Ok well first you will want to work with lots of layers. I begin by using the
Polygonal Lasso to select each "cell" that I want to individually color in. When you select one "cell" or panel of the car let's say, go to
Select--->Modify--->Border--->1pixel then color that in with the
Paint Brush in black. Do that to each "cell that you choose, which you can choose to do a lot of detailed cells, or keep it simple and almost abstract. After you do all of the borders of the cells you will end up with an image that looks like this:
So that is one layer that will be on top of all other layers.
The next layer will be right beneath this one in which you will use the
Magic Wand to select the "empty" areas. After you choose one "cell" that you want to color in go to
Select--->Modify--->Expand--->1 pixel. This will expand the selected area by one pixel which will help color in the whole area behind the black lines that the
Magic Wand did not select. So now use the
Eyedrop tool to select the color you want to color the particular cell in. Then use the
Paint Brush if you want it in all one color or the
Gradient tool if you want a fade, or you can even just use the paint brush with one color then black or white with the airbrush tip to give the sense of glare or shadow. Then you need to do that for every "cell." I also make another layer underneath this layer for the small areas around the black outlines that don't get colored in. Here are photos of the layers I just spoke of:
So all in all, that's my simple DIY of how I cell shade
Hope I didn't forget anything lol
Oh and P.S. some parts of the car i do cheat and copy and paste the original pieces onto the new cell shade such as the windows, wheels, roudel, m3 emble, wing. Only because I think it'll look clean and I really didn't know what to do with the window areas for this particular image :dunno: And the black outlines help to make it still look cell-shaded