Color Me Bad! How To Color Your Fabulous Fashion Croquis In Photoshop

This week's tutorial will focus primarily on coloring your fashion Croquis in Adobe Photoshop. I will be using a previous Sketch of the Day post I will call Sweet Pea. I currently set up the file in a basic RGB for now, but if I were to print this I would set up my document in CMYK mode with the resolution set to 300 pixels.

After you scan in or open your fashion sketch in Photoshop, you need to create two duplicate copies. These additional copies will be named Drawing and Color. These additional copies come in handy when you have made too many errors, and can't go back within your history. The additional layers prevent you from compromising the original pictures.

Next, select the brush tool and click 'airbrush' in the brushes option tab in the upper right part of the screen. Then set the brush set control to fade shown in the picture below. Fade simulates natural paint brush strokes.

The next few steps are pretty simple! We will focus on Sweet Pea's face first.

Use the paint brush tool to color in the skin in any desired tone.

After you color the skin, you can add dimensions to your sketch simply using the Burn and dodge tool. The burn tool simply darkens the area you click and drag on. I LOVE this tool! You can also change the opacity and intensity of the burn tool. I suggest you play around with it to get the effect that you would prefer.

The burn tool looks like a hand symbol. (see picture below)

                         

Next, I will add highlights to Sweet Pea by using the Dodge tool pictured below. The Dodge tool does the exact opposite effect of the Burn tool.

As you can see I colored in the skin and added make-up (I will cover doing make-up on fashion croquis in another diary entry). The highlights and shadows can be clearly seen here.

Lastly, the final product:

That's it! All you need is the paint brush tool, dodge tool, and the burn tool. Another helpful tool not mentioned above is the Smudge tool. If you scroll up it is directly next to the burn tool and also looks like a hand symbol. This tool helps blends your colors for a smoother effect. Hope that helped! Remember to check back for part two of this tutorial: Hair & Make-up for Fashion Croquis! If you have any questions or comments please don't be shy!

Fashionably Yours,

Since the tender age of twelve, Schaumin Chanel Alexander has been creating fashion illustrations, and designing womens wear apparel. Shortly after graduating college with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design & Marketing, she began freelancing her talents. SchauminChanel is the main designer and chief operator of Creative Conceptz Ltd., a company dedicated to freelance fashion design.