So because I did not have a good base I thought I wanted to do my own pictures. I have a few times here used photographs that I took myself (like the pics of the horses or of my children). But I write a lot about mangas and anime, so of course I wanted good picture material for these themes as well. But mangas are usually black and white and while I think that works fine sometimes, I don't want to use too much black and white graphics. This is why I decided to try myself at colouring. Sounds easy, doesn't it? My children do it all the time, so I should be able to do it. But ... I have almost zero experience with graphic programs. Well, if you don't start, you'll never get the experience.
My very first real job of trying to colour in a black and white manga picture was the cut-out that makes my GeishaX avatar picture. It is taken from "akuma de sourou" (I have blogged this manga partially in my blog "Triangles and Tears" in August 2008) and I used Paint Shop Pro to colour in the hair.
My second trial at colouring in is the above picture of Goichi from the Manga "Invisible Love" by Honjou Rie (her family name is also written as Honjo or Honjoh). I dipped the eyes in a poisonous green, added a skin tone to all that glorious naked skin, dyed the lips, put a spark of red into the cigarette tip, coloured the cigarette end, gave the shirt a in-the-eye pink colour and added two shades of brown to the hair. The truth is, that I am not really satisfied. Especially once the picture was uploaded ... suddenly it looks nothing like the thing I worked on. The colours blur too much, one of the green eyes is hardly visible because it's covered by hair, the shirt lines don't come out enough through the pink colour. *GRRRR* Still, I guess it was worth doing this. I already thought about what I would change if I had to do it again.
