Eye Coloring Tutorial (GIMP)

Miss Maggie has asked me for a tutorial on how I choose to color eyes, so here it is in roughly five steps. In this tutorial, I'm going strictly from
to .

(It was bugging me, so I hastily colored it.)
Some of the pictures were cut off, so feel free to click on the links in the second post to see them in my Photobucket account.

Step One: Empty out the black eye. Simple enough, right?
-Set the zoom on your window to 400%.
-Grab the eraser tool (or the paintbrush set to white).
-Here's the only tricky part of the step: take out as much as you can, leaving in a black outline of the eye itself and some representation of the pupil. It does not have to be perfect, as shading will fix any mistakes you may have.
-In this step, I went ahead and added a "Multiply" layer to the image.

Picture of this step:

Spoiler:

Step Two: Solid color.
-Color in the now white part of the eye on your new Multiply layer. Pay no attention to my color suggestion, as I randomly choose my colors (though I really shouldn't) and end up with something different every time.
-DO NOT COLOR IN THE MAIN HIGHLIGHT OF THE EYE!

Picture of this step:

Spoiler:

Step Three: Add shadows to the eye.
-When shading this way, I find it easier to think of an outline of a semi-circle. I use GIMP's burn tool set on "Shadows", as that way is much easier and more familiar for me.
-For this step, I would highly suggest looking at the picture below.
-Leave a smile in the middle unshaded, and grow darker as you get closer to the edges.
-The darkest, at the top of the eye, should be as close to black as you can get. That's how you'll know that it's dark enough.
-IN THIS STEP, LIGHTER COLORS NEED A HIGHER EXPOSURE; DARKER COLORS NEED A LOWER EXPOSURE.

Picture of this step:

Spoiler:

Step Four: Add a lesser highlight to the eye.
-Using GIMP's dodge tool set to "Midtones", lighten the smile in the eye you left mostly untouched with shadows. It's perfectly fine if these strokes overlap your shadows from the previous step (it actually looks better that way sometimes).
-The lightest smile of the eye should be as close to white as you can make it.
-IN THIS STEP, LIGHTER COLORS NEED LOWER EXPOSURE; DARKER COLORS NEED A HIGHER EXPOSURE.

Picture of this step:

Spoiler:

Step Five: Tweak to your liking, meaning blend if you need to using a blur tool.

Picture:

Spoiler:

And that's all! Feel free to comment with your own creations, questions and comments!

Yeah~~ You did the tutorial!!!! Though I suppose you are the "expert" for coloring blue eye over brown eye [*cough* for obvious reason ;P] but nevertheless it is just a matter of picking the right color!! THANKS SO MUCH!!

Sorry... I think I am still somewhat slow... but I am slightly confused by step 3...
(1) so each of those "1 , 2 , 3" would the stroke on be 1 go [no repeating stroking]??
(2) And do I need to change the brush size [to larger one] as I move on to the next level??
(3) what's the % level do I set it as under "shadow" for the burn tool?? [do I set it as lower, medium, higher %]

OH~~ and as well the % level do I set it as under "midtone" for the dodge tool?? [do I set it as lower, medium, higher %]

Hopefully my question make sense and I am not being so picky with your tutorial And again... thank you so much for making this!!!

Don't worry about it. The way I presented it was a bit sloppy. ;)

YamiSakura wrote:
(1) so each of those "1 , 2 , 3" would the stroke on be 1 go [no repeating stroking]??
(2) And do I need to change the brush size [to larger one] as I move on to the next level??
(3) what's the % level do I set it as under "shadow" for the burn tool?? [do I set it as lower, medium, higher %]

OH~~ and as well the % level do I set it as under "midtone" for the dodge tool?? [do I set it as lower, medium, higher %]

1) The previous strokes would include the latter strokes, so stroke 1 would emcompass the whole eye except for the smile. Stroke 2 would "widen" the smile, I guess you could say, going over part of the first stroke, but not all of the first stroke. Stroke 3 is just the top part (and a bit of the sides) of the eye, overlapping the first two strokes making the eye really dark in those parts.
2) I used the same brush size for each level (size 5) but it would work just as well if you used maybe a larger brush for the 1st stroke, slightly smaller for the 2nd, and even smaller for the 3rd.
3) Sorry, my picture cut off on that one. The three ranges on GIMP (Shadow, Midtone, Highlight) under the burn and dodge options are really just three ways to either shade or brighten a color. "Shadow" incorporates more black, "Midtone" adds something of a darker/lighter hue, and "Highlight" incorporates more white. For the brown eye, I set my burn tool with a shadows range on 50% exposure. For the blue eye, I set the burn tool with a shadow range on 75% exposure. The exposure % really depends on your prefrence, though.

On the dodge tool, midtone range, I set the exposure to 80% on the brown eye and 50% on the blue eye.

I hope that helps!

EDIT: Links to the full pictures for each step:
Step 1:here
Step 2 here
Step 3:here
Step 4:here
Step 5:here

OO, that looks fabulous! Just like gems! I shall try it...one day.

._. Well, I feel just dandy about the way I do eyes...it's just simple burn and dodge on PSE. Well, I guess it really depends on WHAT you're coloring.

Oh, and I just noticed that you color over the picture. Are you only doing that for the eye, or do you regularly do that? I always color under the picture...but I guess for the eye glare, I color over the image.

Thanks for including the link to the full picture ^___^ I realized that I couldn't quite "click" into the link under spoiler

StrugglingAlibi wrote:
1) The previous strokes would include the latter strokes, so stroke 1 would emcompass the whole eye except for the smile. Stroke 2 would "widen" the smile, I guess you could say, going over part of the first stroke, but not all of the first stroke. Stroke 3 is just the top part (and a bit of the sides) of the eye, overlapping the first two strokes making the eye really dark in those parts.

that make sense~~ I was confused by your little picture of "1, 2, 3"... I thought it is the "other way around".... in which the first stroke is that little window area around the smile... and 2nd stroke widen it more... and 3rd stroke is the whole eye [you know with the outer edge thingy]

I would certainly put that into action... maybe later... when I find a panel I want to try and show it here and see if I am doing it right or not ^___^

ETA:

Crazymabober wrote:
Oh, and I just noticed that you color over the picture. Are you only doing that for the eye, or do you regularly do that? I always color under the picture...but I guess for the eye glare, I color over the image.

Oh... I normally put the "original" image at the very bottom when I do layer in PS as well!!! [so, all those different color layers of skin/hair/clothes and such are ABOVE the picture, though except the BG], is it better to do the other way around??

...
Yeah. I'll definately have to try coloring your way then, Emily. I had never thought of coloring under the background image...

I'll try that sometime in the near future, especially since your colorings are so much better than mine.

And I'm glad it makes sense now, Maggie.

Shea, you don't have to...but I just find that way easier...because then I can be a bit more sloppy!

But you should try! I'm telling you though, you're bound to finish your picture faster than usual. You don't have to worry about overlapping colors and stuff when you set that layer to multiply. Dong that also makes it easier to put a background behind it. I forgot what else...but yeah, I hope you get the point.

Of course, it's important to do what you're comfortable with, so just follow what you believe is better for you.

And thank you! You're really awesome at coloring too! Especially with GIMP!

Woah These tutorial on eye colouring are really helpful! Thank you so much for posting these!

-----------------------------------
This is my goose for 2 days
:=D:
XD thanks, YamiSakura! You can help me out a bit with this game! Already, I'm pretty much enjoy playing goose or dare with you^

Wow... they're so cool

Alright Emily. Next time I color something, I'll ask more about how to color under the image. I tried it a little while ago, and it didn't quite work. ^^;

Thanks; I'm so glad you liked it mistyco and chibi-chan!

All right, this is great! It really helps since my eyes are well... see for yourself.

http://inulovinkit.livejournal.com/46293.html#cutid1

I need to work on my shading, too. I like soft shading, but right now my stuff is at a midpoint between cel-shading and soft shading...so it looks weird. D: