How To Render Metal -Tutorial

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On my latest Wonder Woman coloring I took the time to capture about 25 minutes of the process. This is essentially a small tutorial on how I render metal. So go check it out here:




Below, I have a step by step walk through on what I'm doing on screen. I didn't want to spend hours using a video editor to add the steps into the video. So I hope reading them below works fine.
Anyways, Enjoy! Hope it helps!

00:08 - Apply a dark purple/blue for a preparation of the warm light (Hard brush at 60%).
00:29 - Use the Lasso tool to make a selection for the blue rim lighting.
01:13 - Apply a light blue over your selection (Soft brush at 60%).
01:20 - Apply white over the light blue (same brush, same opacity).
01:25 - Don't completely cover the blue with the white.
01:36 - remove your selection and add the light blue with a soft brush at 25% to give the metal a sort of ambient glow.
01:46 - Don't be afraid to go back and re-do anything that looks wrong.
02:04 - Zoom out and check your work once in a while if you need to.

02:17 - You mainly want the light blue around the selection you had earlier and not over the whole thing. Now add the white at 25% over the blue you just added. Not too much, just a highlight.

03:36 - Use the Lasso tool to make a selection for the warm rim lighting. You want the majority of the light closest to your light source.

03:47 - Apply a soft orange over your selection (Soft brush at 60%).
04:01 - Apply a soft yellow over the orange (Soft brush at 60%).
04:15 - Now add the orange and yellow as a sort of glow, without the selection (soft brush 25%).
05:26 - Next, add the white. This should only go on the yellow and anytime you add a third rendering color it generally looks better to do a second selection.

05:47 - Now for the white glow.
06:46 - Now in order to give the pieces of metal the individuality that they need, I take the light off of the metal on the opposite side of the light source and add a highlight towards the light source (I do this using the same colors, in the same order I have been, with a soft brush at 50%)

08:58 - And I do the same thing on the blue, but the opposite side because the light source is different.
09:04 - In Photoshop you can spin the canvas to get a better angle for your selection, by pressing R and then dragging the screen.

17:37 - Now, I clean up my layers, so that the color selections, are only over the metal in order to prepare for the over-glow.
18:01 - After that, I select the colors lighter than the over-glow color I am going to put down (orange, yellow, light blue and white) and invert them so that the over-glow doesn't go over them and look muddy.

18:06 - but then re-select the inks so it goes on the black.
18:16 - I forgot to make my over-glow layers.
19:01 - Next, I add the saturated blue over-glow at 30% over the areas that are white, to give the impression that the white is glowing.

19:40 - Then I add a saturated orange over-glow at 30% over the areas that are white on the warm portion.
20:08 - if at this point it doesn't look like it's glowing or it looks muddy, you may not have added enough white, just go back and add more.

Remember not to add the over-glow on everything. Just add highlights to the brightest spots.

And that's everything! Metal takes longer to do than most other things but it's also one of the most fun and rewarding things as well! So I hope this helped! As always, this is just how I do things and you're welcome to ignore anything that seems like I'm doing it wrong, everyone has there way of doing things.

Pencils by David Finch
Inks by K-omer
Colors by Me

© 2015 - 2024 J-Skipper
Comments10
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RSH26oct88's avatar
Whats the trick on painting metal on spraypaint? So far ive discovered to use black and grey shade lines and a lot of white. But how can i tell where goes the shine, the shade, and what about shapes? Do you spraypaint? (Digital spraypaint, im using Autodesk Sketchnook Express).