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jamontoast98
Sep '21

You know what I mean. Using the paint bucket tool and then getting that annoying square where the line split. Or finishing your beautifully rendered drawing, exporting it, uploading it, then discovering those tiny white dots where the paint bucket tool missed.

I've made efforts to better remedy this problem. For example, outlining the character first and filling it in with black. So at least if there's a part I forget to colour, it will be black and unnoticeable. I then turn the layer off while colouring the character and turn it back on once I'm done. Sometimes I use the outline effect on the colour layer itself and make it black, which can help if I colour outside the lines.

Another way is, ya know, actually checking for areas that I haven't coloured once I'm done. I make more of an effort to do this now, but the process is somewhat tedious and I still miss those darstardly white pixels sometimes.

My final way is simply to work on a bigger canvas as this makes the imperfections less noticeable.

Those are my solutions for now. I was wondering if you had any neat tips or tricks that helped you with this problem!

For context, I use Clip Studio Paint, but I'd love to hear advice for any other program that you use!

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    Sep '21

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    Oct '21
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DualDragonsMaster of Yeet
Sep '21

Does the magic wand tool work for you? It creates an area whenever you click, which I use to fill in colour areas inbetween lineart.

jamontoast98
Sep '21

Have not used it for that before, is it different to just using the fill tool?

xstarx07
Sep '21

Thereā€˜s a nice bucket/brush that you can download for CSP that is pretty much an advanced filling tool. It has an ice cream icon and I think it was called K96, maybe it helps you? :3

You use it by circling in the area you want colored and you can even get the opposite effect, erasing a whole area you circle in, as long as the lineart is closed!

jamontoast98
Sep '21

Thanks, I had heard of this tool somewhere but couldn't remember the name. Downloaded it now!

Legendofgenii
Sep '21

I paint around the edge first (under the lineart layer) then use the bucket tool. Itā€™s time consuming and I should just use the lasso tool, but I prefer my way. :joy:

Iā€™m stubborn.

jamontoast98
Sep '21

Hey, as long as it gets the job done, right? I hold that artists have to be stubborn in certain things

migxmeg
Sep '21

I got a couple tips. Clip Studio is such a star for this.

Color tips.png1000x1000 160 KB

  • Always keep line art on its own layer and use as a reference layer for fill - makes it easier if you do have to clean anything up.

  • Use a layer underneath with a mid-tone, which makes it way less noticeable than white or black if you missed something, created by magic wand outside line art, inverting selection, then filling. Clip your color layer on top of that - nothing outside the lines :).

  • Tune your fill options - area scaling/tolerance/close gap - to work for your line art. The little shapes above have some reasonably nasty bits and filled without any cleanup because my settings are tuned.

  • Use a separate layer for lines that are texture (hair, clothing folds, etc.) so it won't interfere with your filling.

nostalgicroxas
Sep '21

If you don't have really thin lines, you can bucket tool select the space to color and usually there's a selection tool to "increment selection by 1 pixel". Click that and it'll increase your selection size by 1 pixel all around and it'll go "under" the lines and in the spaces missed. Then you can bucket fill or brush fill as you need. It might still miss a few where there's finer details but it should work.

migxmeg
Sep '21
1

That's what area scaling does automatically! In case you want to skip that step. The number you choose indicates the number of pixels you want to enlarge from where it would normally stop. You can increase or decrease that - I retune whenever I change my inking brush.

crimson_mystery_cake
Sep '21

I use photoshop. I just use the magic wand tool and then expand by usually one to two pixels, and then I use the paint bucket tool. I have pretty much everything set to the max with the paint bucket tool.

Rhonder
Sep '21

My solution has been both to do the under-layer of color like you described (sometimes black, sometimes just another dark color).

The other setting that I like to play with is the like... Expansion area on the paint bucket? I'm not sure what this is actually called, but basically in many programs (CSP included) you can set the bucket up so that it fills X pixels beyond what it would normally do. X can be adjusted based on canvas size I find that often 2-3 is more than enough but sometimes even 3 bleeds out in areas where I have thin lines so I have to dial it back.

Using these techniques together grabs like 99% of stray pixels in my work, at least. Under layer for isolated pixels, and the bucket expansion for bits near the rest of the color.

edit: didn't read the other replies before answering, but yes "Area Scaling" is the bucket expansion thing! V handy.

euphisa
Sep '21

I remember there is a tool in csp that will fill in those gaps, i find that much better than area scaling bucket tool as bucket tool can still leave gaps. I cant remember the name of that tool, ill come back in some hours and tell ya

migxmeg
Sep '21
1

This one? I could never get used to it (once I fill one section trying to do the area next to it ends up partially coloring the area I already did - what's up with that? Am I using it wrong?) but did download and try it out at some point.

euphisa
Oct '21

Oh i remember now! It is called the Enclose and Fill tool. It is a subtool of the fill tool