Kento and Armor Tutorial

KENTO PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL
(Here is the same tutorial with a different color scheme, if desired.)
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This is a tutorial lesson on how to draw a Ronin Warrior in armor, though I imagine the techniques would work well with any layered type of picture, armored or not. It works particularly well with armor, because armor comes in layers, and Photoshop also has layers. (And yes, before anyone else says it, ogres have layers, too. Just ask Anubis.)

This tutorial will not tell you how to use Photoshop--it is made assuming one knows how to use the basics, such as the pencil tool, the airbrush, and layers and such.

Note: I use Photoshop 5.5, but I imagine all versions have the same basic features. They just improve (I assume) with the newer versions.

You start with a basic figure sketch, then draw in the armor. I’ve chosen to draw Kento. Kento is a burly youth, so make the shoulders a little broad and the body a little stocky. But don’t overdo it. Once you draw on all that armor, he’ll he even bulkier. Set your dpi at at least 150 and use the "auto level" to darken the sketch.

Now the first thing I do is add a layer to the drawing, label it "black", and color it all black. Then I put the transparency to about 60 percent. That way I still see the black outline, but the blinding white is not so distracting.

The next layer is the face, because it goes beneath all of the armor. (No instructions for drawing his face; this tutorial is focusing on the armor.) Once that's done, set the face layer to a low transparency so it's not in your way. (Adjust transparency as needed.) Then we start with armor.

The first armor layer is Armor 1, and consists of the white underlayer that the Ronin wear. The first thing that you'll draw is the white part, which lies beneath all the rest of the armor. The white parts on Kento are at the midsection, the thighs, and the arms/hands. Do not use pure white; use a very light blue or purple color, as shown below.

You'll notice that I am not very careful about staying within the lines at times. Don't worry if the color strays up into other parts of the armor--those parts will eventually be covered up. In fact it's better if you do overlap a bit. The green arrows show appropriate overlap.

Okay. You're done for now with layer one. Set it to a low transparency and make a new layer: Armor 2.

When you put on armor, unless you're lucky and have armor that adheres all at once at your command, there are some parts that you put on first. Those are the same parts that we're going to draw first, too. Below is an example: Kento's foot. Now normally there would not be red and blue on his armor, but I am using them to illustrate the different armor layers. The red layer goes first. The blue part goes on top of it.

Below is another example. A lot of armor is layered like snake scales. Number 1 comes first, with layer two on top of it, and layer three on top of that.

So, to the right, I have used a bright (but neon) orange to color in all the parts that lie on the bottom layer of the main armor. When you're done, set the transparency low as always, and make a new layer.

(Note: I have done nothing yet on the helmet, I generally like to draw those last.)

The next layer is Armor 3. We run into a slight problem here. When we go to draw the bottom part of the thigh guards, they cover up a bit of Kento's gauntlets.

That's no big deal. Go ahead and draw the thigh guard and color it in. Go back to your Armor 1 layer and use the magic wand tool to select all of the white underarmor, making sure that the "contiguous" box is NOT checked. Go back to Armor 3. Set Armor 3 to 50 percent transparency, and erase the area covering his hand. (Make sure you don't erase the part covering his thigh.)

Any time you cover up something that should not be covered up, you should be able to fix it using this method. That's the awesome thing about Photoshop layers.

You get the idea. Keep adding more layers until you've got all of the body armor covered. To the right is a chart of what parts I added to what layer. The layers list should look something like the picture to the right.

Background: The pencil sketch.

Black: The half-transparent black layer.

Face: The face, of course.

Armor 1: All the white undergear.

Armor 2: Added bottom boot layer, stomach guard, forearm band, and bottommost shoulder guard.

Armor 3: Added top boot pieces, shin guards, lowermost thigh guards, forearm guards, arm spikes, and middle shoulder guards.

Armor 4: Added the knee/shin top piece, middle thigh guard, forearm circles, hand covers, and the top shoulder guard.

Armor 5: Added on shin spikes, knee covers, top thigh guards, rectanges and band on hands, breastplate, and shoulder spikes.

Armor 6: The final touches are the knee spikes, the right-hand spikes, the boxy things on top of the thigh guards,and the orange part and and the symbol disk on the breastplate.

Now comes the shading. Now the shading will work the same for all layers, so I'll show you only two. We'll start with Armor 1 at 95 percent or so transparency, and with the Black layer set to about 20 percent transparency. Use the eyedropper tool to get the color of the undergear and then darken it, so that you have a color difference about like this:

Set all layers above Armor 1 to about 20 percent transparency, but keep them visible. That's how you can tell where to put some shading from the shadows the armor pieces cast.

Make a new layer right on top of Armor 1 and label it Shade 1. You're going to do all your shading on this level, so that if you need to erase, you don't erase your undergear.

I am having my light source come from the right, so all my shading is going to be to my left. The darkest shading is all the way to the left, and the lightest all the way to the right. I use three degrees to my shading. The first degree (picture 1) uses the color above. Make sure to keep the form of your gauntlets, and don't cover Kento's fingers with shading.

The second uses a decidely darker color (picture 2) and adds the detail to things like the gauntles, and the tops of the thighs. (adjust various transparencies as needed to be able to see your sketch below.)

After the first two steps, go back to Armor 1 and use the magic wand took to select the area OUTSIDE the subgear. Go back to Shade 1 and hit the delete button. Now all your shading conforms neatly to your subgear.

Now, check the "protect transparency" box on Shade 1. Set your color to a darkish purple (below). Very carefully use the airbrush to add a dark purple tinge to the darkest parts of your shading.

Blue or even green works, depending on what color your light is. Yellow light gets purple, orange light gets blue, and red light gets green. Don't overdo the tint.

When you're finished, set Armor1 one and Shade 1 both to 100 percent transparency. Click off all other layers so that just Armor 1 and Shade 1 are visible, and use "merge visible" from the layer section of the toolbar. Name the layer "undergear" or "subgear" or what have you. If you like, use "brightness/contrast" to make the shading more or less stark.

Tip: when erasing anything on your shade layers, make sure that the eraser option is set to "airbrush".

Another tip, set all of your armor layers to "preserve transparency" just in case you accidentally shade on that level instead of your shading levels. That way it's a lot easier to fix.

A third tip - instead of using the airbrush, try using the pencil tool, but check the "opacity" box so that your stylus pen will write more darkly when you press harder. That's a bit difficult to control, but the effect looks cool, and a bit more "metal-ish".

DETAILS TO WATCH OUT FOR:.

	Don't forget to darken the lines between the fingers.
	Also don't forget the joints in the armor--most joints of the body have a joint in the armor. Thumbs get two, fingers get three.
	The subarmor has seams, also, where the parts will connect. These are on the inner thighs and inner arms.

Highlights! For the highlights on the subgear, use pure white. (This is why we started in the first place with light blue, so we could add some highlights.)

You can either add a highlight layer like we did for the shading, or it you're comfortable enough, just do it right on the armor. (Remember the "undo" capability to undo the last thing you did. "CTRL" and "Z" is the keyboard shortcut.)

Make some sort of streaky highlights on the right side of the armor pieces, making sure that you don't put a highlight where there's supposed to be a shadow. Also don't put the highlight right on the edge...do it a little farther in.

Now, set the transparency of your subgear to 20 percent or so and we'll move on to Armor 2.

All right, Armor 2. Do this one just the same way. Keep all layers above Armor 2 at 20 percent transparency, and set Armor 2 itself at about 95 percent transparency. Make a layer right above Armor 2 called "Shade 2".

(You can either make layer Black not visible, or keep it there, whatever works best.)

The color I use use for phase one of shading is about like so:

First I shade fairly lightly, with vague details, just like with the subgear. For the second wave I use a darker color and darken the shading, and add the details, such as the ridges around the bottom of the armor piecess, and any lines that might be on it. You might want to use a very slightly redder color for the shading on the second phase.

For the third wave, clean up the shading like you did for the subgear layer, then check the "preserve transparency" box. Now get up a dark purple airbrush, and carefully tint the darkest parts of the shade purple. Be doubly careful now, because purple doesn't go well with orange, and you have to be careful that it looks right.

Now put Armor 2 to 100 percent transparency, make sure only Armor 2 and Shade 2 are visible, and "merge visible." Name the layer Armor 2 (or whatever else catches your fancy.) Now we're ready to highlight.

Note: As you get more and more comfortable with this, you can skip steps, like the separate layer for shading and highlighting, and the three phases of shading. it's really all up to how comfortable you are with shading and what you prefer.

More things to remember. Make sure there's a thin, dark line of shadow wherever an armor piece overlaps your current layer.
Armor is not flat. It has thickness. Make sure your armor has edges that reflect this thickness.

Now for the highlights. For the highlights on the darker colors, like this orange, use a sort of very light yellow (to go with your purplish shading.) Like so:

Make some streaky highlights. The reason for the streakiness to to make the armor look a little more metal like, and hard. Softer highlights make the object seem softer.

(Again you can do this either on the armor itself, or on a separate layer. But if you do it on the armor itself, make sure the transparency is preserved.)

We're almost done! Go ahead and shade each of your layers the same way until you're satisfied with the result. Then we'll add the helmet.

When you're finished, set all your armor layers (EXCEPT your subgear layer. Leave that one separate.) to 100 percent, and it should look something like the picture on the right. Once you're sure it's right, go ahead and click Black, Face, and Background to not visible, so that only the armor layers are showing, and "merge visible". Label that layer "Armor".

Use the brightness and contrast to adjust the armor as desired.

For the breastplate and groin piece, use a black or almost black for the shading, and for the shoulder spikes, use the same kind of shading you did with the subgear. For the symbol medallion, use the magic wand tool to select only the yellow color when you shade it, so you don't get yellow streaks on the black part.

And now, make a layer above all, called "Helmet 1".

Spikes. Spikes are a bit tricky when you view them head-on. Start with a circle. On the "shade" side of the circle, make a few radiating lines of different sizes, shading the outermost edge in a bit. Then make a couple of shiny lines on the other side, like below.

The real trick is to make sure you have the shadow of the spike on the armor below it, to show that there is a spike protruding about three inches from your armor.

For the first helmet layer, color in the main shape orange, like picture 1. Don't worry about it covering his neck or armor for now, we'll fix that in a minute.

Make the next layer, Helmet 2, your blue strip and the cheek-guard spikes, and the third layer the horns.

Using the same technique as you did with the armor, go ahead and shade it. Make sure and put the seams, lines, and other details in, and you should end up with something like picture four.

Now, set all layers except the three helmet ones as invisible, and "merge visible" so you have only one helmet layer. (Make sure all helmet layers are at 100 transparency!) Then make all layers visible, and at 100 percent. If you have not yet deleted your "Black" layer, do so now.

Set the Tolerance for your magic wand tool to 255. Select the armor on your Armor layer. Go back up to the helmet layer and hit "delete".

Do the same with the face layer--select the face, then go back up to the helmet layer--do NOT hit delete. Use your eraser to get rid of any last helmet traces covering Kento's neck or bottom chin. You know what parts of the skin should and should not be covered.

Now your helmet should look like the last picture at the right.

Now, do any cleaning up or adjustments on your layers before you merge them. (Make sure your background layer is not visible when you do.)

The background is up to you. I like to use a simple color background for my picutres, when I haven't a specific setting in mind.

Now rezize your picture (just as it is, with one layer for Kento and one for the background). I usually make my pictures 600 pixels on the longest side. Go up to your filter menu, and hit "sharpen" for the Kento layer. That sharpens the blurring that happens on a resize. You can use "fade sharpen" on the same menu if it's too much for your liking.

Once it's resized and Kento is sharpened, flatten the whole thing and save it as a jpg (or however you save your pictres.) And you're done!

This takes a few hours to do, but I think it's worth it; what I get ends up looking like the picture to the right.

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