Guide Me That
Guide Me That
How to Pull Poses With Krita
In order to recolor an item from Gaia you must first get it off of Gaia. This is generally known as pulling poses.
This action is completed by using either the Dressup function (preferred usually) or the Avatar Builder to save the available images locally. We'll go ahead and use Dressup in this guide.
To start the process navigate to the Dressup screen on Gaia
You will need select the base you wish to get the item from (human or paw) from the menu.
To setup of pulling poses you will want to use the "Get Nekkid" button to remove all items from your avatar. You will also want to search for the item "Cloak of Invisibility". If you own the item you can search for it in your inventory, if you do not you can use the All Gaia search.
Equip the cloak and your base avatar should become invisible completely. You'll now want to do two searches. Search for the item you wish to pull poses from (we'll be using Juicy Flutist). Equip the first pose and leave the window for it open, moving it to the side. You will then want to search singlecutter. This will bring up the most common cutter items and a guide on most of them can be found in Aerdian's Cutter Guide.
For hair cuts you will want to use Agape, Sketchbook, and Princess Less in various combinations as these will sometimes require one cutter to already be applied for the other to activate.
You have two options for the image size you get your poses at. If you save from the default Dressup display you will get poses at about 2 times the forum size. If you open your Outfits tab and have an empty outfit slot you can get your poses at the same size as they will display on the forums. If you are using Windows you will likely need to save each as an image in a folder to later import/open in the image editor of your choice. If you are on Mac or Linux you may be able to copy and paste directly into a file in your image editor but depending on your settings there could be some loss of color information.
In order to recolor an item from Gaia you must first get it off of Gaia. This is generally known as pulling poses.
This action is completed by using either the Dressup function (preferred usually) or the Avatar Builder to save the available images locally. We'll go ahead and use Dressup in this guide.
To start the process navigate to the Dressup screen on Gaia
You will need select the base you wish to get the item from (human or paw) from the menu.
To setup of pulling poses you will want to use the "Get Nekkid" button to remove all items from your avatar. You will also want to search for the item "Cloak of Invisibility". If you own the item you can search for it in your inventory, if you do not you can use the All Gaia search.
Equip the cloak and your base avatar should become invisible completely. You'll now want to do two searches. Search for the item you wish to pull poses from (we'll be using Juicy Flutist). Equip the first pose and leave the window for it open, moving it to the side. You will then want to search singlecutter. This will bring up the most common cutter items and a guide on most of them can be found in Aerdian's Cutter Guide.
For hair cuts you will want to use Agape, Sketchbook, and Princess Less in various combinations as these will sometimes require one cutter to already be applied for the other to activate.
You have two options for the image size you get your poses at. If you save from the default Dressup display you will get poses at about 2 times the forum size. If you open your Outfits tab and have an empty outfit slot you can get your poses at the same size as they will display on the forums. If you are using Windows you will likely need to save each as an image in a folder to later import/open in the image editor of your choice. If you are on Mac or Linux you may be able to copy and paste directly into a file in your image editor but depending on your settings there could be some loss of color information.
Guide Me That
Go through each pose equipping and saving it. Make sure you check for cutters that can be applied and if you would like check for hidden poses. Many times arms which are not skintone bound with have different poses when you change your arm positions.
An example of all three hair cutters applied
If you had to save your images to the file system to avoid black backgrounds now is the time to put them into a single image. You should be able to create a new image in Krita and in your local file system navigate to the place your images are saved. Select them all and drag them onto the Krita canvas, hopefully it will give you a dialog to add as layers while keeping the transparency.
Once you have all the images in your art program of choice you'll want to organize them so that each can be seen. It is suggested that if you've used cutters on a pose you line them up so they are about even. In this way you can apply changes across all versions of the pose when recoloring (such as ombres) and see it reflected accurately.
Make sure to save your image as a Krita file! You can also save it as a png with a transparent background to make a flat file which can be shared to people with any sort of art program.
Substep: Turning Your Multilayer Krita File into a Flat File
Our next part of the guide will explain recoloring from a flat file, but what if you made your own file? You probably have a bunch of layers instead of one flat layer.
To make a flat layer you'll want to merge all those other layers together. I usually suggestion caution so the suggested approach would be to use your layers palette and select all of your individual layers. From there you can either right click and use the grouping submenu or you can click the plus box which usually means new layer but in this context will mean new quick group. (first red box)
Once your layers are grouped (be sure not to group and background or white layers, just the item poses) hit the duplicate button right next to the new layer button. (second red square) After that right click on your duplicated group and there should be an option to merge the group, you now have a flat layer!
An example of all three hair cutters applied
If you had to save your images to the file system to avoid black backgrounds now is the time to put them into a single image. You should be able to create a new image in Krita and in your local file system navigate to the place your images are saved. Select them all and drag them onto the Krita canvas, hopefully it will give you a dialog to add as layers while keeping the transparency.
Once you have all the images in your art program of choice you'll want to organize them so that each can be seen. It is suggested that if you've used cutters on a pose you line them up so they are about even. In this way you can apply changes across all versions of the pose when recoloring (such as ombres) and see it reflected accurately.
Make sure to save your image as a Krita file! You can also save it as a png with a transparent background to make a flat file which can be shared to people with any sort of art program.
Substep: Turning Your Multilayer Krita File into a Flat File
Our next part of the guide will explain recoloring from a flat file, but what if you made your own file? You probably have a bunch of layers instead of one flat layer.
To make a flat layer you'll want to merge all those other layers together. I usually suggestion caution so the suggested approach would be to use your layers palette and select all of your individual layers. From there you can either right click and use the grouping submenu or you can click the plus box which usually means new layer but in this context will mean new quick group. (first red box)
Once your layers are grouped (be sure not to group and background or white layers, just the item poses) hit the duplicate button right next to the new layer button. (second red square) After that right click on your duplicated group and there should be an option to merge the group, you now have a flat layer!
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How to Split colors from a Flat in Krita
If you are using a flat file (single layer png file or a single layer created as noted in the previous substep) as your base version for an item these instructions should help you with turning it into the multilayered file you'll need for easy recoloring with a gradient map (and possibly some other techniques)
First start by opening the file you are working with in Krita. In this case we are going to be working with the item Lilly Locket
This item has several colors and even a few gotchas so it's a decent practice piece
Once the file is opened we are going to grab one of our selection tools. While you could separate everything by hand using a combination of the shaped selections tools we are going to use the "Similar Color Selection Tool" as our starting point in this tutorial. This tool looks like an eye dropper with a partial selection square. This tool will allow us to select portions of the image based on the color of the pixel we have clicked on while it is active
Please note that Krita has added some new options to selection tools! The most important is Anti-aliasing, which is on by default. Turn this OFF or you will get some very strange results
In the screenshot are also circled the options we will want to use in the "Tool Options" panel. The icon that looks like two overlapping squares tells the tool we wish to Add to our selections each time we use it. The Fuzziness number tells the tool how closely related we wish our colors to be to one another. I usually set this between 2 and 4 to keep the number of squares selected down and hopefully the accuracy up. If you have colors that are close on the color wheel or share shading the tool may end up selecting portions of these, especially with a high fuzziness level.
For this tutorial we will be selecting by color as a whole rather than on a per pose basis. This works best if the item has distinct colors and similar shading levels.
If you would like to select by color on each pose there is a "Contiguous Color Selector Tool" with fuzziness levels just like the "Similar Color Selection Tool" which may help simplify the process.
Let's start with the hair for picking out our first color. To make it easier as we select colors I would suggest zooming in a bit on the section you are working on at the moment.
You can select any part of the hair but out of experience I'll suggest not to select the white highlight in this hair, especially not for the first color. If you do you'll see that you select all white including the heart, shirt, shoes, ect, which is not what we're trying to get just yet.
Let's select the main hair color that we can see, the base color if you will.
As you can see this selects the base color across each cut of our hair that we have, so we don't have to select them manually. It does also select a color on our glasses pose. From here we will continue to select colors within the goldish hair and glasses until we appear to have selected them completely.
Here I've selected all of the goldish color while avoiding the white highlights. We'll want to add these in by hand using the "Rectangular Selection Tool" so that we do not select the white in other poses.
Aside:
If you did select the white highlight with our "Similar Color Selection Tool" you would get something like this:
If you are using a flat file (single layer png file or a single layer created as noted in the previous substep) as your base version for an item these instructions should help you with turning it into the multilayered file you'll need for easy recoloring with a gradient map (and possibly some other techniques)
First start by opening the file you are working with in Krita. In this case we are going to be working with the item Lilly Locket
This item has several colors and even a few gotchas so it's a decent practice piece
Once the file is opened we are going to grab one of our selection tools. While you could separate everything by hand using a combination of the shaped selections tools we are going to use the "Similar Color Selection Tool" as our starting point in this tutorial. This tool looks like an eye dropper with a partial selection square. This tool will allow us to select portions of the image based on the color of the pixel we have clicked on while it is active
Please note that Krita has added some new options to selection tools! The most important is Anti-aliasing, which is on by default. Turn this OFF or you will get some very strange results
In the screenshot are also circled the options we will want to use in the "Tool Options" panel. The icon that looks like two overlapping squares tells the tool we wish to Add to our selections each time we use it. The Fuzziness number tells the tool how closely related we wish our colors to be to one another. I usually set this between 2 and 4 to keep the number of squares selected down and hopefully the accuracy up. If you have colors that are close on the color wheel or share shading the tool may end up selecting portions of these, especially with a high fuzziness level.
For this tutorial we will be selecting by color as a whole rather than on a per pose basis. This works best if the item has distinct colors and similar shading levels.
If you would like to select by color on each pose there is a "Contiguous Color Selector Tool" with fuzziness levels just like the "Similar Color Selection Tool" which may help simplify the process.
Let's start with the hair for picking out our first color. To make it easier as we select colors I would suggest zooming in a bit on the section you are working on at the moment.
You can select any part of the hair but out of experience I'll suggest not to select the white highlight in this hair, especially not for the first color. If you do you'll see that you select all white including the heart, shirt, shoes, ect, which is not what we're trying to get just yet.
Let's select the main hair color that we can see, the base color if you will.
As you can see this selects the base color across each cut of our hair that we have, so we don't have to select them manually. It does also select a color on our glasses pose. From here we will continue to select colors within the goldish hair and glasses until we appear to have selected them completely.
Here I've selected all of the goldish color while avoiding the white highlights. We'll want to add these in by hand using the "Rectangular Selection Tool" so that we do not select the white in other poses.
Aside:
If you did select the white highlight with our "Similar Color Selection Tool" you would get something like this:
Guide Me That
Once we've selected everything we will want to COPY and PASTE what we have selected into a new layer above our flats layer. At this point you may wish to save your file as a Krita file if you haven't already.
Make sure you click back on your flats layer and your "Similar Color Selection Tool" and continue to the next color to split out. I will be selecting pink
Once we've selected the pink you'll notice there are some little splotches on the pants and skirt. If these are left in it will make the item a bit harder to recolor so lets remove them and deal with these two areas on their own later. We can use the selection tool to Substract from our current selection as well.
In the options select the action that looks like a grey square covered by a white square. Then use the square selection tool to remove the selection on the pants and skirt. This tool can action option can also be used if you make a mistake or get an additional color you weren't expecting while making your selection. When using it with the "Similar Color Selection Tool" the same fuzziness factor applies as addition and you can lower this to 0/1 so that you remove only very specific colors
I've also avoided the colors on the face, minus the initial pink selection which did pick up the blush. A good way to see if you have gotten all of your colors is to hide the flats layer (using the eye icon next to the layer) once you have finished and look for any places where pixels should be. Turning the flats layer on and off as you move from pose to pose is also a good way.
Here we can see I've missed a few of the Seafoam pixels, the black on the box, and some white on the jacket pose.
You can select these and copy and paste them onto a new layer just as before. If you place this layer above the layer your color is already on and select them both the right click menu will give you the option to merge them
Make sure you click back on your flats layer and your "Similar Color Selection Tool" and continue to the next color to split out. I will be selecting pink
Once we've selected the pink you'll notice there are some little splotches on the pants and skirt. If these are left in it will make the item a bit harder to recolor so lets remove them and deal with these two areas on their own later. We can use the selection tool to Substract from our current selection as well.
In the options select the action that looks like a grey square covered by a white square. Then use the square selection tool to remove the selection on the pants and skirt. This tool can action option can also be used if you make a mistake or get an additional color you weren't expecting while making your selection. When using it with the "Similar Color Selection Tool" the same fuzziness factor applies as addition and you can lower this to 0/1 so that you remove only very specific colors
I've also avoided the colors on the face, minus the initial pink selection which did pick up the blush. A good way to see if you have gotten all of your colors is to hide the flats layer (using the eye icon next to the layer) once you have finished and look for any places where pixels should be. Turning the flats layer on and off as you move from pose to pose is also a good way.
Here we can see I've missed a few of the Seafoam pixels, the black on the box, and some white on the jacket pose.
You can select these and copy and paste them onto a new layer just as before. If you place this layer above the layer your color is already on and select them both the right click menu will give you the option to merge them
Guide Me That
From here there are a few ways to deal with the legs and face. One of them is to use the selection tools to grab them by hand. The skirt could be grabbed as a whole but you will need to carefully split the leggings from the shoes and socks on the legmod. An alternative if the item is a bit older is to find a recolor where these places are solid instead. In this case you could even carefully replace these poses, partially or fully, with those from another version. We will use the skirt and legs from Nightbreak Lilly Locket. Make sure to line them up exactly with your current poses no matter which you choose
To get the outlines of the eyes you can either select them manually or you can copy them as a whole from the flats layer and remove the makeup bit by bit. To do this you need to have split the makeup out already, we had blush on the pink layer and you should now split the lips, eye color, and eye shadow onto their own layers as well. Then right click on each of these layers in turn, select "Select Opaque" and then select your face layer and CUT the color section out of it. You can also use a brush and erase if you prefer as sometimes small traces of transparent colors are left behind. Once you have gone through all the layers it should leave just the black outline and white insides behind.
At this point you will want to select each pose and it's variations and split them into their own layers. One way to do this is to select the entire area in which a pose resides and go layer by layer of each color Cutting and Pasting into a new layer.
You can also choose to leave the colors on a single layer and just select pieces as you recolor but that way is less flexible. We'll have a mini part in the recolor guide that explains how one might do such a thing though.
When you are done make sure each of these new poses related color layers are one right after another and select them all. Click the plus in a square at the bottom of the Layers menu to do a quick group and name the new group layer after your pose
When you're done your layers should look something like this
To get the outlines of the eyes you can either select them manually or you can copy them as a whole from the flats layer and remove the makeup bit by bit. To do this you need to have split the makeup out already, we had blush on the pink layer and you should now split the lips, eye color, and eye shadow onto their own layers as well. Then right click on each of these layers in turn, select "Select Opaque" and then select your face layer and CUT the color section out of it. You can also use a brush and erase if you prefer as sometimes small traces of transparent colors are left behind. Once you have gone through all the layers it should leave just the black outline and white insides behind.
At this point you will want to select each pose and it's variations and split them into their own layers. One way to do this is to select the entire area in which a pose resides and go layer by layer of each color Cutting and Pasting into a new layer.
You can also choose to leave the colors on a single layer and just select pieces as you recolor but that way is less flexible. We'll have a mini part in the recolor guide that explains how one might do such a thing though.
When you are done make sure each of these new poses related color layers are one right after another and select them all. Click the plus in a square at the bottom of the Layers menu to do a quick group and name the new group layer after your pose
When you're done your layers should look something like this
Guide Me That
Creating a Gradient
To create a new gradient you can use in a gradient map you will first need to select your items to draw colors from. It is best to look through several items in the color you would like and hopefully over a range of time. Some colors shift slightly as they age or when they are in different schemes and you'll want to capture that as either multiple gradients or by merging what you find together for a more general purpose version.
We'll use Rose Gold which is currently a fairly stable color gradient used in Gossamer and Reserved (there are some other variations but we will focus on the one in these schemes). Open up dressup and search for your color by name, possibly by name and scheme if it has a large number if items. You can also search specific items if you know what you are looking for.
If your color comes on a hair or a piece of metal or item with lots of shine you can use this to get the official highlight color. The highlight will generally be noticeably lighter than the rest of the item over all, such as the white bars in the hair. You may need to save your image(s) locally for the colors to remain true to their Gaia equivalents.
Once we have the color samples in Krita we'll want to look over them for what colors we want in our gradient bar. Colors usually come with at least 3 main color points: the lightest is the highlight and often options, the main color is the base, and then at least one color for shading.
Here I've circled a variety of places to get a feel for the color over all. We have the whitish highlight in the hair. A look at what is probably our base color on the hair, crown, and shoes. And several areas with different gradations of shading to them.
I usually used 5 color points in order to have a bit more control over colors: highlight, base and 3 for shading. You'll generally always want your last shading, or if you go for just three colors points your only shading, to be the color on the darkest part of the lineart. The first shading point should be the first block of noticeably different shading color and the second shading point would be something in between the first and last. Some colors, especially hue shifts, may need more color points for shading.
Now that we've done a bit of analysis let's start getting our gradient. Make sure your image is visible and well zoomed in before your start as you won't want to click out of making a gradient until your done. I've noticed Krita sometimes has an unfortunate habit of not saving what it considers edits to a gradient after being closed.
Once you think everything is set up look up near the top menu, there will be a box with what looks a bit like a gradient in it. Click this menu item and it will give you a drop down of your current gradients, including the presets entered by Krita. Click the Add button to add a new gradient.
This should open a new little dialog box. This dialog should be movable so put it somewhere where you can see all of your image.
This dialog has a few parts to it to understand. First you have the gradient bar which shows you what your gradient is expected to look like when applied. Underneath this bar you'll start with 2 triangles, one at either end of the bar, this are the color points that make up your gradient. If you click on the gradient bar, or just underneath is where the triangles are, it will add another triangle with the color it believes is at that color point. In Krita lingo these are stops because the default is a Stop Gradient. Add three points to the gradient in between the current too about evenly spaced.
In order to change one of these stop points you'll want to click on the triangle you want to change. You should see it's color show up in the square next to the word Stop. Click on this square in order to change the color. We'll start with our highlight. Gradients in Krita, when used with the gradient map, apply the left most color to the dark ranges and the right most color to the light ranges. With this in mind click on the right most triangle.
You will get a new dialog with a palette, a color wheel, and a square with the Eyedropper symbol. Since we're getting out colors from our image click on the eyedropper. You should get some sort of visual change to indicate where your eyedropper is, this varies by OS. Hover over the white bars in the hair that we identified as highlights previously, you should see some numbers showing up underneath the eyedropper bar. Pick what you think is the lightest part of the bars and click. Underneath the colorwheel the left most square should have changed to the color you just picked. Click OK.
You should now have your new color in the first triangle.
Continue to pull colors from your image. Make sure to click on multiple areas for the same tone to compare and obtain an average if needed. An example of this would be clicking on the hair's main color , the crown's main color, and the shoe's main color to see how close they are and then picking one as your base. Do the same for the basic shading color on the hair, panties, and legs to get your first shading color. And so forth until you get all 5 of your colors. You'll also want to be sure to name your gradient!
Once your finished click the Close button. Your gradient should now appear at the end of your list, on next restart of Krita it should appear in alphabetical order. If you come up with a creative naming convention you can get your colors grouped together in a way that makes sense to you.
You now have a gradient you can use to recolor with the gradient map! If you're checking out what you have in gradients it is worth mentioning that it will only show the gradient colors to you. You can, however, hover over a gradient bar at it will show you the name you gave to that gradient bar. Very useful for similar looking colors.
To create a new gradient you can use in a gradient map you will first need to select your items to draw colors from. It is best to look through several items in the color you would like and hopefully over a range of time. Some colors shift slightly as they age or when they are in different schemes and you'll want to capture that as either multiple gradients or by merging what you find together for a more general purpose version.
We'll use Rose Gold which is currently a fairly stable color gradient used in Gossamer and Reserved (there are some other variations but we will focus on the one in these schemes). Open up dressup and search for your color by name, possibly by name and scheme if it has a large number if items. You can also search specific items if you know what you are looking for.
If your color comes on a hair or a piece of metal or item with lots of shine you can use this to get the official highlight color. The highlight will generally be noticeably lighter than the rest of the item over all, such as the white bars in the hair. You may need to save your image(s) locally for the colors to remain true to their Gaia equivalents.
Once we have the color samples in Krita we'll want to look over them for what colors we want in our gradient bar. Colors usually come with at least 3 main color points: the lightest is the highlight and often options, the main color is the base, and then at least one color for shading.
Here I've circled a variety of places to get a feel for the color over all. We have the whitish highlight in the hair. A look at what is probably our base color on the hair, crown, and shoes. And several areas with different gradations of shading to them.
I usually used 5 color points in order to have a bit more control over colors: highlight, base and 3 for shading. You'll generally always want your last shading, or if you go for just three colors points your only shading, to be the color on the darkest part of the lineart. The first shading point should be the first block of noticeably different shading color and the second shading point would be something in between the first and last. Some colors, especially hue shifts, may need more color points for shading.
Now that we've done a bit of analysis let's start getting our gradient. Make sure your image is visible and well zoomed in before your start as you won't want to click out of making a gradient until your done. I've noticed Krita sometimes has an unfortunate habit of not saving what it considers edits to a gradient after being closed.
Once you think everything is set up look up near the top menu, there will be a box with what looks a bit like a gradient in it. Click this menu item and it will give you a drop down of your current gradients, including the presets entered by Krita. Click the Add button to add a new gradient.
This should open a new little dialog box. This dialog should be movable so put it somewhere where you can see all of your image.
This dialog has a few parts to it to understand. First you have the gradient bar which shows you what your gradient is expected to look like when applied. Underneath this bar you'll start with 2 triangles, one at either end of the bar, this are the color points that make up your gradient. If you click on the gradient bar, or just underneath is where the triangles are, it will add another triangle with the color it believes is at that color point. In Krita lingo these are stops because the default is a Stop Gradient. Add three points to the gradient in between the current too about evenly spaced.
In order to change one of these stop points you'll want to click on the triangle you want to change. You should see it's color show up in the square next to the word Stop. Click on this square in order to change the color. We'll start with our highlight. Gradients in Krita, when used with the gradient map, apply the left most color to the dark ranges and the right most color to the light ranges. With this in mind click on the right most triangle.
You will get a new dialog with a palette, a color wheel, and a square with the Eyedropper symbol. Since we're getting out colors from our image click on the eyedropper. You should get some sort of visual change to indicate where your eyedropper is, this varies by OS. Hover over the white bars in the hair that we identified as highlights previously, you should see some numbers showing up underneath the eyedropper bar. Pick what you think is the lightest part of the bars and click. Underneath the colorwheel the left most square should have changed to the color you just picked. Click OK.
You should now have your new color in the first triangle.
Continue to pull colors from your image. Make sure to click on multiple areas for the same tone to compare and obtain an average if needed. An example of this would be clicking on the hair's main color , the crown's main color, and the shoe's main color to see how close they are and then picking one as your base. Do the same for the basic shading color on the hair, panties, and legs to get your first shading color. And so forth until you get all 5 of your colors. You'll also want to be sure to name your gradient!
Once your finished click the Close button. Your gradient should now appear at the end of your list, on next restart of Krita it should appear in alphabetical order. If you come up with a creative naming convention you can get your colors grouped together in a way that makes sense to you.
You now have a gradient you can use to recolor with the gradient map! If you're checking out what you have in gradients it is worth mentioning that it will only show the gradient colors to you. You can, however, hover over a gradient bar at it will show you the name you gave to that gradient bar. Very useful for similar looking colors.
Guide Me That
How to Recolor Your Separated Mocks
Start by opening our previously split Lily Locket files if it isn't open already. Since we split this item by both it's poses and colors we'll be doing mostly simple replaces of the colors as a whole. If you only split by colors you'll need to carefully select the sections you want if you don't want to recolor all parts the same color. We'll have a small sample of that later in the tutorial under "Recoloring Specific Parts of a Color Layer".
Optional Step: Get a Reference Image
I'll be recoloring Lilly Locket in Nigirikara and since that's a scheme with a lot of colors and only one sample I think it'd be nice to have a reference of it nearby. You could open it in another tab or a browser but Krita also allows you to embed reference images straight on the canvas so I'll quickly go over that now. If you don't want to do learn how to do this you can skip to the next step in the next post "Applying Gradient Maps".
First select the "Reference Images Tool" it looks a bit like a pin. Next select from it's tool options "Add Reference Image". You can also add reference images through the edit menu and "Paste as Reference Image" in the latest versions of Krita.
Going through the reference image options you'll get a dialog where you can search your computer for the file you'd like. This is great if you have a lot of images to add that you already have saved. Navigate to the folder you need and select the image you want as a reference.
I'm using the promo image for the Nigirikara item as it gives a pretty good view of color placements. While you have the "Reference Images Tool" selected you'll be able to move images added through it around the canvas and can even resize them. I'm moving my image to the right of my working canvas.
Start by opening our previously split Lily Locket files if it isn't open already. Since we split this item by both it's poses and colors we'll be doing mostly simple replaces of the colors as a whole. If you only split by colors you'll need to carefully select the sections you want if you don't want to recolor all parts the same color. We'll have a small sample of that later in the tutorial under "Recoloring Specific Parts of a Color Layer".
Optional Step: Get a Reference Image
I'll be recoloring Lilly Locket in Nigirikara and since that's a scheme with a lot of colors and only one sample I think it'd be nice to have a reference of it nearby. You could open it in another tab or a browser but Krita also allows you to embed reference images straight on the canvas so I'll quickly go over that now. If you don't want to do learn how to do this you can skip to the next step in the next post "Applying Gradient Maps".
First select the "Reference Images Tool" it looks a bit like a pin. Next select from it's tool options "Add Reference Image". You can also add reference images through the edit menu and "Paste as Reference Image" in the latest versions of Krita.
Going through the reference image options you'll get a dialog where you can search your computer for the file you'd like. This is great if you have a lot of images to add that you already have saved. Navigate to the folder you need and select the image you want as a reference.
I'm using the promo image for the Nigirikara item as it gives a pretty good view of color placements. While you have the "Reference Images Tool" selected you'll be able to move images added through it around the canvas and can even resize them. I'm moving my image to the right of my working canvas.
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Applying Gradient Maps in Krita
We're going to start by recoloring the hair of the Lilly Locket item. From your layers pallet select your group for the hair pose and open it. We'll start with the actual hair color so select whichever layer that is for you. In my case it was called gold hair.
Go to the "Filter" menu item and then to "Map" and the first option of "Gradient Map". Gradient maps are used to apply color in place of another color or colors at the same levels of darkness.
You should get a pop-up box for the filter with a drop down and a bar with several triangles on it. The bar with triangles are the various colors along the dark to light spectrum to use as a replacement. In this case I have all of my colors pre-added as gradients so I'll be using the dropdown to select my premade gradient for Bubblegum Pink. Hovering over the gradient will reveal it's name since some can look pretty similar.
Something to note is that Krita automatically shows you the first gradient option if you have the preview box selected (at the bottom near the buttons). If you leave the default Foreground to Transparent gradient in there it is a great way to see what you're actually applying your map to.
Having selected my Bubblegum Pink gradient you can see from the preview that it's a bit, lackluster. The gradient in it's default position is about evenly spread along the black to white spectrum but the shading on the hair isn't so we're really only getting the first bits of replacement colors. The good news is that you can adjust the gradient's potion and makeup here without affecting the saved version of the gradient. So let's adjust our gradient so it looks a little better.
The hair is on the lighter side so we'll adjust our gradient towards the light (right) side of the map. If it were dark colored we'd move to the left. The first color on the right is the highlight color and is generally optional on clothes but often in hair or things with shine. Lilly Locket does have a shine point so we're going to keep it but right now our gradient is using too much of it. The next color is our base color and what we actually want the main part of the hair to be. To move it further right we grab the triangle and drag it. Similarly we drag the rest of the colors until it looks "right" to us. When it does make sure to click "Create Filter Mask". This is important or you'll change the original layer.
Here you can see my final gradient which ended up with and extra color stop. You can not only adjust the positions of colors but also the color points in this menu without affecting an original. You can also create a gradient straight from this menu via color picking by selecting a stop point and clicking on the square of color to adjust it.
We're going to start by recoloring the hair of the Lilly Locket item. From your layers pallet select your group for the hair pose and open it. We'll start with the actual hair color so select whichever layer that is for you. In my case it was called gold hair.
Go to the "Filter" menu item and then to "Map" and the first option of "Gradient Map". Gradient maps are used to apply color in place of another color or colors at the same levels of darkness.
You should get a pop-up box for the filter with a drop down and a bar with several triangles on it. The bar with triangles are the various colors along the dark to light spectrum to use as a replacement. In this case I have all of my colors pre-added as gradients so I'll be using the dropdown to select my premade gradient for Bubblegum Pink. Hovering over the gradient will reveal it's name since some can look pretty similar.
Something to note is that Krita automatically shows you the first gradient option if you have the preview box selected (at the bottom near the buttons). If you leave the default Foreground to Transparent gradient in there it is a great way to see what you're actually applying your map to.
Having selected my Bubblegum Pink gradient you can see from the preview that it's a bit, lackluster. The gradient in it's default position is about evenly spread along the black to white spectrum but the shading on the hair isn't so we're really only getting the first bits of replacement colors. The good news is that you can adjust the gradient's potion and makeup here without affecting the saved version of the gradient. So let's adjust our gradient so it looks a little better.
The hair is on the lighter side so we'll adjust our gradient towards the light (right) side of the map. If it were dark colored we'd move to the left. The first color on the right is the highlight color and is generally optional on clothes but often in hair or things with shine. Lilly Locket does have a shine point so we're going to keep it but right now our gradient is using too much of it. The next color is our base color and what we actually want the main part of the hair to be. To move it further right we grab the triangle and drag it. Similarly we drag the rest of the colors until it looks "right" to us. When it does make sure to click "Create Filter Mask". This is important or you'll change the original layer.
Here you can see my final gradient which ended up with and extra color stop. You can not only adjust the positions of colors but also the color points in this menu without affecting an original. You can also create a gradient straight from this menu via color picking by selecting a stop point and clicking on the square of color to adjust it.
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After you've applied applied your gradient to a layer you'll get a sublayer for it called Gradient Map. These layers are nameable so if you want to give it something more useful to you go for it.
Finishing off the hair with making one scrunchy Light Melon Red and the other OffBlack you can see we're starting to look a little more like Nigirikara, just a little.
Now you can continue applying a gradient to each layer for each pose or you can use a quick little duplication cheat, which can also turn out to be not quick or little so do be careful.
In the hair pose group I used Light Melon Red to recolor Lilly Locket’s purple scrunchy. Now I want to use Light Melon Red again on the rims in the glasses pose. SO I'm going to copy that gradient layer instead of making a new one. Select the gradient mask layer in the layers pallet and click on the "Duplicate Layer or Mask". You should get a copy of your gradient layer.
You may notice your color now looks a bit off though. This is because Krita is applying the gradient masks in order, which tends to mess up your colors. Be careful as you recolor, especially if you have multiple parts with different colors on the same layer, that your gradients do not overlap.
Drag your duplicated gradient layer down in the layers menu and place it on top of the gold glasses layer. This should make it a sublayer and apply the gradient.
Our glasses are now Light Melon Red! Well the frames at least are. If the color looks a little off to you you can still make adjustments to the gradient.
Select your gradient map layer and right click is get a menu of options. Click on the very top item called "Properties" and you'll get a dialog similar to the one for adding the gradient map. The downside of this method is that the box isn't always dragable meaning you'll need to take note of where it is and move the part you are working on into a visible space. You can also change out what color you are using from here, the weird gradient box in a button above the gradient bar is your same dropdown from before. Here you'll just hit okay if you want adjustments.
Continue recoloring each pose in the item until they all have the colors you desire.
Recoloring Specific Parts of a Color Layer
Now I've decided that I'm not much of a fan of the box in the armmod being Butter Yellow like the part of the jacket it shares a color block with. I'm going to make it OffBlack instead. The first thing to do is select just the area that is the box. You can do this by manually selecting that area using the "Rectangular Selection Tool" set to "Add" or you can use the "Similar Color Selection Tool" set to a Fuzziness of 2 and "Subtract" on that particular main color layer. Everything will be selected and you can switch to the "Rectangular Selection Tool" to remove the parts you want to remain Butter Yellow.
To then remove the Butter Yellow part select your gradient map layer and use Ctrl + x. You can also use the "Fill Tool" to fill it in with the color 000000. For filter layers anything with the color 000000 does not have the filter applied and anything with the color ffffff has the filter applied to the fullest. Everything inbetween these colors will have a partial application of the filter depending on how close to either point they are.
Leave the area selected and go back to having your main color layer selected. Apply the gradient map in OffBlack (best to do so from scratch this time instead of moving a layer) and you'll be done. If you hover over the gradient map layer for Butter Yellow or OffBlack you'll now see a box shape (pictured here is the Butter Yellow layer which has a box shape black void).
Finishing off the hair with making one scrunchy Light Melon Red and the other OffBlack you can see we're starting to look a little more like Nigirikara, just a little.
Now you can continue applying a gradient to each layer for each pose or you can use a quick little duplication cheat, which can also turn out to be not quick or little so do be careful.
In the hair pose group I used Light Melon Red to recolor Lilly Locket’s purple scrunchy. Now I want to use Light Melon Red again on the rims in the glasses pose. SO I'm going to copy that gradient layer instead of making a new one. Select the gradient mask layer in the layers pallet and click on the "Duplicate Layer or Mask". You should get a copy of your gradient layer.
You may notice your color now looks a bit off though. This is because Krita is applying the gradient masks in order, which tends to mess up your colors. Be careful as you recolor, especially if you have multiple parts with different colors on the same layer, that your gradients do not overlap.
Drag your duplicated gradient layer down in the layers menu and place it on top of the gold glasses layer. This should make it a sublayer and apply the gradient.
Our glasses are now Light Melon Red! Well the frames at least are. If the color looks a little off to you you can still make adjustments to the gradient.
Select your gradient map layer and right click is get a menu of options. Click on the very top item called "Properties" and you'll get a dialog similar to the one for adding the gradient map. The downside of this method is that the box isn't always dragable meaning you'll need to take note of where it is and move the part you are working on into a visible space. You can also change out what color you are using from here, the weird gradient box in a button above the gradient bar is your same dropdown from before. Here you'll just hit okay if you want adjustments.
Continue recoloring each pose in the item until they all have the colors you desire.
Recoloring Specific Parts of a Color Layer
Now I've decided that I'm not much of a fan of the box in the armmod being Butter Yellow like the part of the jacket it shares a color block with. I'm going to make it OffBlack instead. The first thing to do is select just the area that is the box. You can do this by manually selecting that area using the "Rectangular Selection Tool" set to "Add" or you can use the "Similar Color Selection Tool" set to a Fuzziness of 2 and "Subtract" on that particular main color layer. Everything will be selected and you can switch to the "Rectangular Selection Tool" to remove the parts you want to remain Butter Yellow.
To then remove the Butter Yellow part select your gradient map layer and use Ctrl + x. You can also use the "Fill Tool" to fill it in with the color 000000. For filter layers anything with the color 000000 does not have the filter applied and anything with the color ffffff has the filter applied to the fullest. Everything inbetween these colors will have a partial application of the filter depending on how close to either point they are.
Leave the area selected and go back to having your main color layer selected. Apply the gradient map in OffBlack (best to do so from scratch this time instead of moving a layer) and you'll be done. If you hover over the gradient map layer for Butter Yellow or OffBlack you'll now see a box shape (pictured here is the Butter Yellow layer which has a box shape black void).
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Creating an Ombre
First we'll want to duplicate the main color layer where we will be applying the ombre. In this case it's my gold hair layer.
The next step is to recolor it in the second color we need, here it's Butter Yellow.
On our upper copy of the base color layer we want to add a new mask layer for transparency. Click on the base layer and then right click to open the menu of options. Select "Add" and then "transparency Mask". You'll see a new filter sublayer called "Transparency Mask", it will also have a different icon on it than your gradient map.
We're going to use a gradient, not a gradient map, on our transparency mask layer to get our desired affect. Make sure you have the "Gradient Tool" selected in the tools pallet and then select the "Gradients" dropdown from the quickbar. We want a gradient that goes from ffffff to 000000. you do not want to use other endpoints as it could change the colors you have chosen in unexpected ways. The direction of the gradient will determine which way the transparency is applied so you may wish to reverse the gradient depending on the direction you pull. For the transparency filter the point at ffffff we will see our current layer's color, Butter Yellow, and at 000000 we will see the layer underneath's color, Bubblegum Pink.
Since my gradient is ffffff to 000000 I will be pulling the gradient from the bottom to the top as I want my Butter Yellow at the tips and Bubblegum Pink at the roots. The length of the gradient will determine how smooth the transition is between the two colors. A shorter transition space will mean a sharper contrast between the two. I want my transition to be soft so I'm going to use a fairly long gradient. The two tips are where the colors will be purely the one or the other with no amount of mixing.
Make sure you are on your transparency filter layer when you apply the gradient.
And now we have ombre hair befitting of the Nigirikara scheme!
You can see on your transparency filter layer the area in which the gradient is applied. If you wanted multiple ombres or a triple ombre you will need a new base color layer for each unique placement of an ombre.
The final product is slightly different as someone mentioned the butter jacket under the butter hair. This was of course and easy fix thanks to the power of gradient maps layers that are editable! Now escape and make mocks!
First we'll want to duplicate the main color layer where we will be applying the ombre. In this case it's my gold hair layer.
The next step is to recolor it in the second color we need, here it's Butter Yellow.
On our upper copy of the base color layer we want to add a new mask layer for transparency. Click on the base layer and then right click to open the menu of options. Select "Add" and then "transparency Mask". You'll see a new filter sublayer called "Transparency Mask", it will also have a different icon on it than your gradient map.
We're going to use a gradient, not a gradient map, on our transparency mask layer to get our desired affect. Make sure you have the "Gradient Tool" selected in the tools pallet and then select the "Gradients" dropdown from the quickbar. We want a gradient that goes from ffffff to 000000. you do not want to use other endpoints as it could change the colors you have chosen in unexpected ways. The direction of the gradient will determine which way the transparency is applied so you may wish to reverse the gradient depending on the direction you pull. For the transparency filter the point at ffffff we will see our current layer's color, Butter Yellow, and at 000000 we will see the layer underneath's color, Bubblegum Pink.
Since my gradient is ffffff to 000000 I will be pulling the gradient from the bottom to the top as I want my Butter Yellow at the tips and Bubblegum Pink at the roots. The length of the gradient will determine how smooth the transition is between the two colors. A shorter transition space will mean a sharper contrast between the two. I want my transition to be soft so I'm going to use a fairly long gradient. The two tips are where the colors will be purely the one or the other with no amount of mixing.
Make sure you are on your transparency filter layer when you apply the gradient.
And now we have ombre hair befitting of the Nigirikara scheme!
You can see on your transparency filter layer the area in which the gradient is applied. If you wanted multiple ombres or a triple ombre you will need a new base color layer for each unique placement of an ombre.
The final product is slightly different as someone mentioned the butter jacket under the butter hair. This was of course and easy fix thanks to the power of gradient maps layers that are editable! Now escape and make mocks!
Guide Me That
Checking Your Colors Before Finishing the Gradient Map Application
Alright so lets say you want to check that the colors are very accurate but you think your eyeballs are untrustworthy. Here's a quick tip and trick that can help.
Start by adjusting your gradient until it looks pretty good to you. Do NOT click on apply just yet, the screen for the original application of a gradient map is much better for this.
Click on one of your colors, I'm choosing my base tone here, and click on the square like you did back when you were making gradients. When the dialog comes up click your eyedropper and eye drop the appropriate part of your image (you'll need preview mode on).
The color on the left hand side is the color you just got from you image. Looks like my base is actually a little dark. Click Cancel. I repeat click Cancel!
Remain in the gradient application menu and adjust your color's placement along the bar.
When your ready go and do the same test again. Wow look at that it's perfect now! (I adjusted it about 3 times before taking this screenshot but I'll save you the boring repetitive screenshots)
Do the same for all other colors along the bar and while it won't be perfect it will be very very close visually!
Happy perfectionist-ing!
Alright so lets say you want to check that the colors are very accurate but you think your eyeballs are untrustworthy. Here's a quick tip and trick that can help.
Start by adjusting your gradient until it looks pretty good to you. Do NOT click on apply just yet, the screen for the original application of a gradient map is much better for this.
Click on one of your colors, I'm choosing my base tone here, and click on the square like you did back when you were making gradients. When the dialog comes up click your eyedropper and eye drop the appropriate part of your image (you'll need preview mode on).
The color on the left hand side is the color you just got from you image. Looks like my base is actually a little dark. Click Cancel. I repeat click Cancel!
Remain in the gradient application menu and adjust your color's placement along the bar.
When your ready go and do the same test again. Wow look at that it's perfect now! (I adjusted it about 3 times before taking this screenshot but I'll save you the boring repetitive screenshots)
Do the same for all other colors along the bar and while it won't be perfect it will be very very close visually!
Happy perfectionist-ing!
Guide Me That
Working With Transparency
There are many types of transparency in Gaia items and many ways to deal with them. This will just cover a few ideas which may or may not work for you.
A few types of transparency can be found in the image below.
A transparent clothing piece which can not be cut away with a cutter
A transparent clothing piece which can be cut away with a cutter
And a glow which crossed over and otherwise solid part of an item
We will work with these for our examples in this guide
Style 1:
Starting with the first item we will use the technique of pulling out the overlapping part of the item and adjusting it and the base color to form our own transparency.
You should split out the colors as you would normally do for an item. Make sure that on the layer for black you also include the red. We're going to need color on that layer in order for this method to work. We'll then want to select the part of the red that has transparency.
Hide the red layer and use your selected area to manipulate the colors on the black base so that they are uniform. In this case Since the shading isn't to detailed and the base color is dark I've just used a pixel brush and painted over the red with the black shades.
Now go back to your red layer. With the eyedropper tool select the base color from the red section. You'll either want to be sure you have just the part that needs to be transparent selected (so that it is the only part affected) or separate it into it's own layer. Select the Gradient Map from the menu and the first one you get should have your red color going to transparency. You'll want to reverse this using the small circle made of arrows to the right fo the gradient display. Adjust where your red solid is until the coloring looks fairly close to the original.
This technique of single color to transparency works fairly well if there isn't a lot of shading difference in what you wish to add transparency to or the area beneath it. It also works better if the base is a dark color and may need to be adjusted if your base color is light.
Style 2:
For the next pose we are going to "cheat" a bit.
Select the bare skin on the right had side and make a copy of it. Move this copy into position over the covered version on the left so that they line up. Do not deselect yet.
Hide this skin layer so that you see the white again.
Adjust your selection so that only those parts which are overlapped by transparent pixels are selected. Copy this section and past it over the top of your copied skin layer. Once again do not deselect.
In the select menu pick the option to invert your selection. Move to your copied skin layer and Control/Command + X, basically cut away the extra skin.
It should look suspiciously just like it did originally.
Select your layer with just the white that is transparent and apply a gradient map to it until the colors look like they fit the it's original shading. It should no longer look like it is transparent.
In the layers menu, adjust the opacity until the amount of see-through seems like it matches the area around it.
There are different ways to manage the layer for this type of technique and this guide is probably the choppiest but also most visual. Experiment to see what you like best.
This technique works best when you are doing transparency over skin or other solid color over solid color sections.
An alternate form of this technique would be if there was no cutter to make the arms bare and you would need to select the skin area by sight. In this case you would copy the area twice, the bottom layer you would use a gradient map to make skin toned and leave it solid and the upper layer you would give the same treatment as our white layer here.
Style 3:
For the next pose separate by color as you normally would. Make sure the transparent yellow that does not overlap is on it’s own layer.
Select the part of the yellow transparent area that overlaps and copy it to it’s own layer. If we were to test the color of the transparent yellow we’d find it is always the same color value. This indicates the small variations in “color” are actually variations of the opacity. Use the pixel brush to color everything in with the yellow color.
Adjust your base layers so that they are the same color throughout. In this example I’ve simply applied a gradient map to the white arms as the yellow doesn’t seem to cause too much variation in the shading.
I've chosen here to duplicate the layer that has the other transparency a few times to get a better view of the different opacity ranges. I'll delete these duplicated layers afterwards since they're just a reference.
Using the pixel brush set to erase mode erase the different sections of the transparency. You can see here for the most transparent sections I am erasing 90% of the color. This was used on the inner most section and the small ring on the outside. From there I also selected 80% for half the remaining ring and finally 70% for the least see-through portion.
Having finished I deleted those extra layers and am left with this. You can either leave the two sections separate or it is safe to merge these layers together so you need to recolor only one.
You can see in this example I've recolored the layers in different colors and the faint pink is visible over the Alruna Purple applied to the white.
This is the technique I use most when the transparency goes over multiple solids or is glow like.
There are many types of transparency in Gaia items and many ways to deal with them. This will just cover a few ideas which may or may not work for you.
A few types of transparency can be found in the image below.
A transparent clothing piece which can not be cut away with a cutter
A transparent clothing piece which can be cut away with a cutter
And a glow which crossed over and otherwise solid part of an item
We will work with these for our examples in this guide
Style 1:
Starting with the first item we will use the technique of pulling out the overlapping part of the item and adjusting it and the base color to form our own transparency.
You should split out the colors as you would normally do for an item. Make sure that on the layer for black you also include the red. We're going to need color on that layer in order for this method to work. We'll then want to select the part of the red that has transparency.
Hide the red layer and use your selected area to manipulate the colors on the black base so that they are uniform. In this case Since the shading isn't to detailed and the base color is dark I've just used a pixel brush and painted over the red with the black shades.
Now go back to your red layer. With the eyedropper tool select the base color from the red section. You'll either want to be sure you have just the part that needs to be transparent selected (so that it is the only part affected) or separate it into it's own layer. Select the Gradient Map from the menu and the first one you get should have your red color going to transparency. You'll want to reverse this using the small circle made of arrows to the right fo the gradient display. Adjust where your red solid is until the coloring looks fairly close to the original.
This technique of single color to transparency works fairly well if there isn't a lot of shading difference in what you wish to add transparency to or the area beneath it. It also works better if the base is a dark color and may need to be adjusted if your base color is light.
Style 2:
For the next pose we are going to "cheat" a bit.
Select the bare skin on the right had side and make a copy of it. Move this copy into position over the covered version on the left so that they line up. Do not deselect yet.
Hide this skin layer so that you see the white again.
Adjust your selection so that only those parts which are overlapped by transparent pixels are selected. Copy this section and past it over the top of your copied skin layer. Once again do not deselect.
In the select menu pick the option to invert your selection. Move to your copied skin layer and Control/Command + X, basically cut away the extra skin.
It should look suspiciously just like it did originally.
Select your layer with just the white that is transparent and apply a gradient map to it until the colors look like they fit the it's original shading. It should no longer look like it is transparent.
In the layers menu, adjust the opacity until the amount of see-through seems like it matches the area around it.
There are different ways to manage the layer for this type of technique and this guide is probably the choppiest but also most visual. Experiment to see what you like best.
This technique works best when you are doing transparency over skin or other solid color over solid color sections.
An alternate form of this technique would be if there was no cutter to make the arms bare and you would need to select the skin area by sight. In this case you would copy the area twice, the bottom layer you would use a gradient map to make skin toned and leave it solid and the upper layer you would give the same treatment as our white layer here.
Style 3:
For the next pose separate by color as you normally would. Make sure the transparent yellow that does not overlap is on it’s own layer.
Select the part of the yellow transparent area that overlaps and copy it to it’s own layer. If we were to test the color of the transparent yellow we’d find it is always the same color value. This indicates the small variations in “color” are actually variations of the opacity. Use the pixel brush to color everything in with the yellow color.
Adjust your base layers so that they are the same color throughout. In this example I’ve simply applied a gradient map to the white arms as the yellow doesn’t seem to cause too much variation in the shading.
I've chosen here to duplicate the layer that has the other transparency a few times to get a better view of the different opacity ranges. I'll delete these duplicated layers afterwards since they're just a reference.
Using the pixel brush set to erase mode erase the different sections of the transparency. You can see here for the most transparent sections I am erasing 90% of the color. This was used on the inner most section and the small ring on the outside. From there I also selected 80% for half the remaining ring and finally 70% for the least see-through portion.
Having finished I deleted those extra layers and am left with this. You can either leave the two sections separate or it is safe to merge these layers together so you need to recolor only one.
You can see in this example I've recolored the layers in different colors and the faint pink is visible over the Alruna Purple applied to the white.
This is the technique I use most when the transparency goes over multiple solids or is glow like.
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Face Mods 101
Facemods are done much like normal recolors except they tend to have a lot of transparency to correct.
We'll start by looking at the item Northern Wind which has a nice facemod with blush, a nose, and a mouth.
Step one is to identify areas where colors overlap. The red arrows point to two places where the outline for the eyes overlaps with the blush on the facemod. Some of the areas around other parts of the eyes could potentially also be counted but we're just going to focus on these two spots in this tutorial.
Similar color selector won't help us too much right now so just manually select the places where the colors overlap. I found 4 pixels on each side that stood out enough I wanted to fix them.
Copy these pixels and paste them onto their own layer. We'll color correct them to black a bit later
Make your layer with black invisible and use your still selected pixels to cut away the color on the base layer. Yeap, cut! This will give you the spots we need to put the blush back into.
I personally find the order of removing the outline and moving in the blush easier but you could do it in reverse. Modify the color to be black instead of copying it up and when you cut the blush onto it's own layer just fill in the missing parts then.
Next we're going to select the spots of the blush that is left that look like they go in the empty areas and copy them into it. The Northern Wind blush doesn't have too much variance so our options are limited but for blushes with more changes in color around the eyes you may be selecting just a pixel or two at a time to copy over.
To figure out what you may or may not need compare how dark or colored the mixed pixels are. This part is pretty soft and squishy and up for interpretation but with enough practice you'll get a feel for it.
Move your new blush pixels into the places where you're multi-colored pixels used to be. Then merge them down into one layer. So you'll have your black layer you need to modify and your one base layer when you're done
After this we're going to take advantage of the select tool to try and identify how big our blush is and if there are any patches of color we need to worry about. Use one of the select tools that works on color or shape (Contiguous or Similar Color) and select into and are you know has no color. You should get an outline around the spots where we do have color.
You'll see there are some near invisible squares just above the nose. If you check out what color they are you'll find they are white. That means they aren't part of our blush so we shouldn't have to worry about them
Now you can unselect your test.
Once nothing is selected use whatever tool suits you best to select all the pink blush, if you used the Similar Color Selector like I did you'll find the lipstick comes with it as well.
Cut the blush onto it's own layer. We've finished working with it at this point and will move on to the black part we cut earlier.
Facemods are done much like normal recolors except they tend to have a lot of transparency to correct.
We'll start by looking at the item Northern Wind which has a nice facemod with blush, a nose, and a mouth.
Step one is to identify areas where colors overlap. The red arrows point to two places where the outline for the eyes overlaps with the blush on the facemod. Some of the areas around other parts of the eyes could potentially also be counted but we're just going to focus on these two spots in this tutorial.
Similar color selector won't help us too much right now so just manually select the places where the colors overlap. I found 4 pixels on each side that stood out enough I wanted to fix them.
Copy these pixels and paste them onto their own layer. We'll color correct them to black a bit later
Make your layer with black invisible and use your still selected pixels to cut away the color on the base layer. Yeap, cut! This will give you the spots we need to put the blush back into.
I personally find the order of removing the outline and moving in the blush easier but you could do it in reverse. Modify the color to be black instead of copying it up and when you cut the blush onto it's own layer just fill in the missing parts then.
Next we're going to select the spots of the blush that is left that look like they go in the empty areas and copy them into it. The Northern Wind blush doesn't have too much variance so our options are limited but for blushes with more changes in color around the eyes you may be selecting just a pixel or two at a time to copy over.
To figure out what you may or may not need compare how dark or colored the mixed pixels are. This part is pretty soft and squishy and up for interpretation but with enough practice you'll get a feel for it.
Move your new blush pixels into the places where you're multi-colored pixels used to be. Then merge them down into one layer. So you'll have your black layer you need to modify and your one base layer when you're done
After this we're going to take advantage of the select tool to try and identify how big our blush is and if there are any patches of color we need to worry about. Use one of the select tools that works on color or shape (Contiguous or Similar Color) and select into and are you know has no color. You should get an outline around the spots where we do have color.
You'll see there are some near invisible squares just above the nose. If you check out what color they are you'll find they are white. That means they aren't part of our blush so we shouldn't have to worry about them
Now you can unselect your test.
Once nothing is selected use whatever tool suits you best to select all the pink blush, if you used the Similar Color Selector like I did you'll find the lipstick comes with it as well.
Cut the blush onto it's own layer. We've finished working with it at this point and will move on to the black part we cut earlier.
Guide Me That
Find the base color the eye line are using. It should be the least transparent spot, like the area near the red arrow below.
Once you've got the color you need you'll want to apply a gradient map to the layer your black outline pieces are on. You should use a color to transparent map and move around the sliders until it looks right.
In the end one of the black spot disappeared if I didn't keep the main point closer to the right hand side so I made a midpoint to get the other spots more transparent. It was something like below.
You can move around your layers for a better test as long as you are applying your color changes as a filter mask.
Now that you've got the hardest part split you can use normal splitting techniques to get the eye color and sclera (eye whites) on their own layers as well. On this item specifically part of the mouth is not colored but just an outline like the one on the eyes and nose.
If you select only the eye outlines you can make the "lashes" a different color, such as white
If you wanted just the eyes, as some tickets allow, you can simply cut out the pixels for the nose and mouth.
Some items will overlap quite a bit more than this as they have eyeshadow or design details. An example of this is I am Diva which has eyeshadow, blush, sparkles, and a mouth.
If attempting to see just how colors overlap while they are still transparent hurts your eyes you can duplicate the layer several times over to bring the colors to a more solid state. Just make sure that when you split you still use only one layer.
Once you've got the color you need you'll want to apply a gradient map to the layer your black outline pieces are on. You should use a color to transparent map and move around the sliders until it looks right.
In the end one of the black spot disappeared if I didn't keep the main point closer to the right hand side so I made a midpoint to get the other spots more transparent. It was something like below.
You can move around your layers for a better test as long as you are applying your color changes as a filter mask.
Now that you've got the hardest part split you can use normal splitting techniques to get the eye color and sclera (eye whites) on their own layers as well. On this item specifically part of the mouth is not colored but just an outline like the one on the eyes and nose.
If you select only the eye outlines you can make the "lashes" a different color, such as white
If you wanted just the eyes, as some tickets allow, you can simply cut out the pixels for the nose and mouth.
Some items will overlap quite a bit more than this as they have eyeshadow or design details. An example of this is I am Diva which has eyeshadow, blush, sparkles, and a mouth.
If attempting to see just how colors overlap while they are still transparent hurts your eyes you can duplicate the layer several times over to bring the colors to a more solid state. Just make sure that when you split you still use only one layer.