if it starts rough and grainy, it'll end up rough and grainy, and if it starts finely textured your end result will be too, so make sure that you get your original drawing to the state you want it at before you scan and start. The image above is a drawing I did a few years ago. It's fairly detailed, with a strong grainy paper texture.



As you can see in the picture above, shading with graphite generally relies upon the interaction of the black graphite dust and the white paper beneath it to give the impression of shades of grey, and for this reason you'll probaby get disappointing results if you simply used the "Hue/Saturation" modifier. Your colors would appear very dull and quite dark, because it's still a lot of black dust on a white backround with only a slight bit of grey to actually add colour to. Thus the first thing we need to do is to turn the blacks and white into shades of grey.


Start by duplicating your background layer. There are several ways to do this and I assume you already have a personal favourite, but I tend to just drag the layer onto the "Create New Layer" button at the bottom of the Layers panel. Rename the layer for reference purposes. Now we create some shades of grey. There are 2 basic ways of doing this: The Gaussian Blur filter (Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur), or the Median filter (Filters>Noise>Median).
The image above shows a comparison of the effects of the 2 filters. Gaussian Blur basically gives each pixel a new colour based mathematically on the colours of the pixels within a defined radius, with nearer pixels contributing more than distant ones, resulting in a softer, unfocused image. Median, on the other hand, reduces the color variation (or noise) between pixels by giving each pixel the average colour of every other pixel within it's radius. This method results in crisper edges, while smoothing out the tone in the body of a colour block. A common use for this filter is for eliminating the moiré patterns one gets when scanning from a printed image.
You can use either... The Gaussian Blur is best if you don't want crisp edges, Median is best if you do. For the purposes of this image I went for the Gaussian blur. Now for some colour.

You can use the Hue/Saturation modifier to add color, but I find it a little limiting on the variation you can get in your midtones. The best bet is to use a Gradient map. Duplicate your blurred layer and rename it something appropriate, I went with "Skin" as that's what this colour pass will deal with. Apply a Gradient Map (Image>Adjustments>Gradient map). Click on the gradient bar to adjust your gradient, and add in your midtones. Play with the gradient until you are happy with the colour on your image and then apply it.

You now have a nice colourful image... but the texture of the original drawing is no where to be seen. It's time to put it back. Select your background layer, which should be unchanged from your original scan, select all and copy it. Go into quick mask mode, and paste. You should see a red wash over all the dark parts of your image. The wrong parts are masked though, so we need to invert it.


Upon exiting quick mask mode you should see "marching ants" around all the dark bits. Make sure you're you've got the correct layer selected (In this case "Skin".)


Now we add a layer mask. The button at the bottom of the Layers panel, marked with a red square in the above image. The layer mask will make any pixel not in the selection transparent. and if you turn off your background layer you should see something like this:


Of course, our serpent warrior isn't wearing skin coloured clothing, and likely your drawing is going to have a bit of a variety of color too. We need to mask out everything that isn't going to be this colour. Ensure that you're working on the layer mask and not the layer itself. You can tell by looking at your Layers panel. If your working on the layer mask, there will be a thick rectangle around the layer mask's thumbnail.

When in layer mask mode you only have the option of shades of grey, white representing 100% opacity, and black representing complete transparency. Use your favourite method to apply black to all the parts that don't need to show through.
Now go and repeat that with every other colour. This may seem a little tedious, but it's going to keep the problems to a minimum. As you get a feel for the technique you'll run through it pretty quickly and intuitively know where to take short cuts.



This technique is pretty good for colorizing anything. If there's no grain to preserve (as in a black and white photograph) you can do away with the blurring and layer masks and simply use the gradient map technique. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful... Let us know what you thought!

Other articles you may be interested in:
One Point Perspective Tutorial
Some of my pencil drawings
Colorised Comic Book Art

5 books that I've found invaluable in drawing comic art

Sadly neglected the Unfinished Comic for a while due to work commitments. A few months ago I picked up a pretty huge job drawing a comic book for an international corporation, and it's been taking up all of a my time, so my side projects have been sidelined since I started it, but now I'm nearing completion on that and can finally get back on track with everything else again!

As a professional illustrator I find it's very important to put a lot of time into developing my skills, especially as their is a higher standard required when you plan on making money out of your art. Apart from just practicing, I read as much as I can on the subject to try and close the gaps in my knowledge a little. This article is about a few books that have helped me a lot in my journey as a comic book artist, and I'm certain that they will be very helpful to you too.

Figure Drawing without a Model by Ron Tiner
Published by David & Charles

Ron Tiner is a very talented illustrator who has worked on quite a few comic book titles including Hellblazer. He's probably more famous for this particular book though. Of all the books I have on the subject, this is probably the one I've read the most. It honestly won't turn you into a great illustrator after one read, and doesn't even try to do that. It doesn't have step-by-step exercises or any of that sort of stuff. It doesn't even go into great detail about technique or style. What it does do though, is give you practical and useful advice on how to practice drawing. It tells you how to get better. How to spot where you're going wrong. It teaches you to observe. I honestly wouldn't be where I am today if I had not read this book, and I think a few years after you have read it, you will probably say the same.


Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy by Chris Hart
Published by Watson-Guptill Publications

If you are going to draw comics you need to know anatomy. While it's certainly true that you can break the rules of anatomical accuracy when drawing comic books, you still need a solid foundation and deep knowledge of the rules before you go deciding what to ignore in favour of your style. When it comes to anatomy there are many, many books on the subject, and honestly, there are many books far better than this if you are interested in realism and accuracy. This book is, however, absolutely great for those interested in drawing superheroes in a dramatic and interesting way that takes anatomy into account.

This book is the one I'd recommend to younger comic book artists who want to make their characters a little anatomically realistic, but it has been an invaluable reference to me when I need a quick reminder of where muscles need to be, or what they should look like.

People and Poses by Buddy Scalera
Published by Impact Books

This is not really an educational book per se, though it does contain a few short pages dedicated to instruction and advice on drawing. It is primarily a collection of photographs of various models.

Like most artists I have built up a large library of reference photographs gleaned from all manner of places over the years. I have literally hundreds of images of people doing all sorts of mundane things like sitting and sleeping and walking, but I don't really have many photos of people flying or fighting or any of the stuff that heroes typically do in comics. That is what makes this book great! It's full of those kinds of images. There are additional volumes to this expanding on the themes in here, but I have not included them here as they are far more specific, and this one is very general, but it is certainly worth looking at if you are planning on drawing comics seriously.


Vanishing Point by John Cheeseman-Mayer
Published by Impact Books

Perspective is by far one of the most tricky things to get your head around in drawing, even when you have been doing it for a long time. Vanishing Point is one of the most useful books on the subject that I have ever come across. It's not that it's the most explicitly detailed treatise on the various techniques out there, but rather that it has the right information to get the job done, presented in a practical and easy to understand way that makes very helpful to any comic book artist out there, new or experienced.

It deals with the standard 1, 2 and 3 point perspective in enough depth to get you drawing your scenes to a really high standard, and then ups the ante by introducing some more dramatic ideas like 4 point perspective, which you would use to represent multiple viewing angles within a single drawing, and 5 point curvilinear perspective, which resembles the world viewed through a fisheye lens. All of this would be enough to make this book perfect on its own, but they take it further with practical advice on fixing your mistakes, and improving your drawing.

100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures by Francis Tsai
Published by Impact Books
This book is not really anything to do with drawing comics, but it is packed with useful advice for any illustrator. It doesn't have much to say on technique or style and won't teach you how to draw. It does teach you how to approach creation of characters and ideas though, and it does it well. it covers though processes and idea development, and gives a lot of useful suggestions on how to up your game and create more vivid and exciting pieces of artwork.










I'd be very interested to hear which books you have found interesting and useful in your drawing careers. Please comment with any books that you'd recommend!