Some of you have asked how i made the coloring on my last sub , a room with view from asteroid b612

so here it is
First of all you need to have your precise line work done.Close your lines, it is important.This one is a wacom drawing, i used for the kid a beach photo of my nephew, he had the perfect pose.The sol is a photo turned to black and white , using levels to simplify it and get rid of unecessary details+some splahes.The leaves are real ones i scanned then turned to brushes, as i can use it easyly.Clouds are photos also turned to brushes.Better to have all your elements on separate layers.Name your layers if you don’t want to be lost.
Skin coloring :,
1 -create new layer,low down the opacity to 50 %,pick up your brush tool, select a large brush with fading, choose black color and go paint for the first shade.You can work largely, and use the eraser if needed.In the case i erased with some splatters to get something interesting and easy to handle
2 -create new layer,low down opacity to 50% and do the same than above for the second shading..
3 – create new layer, select all around the kid , invert selection,fill in black( this is the white background for the kids it will be needed in illustrator.blind the layer for easy work.
So now with these 2 shading layers + the white in background and the line work coming up, we got something near of a dawn light.
Clouds halftoning: create new black and white document,, pick up your cloud brush,put your cloud onto the layer.Go to mode/bitmap/select halftone mode,(about definition i go from 75 dpi to 300 , just mess around with settings to get what you like,but in this case chosse 300),validate,then choose the lpi ( i go from10 to 150, this will give the size of dots, in this case choose 75), set the angle to 45 ( don’t ask me why), choose the kind of halftones(round) ,validate.Switch the document mode from bitmap to grey scale then ,drag it to your original.
Do this for all elements that will be halftoned.
here’s a view of my picture with all layers except the big rainy cloud that i made on another document cause it was easier to handle.

There are other ways to create halftones on photoshop via the pixellate filter.and the aestethic filter has a sub level for haltoning to.
Just test things and mess around to find your way, it is fun, and doors will open.

i learned a lot with these Jimiyo’s tutorials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HJQjpZ5xdU&feature=player_embedded
http://jimiyo.com/halftonereduction.htm

With this Walmazan tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjun0CnnoUo&feature=player_embedded

With this Odyssey Rock tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hqpg7nfdmk&feature=related

Normally i could finish it on photoshop, or do the coloring as explained in the tutorials above, but it would be too simple.Nah, i did this design something like 6 months ago and it was a way to learn how to use illustrator.
Okay, let’s say, all your layers are ready, named and separated .Put back the opacity to 100 % for all layers.save your file as a psd.Close photoshop, open illustrator.Create a new document ,cmjn, 300 dpi.
import your photoshop file, click option import all layers as objects.
Select an object, go to vectorize options,choose one of the preset options, there are some,click on delete the white(very very important).I messed around a long time on vectorisation options , to find out what was fitting with my kind of works so no secret recipe sorry.Not using the same options when vectorizing a line work or a monoprint texture.Be careful about working too finely.
When done ,decompose, and choose a plain pantone color.
Do the same for all your layers.
Then create one layer by color and drag the objects to each layer.
Normally before that you should use the pahfinder to cut some unecessary shapes ,in order to prepare the file for printing, but i skipped this stage in the tuto .
I simplified the tuto a lot, but it was longer and harder to achieve than explained, cause i messed around to find the good settings for halftoning but it was nice to spend some time on it.

Hope this will be helpfull, and clear enough, apologies for the approximative technical english