Making colored line work

Colored line work or color holds can be used for a variety of effects. They can highlight an area or make it blend in more with the coloring, or make a background element fade away and leave just the foreground in the spotlight. Color holds are very easy to do and can really punch up your illustration!

Getting ready

You will need line work done on a transparent layer, as shown in the following screenshot:

Tip

The preceding image is a scanned ink drawing, with the white from the paper taken out. Manga Studio 5 can remove the white automatically with just the push of a button, and here's how! Open your scanned drawing in Manga Studio 5. If needed, adjust the brightness and contrast to make the inked lines in the scan stand out sharply from the paper color. This will also make the conversion much cleaner. Then, go to Edit | Convert brightness to opacity. Manga Studio will make the brightest areas transparent and the darkest areas opaque.

How to do it…

Let's make some color...