Roughing up images and a question on lineart

[Transpose]

Hi there! I'm somewhat new to paint.net and I have a couple of questions.

I've been using paint.net to colour lineart, but I've always noticed how bland the colours seem, there's no variation in a section of colour.

Here's a skin-tone captured and blown up in paint.net:

Here's a paint.net version of it:

The first skin-tone image has lots variable tones mixed together, giving it a much more rich look when you view it at it's actual size. The computer painted tones looks bland in comparison.

What sort of techniques can folk recommend so that the second image looks more like the first one? I'm thinking the Noise effect could be used here but it always gives a image the effect it's been drawn on crinkly paper. Maybe add some noise to the image and blur it a bit?

My next question is on lineart. It has to do with those annoying white and grey spots that crop up whenever you go to paint something:

In the areas around the red feathers you can see loads of small grey spots where the wand/eraser didn't get them, is there a way that when I first put the black and white lineart into paint.net that I can use a effect to ONLY display completely black and completely white? Getting rid of all the grey parts from an image? That way there wouldn't be any grey spots to worry about.

Thanks!

[EvilNeko]

Thats because you have not set your paint bucket up to a high enough percentage, at least on the lineart bit.

As for the skin, There isn't much I can think of to make the skin texture like that other than a pixilate kinda thing. Or you can take it to old MS Paint and try the spraypaint can thingey...I don't even try skin tones anymore, takes too much time for me.

~EvilNeko

[Crazy Man Dan]

When all else fails, Fractal Clouds.

Simply set the Primary color to a darker version of your skin tone, render at a low scale, and lower the opacity of the layer. It's great for adding in variations. This plugin will fill the entire canvas / selection, so you'll have to either erase the extra or use the Magic Wand to select the skin area beforehand.

[oma]

maybe try a little of the erode plugin. I've not done much skin tones but one layer background maybe another overlay semi transparent and erode both layers then merge.

[TakeMangaka]

See, these are some of my results on painting drawings with PDN. Whether you like them, then I can teach you how.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/58775500/

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/60020522/

[mailman]

well for linearts i learned to do them by making a new layer, putting it under the lineart and set the lineart layer to multiply. Then just color it on the bottom layer.