Colouring selected areas of a skin - help please

[BigAL]

Hi all,

 

 

I'm new to skin designs but learning steadily. I'm working on my first skin and hit my first hurdle. I'm doing the Hornet in a RN inspried livery of one of the old Phantoms that used to operate from HMS Ark Royal. I'm getting good at decals and roundels creation and manipulation but need to progress on to the more complex stuff.

 

 

 

How do I best (easiest, quickest?) re-colour selected and defined areas of the skin with a new colour?

 

 

Do I use my graphics editor to trace a precise mutliline polygon (using the mesh layer as a guide) on a new layer and then I can fill that layer of new entities with my chosen colour or is there a more efficient way?

 

 

Many thanks.

[_mu110_]

Not sure what editing software you're using, but in Photoshop I typically use the various vector drawing tools to create a shape that fits over my selected area. Since it is it's own object rather than just pixel information on a layer you are able to change the color of the entire shape instead of having to constantly reselect pixels and fill with a different color which lets you work much more non-destructively than otherwise. The more parts of your skin you can create this way the more flexibility you will have on top of being able to iterate much faster.

Edited February 9, 2020 by _mu110_

[BigAL]

Thanks

 

Thanks for the advice. I'm using GIMP and I've found how how to create multipoint shapes using the path tool and then turn the path into a shape using path to selection. I can then have multiple shapes all on the same layer. Similar to what you are describing. I can colour fill each shape at the point of converting each path to a shape but haven't tested yet how I can globally re-fill all the shapes on the layer with another colour. There's probably a tool to do it if I learn GIMP a bit more. Thanks again.

[jocko417]

If you want to change the colour of multiple shapes on one layer, you can lock the alpha channel of the layer and use bucket fill to change everything at once.

 

To lock the alpha channel in GIMP, select the layer in question and then click on the checkerboard square next to the paintbrush at the top of the layers dialog.

 

Now you can select the bucket fill tool and fill all shapes on the layer by clicking anywhere within the layer. If you’re trying to change the colour of camp paint with soft edges, make sure the bucket tool is set to fill transparent edges, with threshold set to max.

 

Note that you will have to unlock the alpha channel again if you want to edit the layer in any way.

Edited February 11, 2020 by jocko417

[BigAL]

Thanks Jocko, that's a great help. Very much appreciated.