Anime Line Art Coloring

This door colors line art you already drew, in a 90s anime cel look. The style starts as 90s anime, and the note already asks for flat shadow shapes, saturated hair, and every original ink line kept. It is not a redraw. If the face, hands, or costume design change, the run failed the job even when the colors are pretty.

Upload ink, not a photograph of a pencil scribble, unless the pencil is already dark and the paper is flat. Closed shapes color cleanly. A gap in a hair outline leaks the background color into the bangs. Skin takes one base and one shadow shape, usually under the chin, under the hair, and on the side of the nose away from the light. A soft airbrush gradient is a different medium. Say “hard-edged shadow” if the cheeks turn into a beauty photo.

Name three colors and stop. Hair, jacket, and one accent are enough for cel. “Make it anime” without colors lets the model pick a palette you will not match in the next panel. Lighting is a direction: “light from the upper left.” Two light sources fight, and the shadow shapes stop agreeing with the lines.

Manga coloring on the next door keeps flats dull enough for screentone. Webtoon coloring softens the light. This door is the hard cel edge. Do not upload a page that is already painted and expect the ink to survive. Do not ask it to invent a background the line art does not contain. If a fold was drawn, color the fold. If it was not drawn, do not hope the model will design the costume correctly.

A note that respects the drawing: “black hair, red jacket, white shirt, light from the upper left, hard shadow, do not move the lines.” Compare the eyes to the ink before you accept the color. A prettier face is a failed run even when the jacket red is right.