Voltron Editing Tutorial
Aight so someone asked, and now I’m here. I have made YouTube tutorial videos before here, but I’ll go into more depth on what to do, how to get started, and what I do personally.
For this, I will be showing you how to make a simple color edit (A request I received of Black Paladin Lance) but I will still describe briefly how you can do Altean/Galra edits (which implies to other edits like outfit changes and more!)
So let’s get started
So lemme get this out of the way - my program is called Clip Studio Paint EX, a $100+ art program with many features, including manga, 3D models, animation, and more. Of course, you can use other programs like Clip Studio Paint Pro and SAI (I have used both before) but this tutorial will follow with EX.
First thing you need to do is figure out what to edit, then get a screenshot. Now, you can either go to Netflix and clip out a screenshot, or find an image on Tumblr/Instagram/other (Note: For the best edit, make sure the image is as clear as possible)
I use Netflix, but I also sometimes go to @voltronreference who posted quite a lot of Voltron screenshots.
Once you find your image, something you’ll want to do is put the image on a completely new image with the size 1600x900 (or 1600x1000)
Now this part can be tricky. If you use @voltronreference ‘s screenshots, transporting it to another image is easy, as seen below. (To copy and paste, all you need to do is press Ctrl+c then Ctrl+v like usual)
However, if you get a screenshot from Netflix, the image size is probably somewhere in the two hundred. What you’ll need to do is shrink the image before you copy and paste it as seen below.
Once you have the image how you want, you can start editing!
Now, this next part is completely up to you! When editing, you have a choice to either only edit what you want to change or the entire thing (Not including Background). I personally edit the entire character so that everything blends together smoothly, but some editors only edit what they change, and that’s completely okay (just make sure everything blends together well).
For edits including changes like Altean/Galra ears or outfit changes, you’ll need to create a new layer above the image.
If it’s just a color edit, you can completely skip the sketch and jump straight to outlining.
For Voltron edits, the best tool to use is the Line Tool between 2-4 thickness (3 is the perfect thickness for me almost every time, but sometimes you need thicker/thinner lines)
Now all you have to do is outline the character as seen below.
Once you have completely outlined your edit, you can begin coloring. (Note: make sure your colors match your background) If you don’t change the background at all, you keep the same colors except for the ones you’re changing. For the ones you are changing, you can either find another scene with the same background and colors you need (Ex. You need black for Lance’s armor, so find Shiro wearing his armor in the training deck)
You can either color by hand or use the Select and Fill Tool, as seen below.
If you use this tool, you’ll need to go back and color in the little nooks the Select Tool couldn’t reach. (Note: Best way to color is by setting each group of colors in different layers (Ex. One layer for hair and eyelashes, another layer for clothes (or three to four layers for clothes, your choice), and a layer for skin) as to avoid constant coloring over and needing to recolor certain areas. My order of layers if Hair, Clothing, then Skin.)
A little fun token for you: Make a separate image for colors for individual characters - the basic colors, as seen below.
Once you got everything colored, you can move onto shading. What you do here is create a completely new layer above all except the outline, and turn it to Multiply. This setting makes the colors darker and colorful depending on the shade color you use. I always use this shade of grey below.
All you do here is take your Line Tool and outline the shaded areas of your image (Note: You can add your own shades to make it look better, for sometimes Voltron didn’t shade at all/enough) Then use your Select Tool and Fill in your shaded areas (of course go back and fill in the nooks)
Step back and take a look at your edit so far. Does it need a color fix? Any more shading? Once you have everything you like, here comes the fun part (not really)
Sometimes, the background will still have traces of the character you just colored over, as seen below.
Going back to the original image layer, all you do it color over the patches with the same color behind it and blur it together to make everything blend better. Once you checked around the entire character for those patches, you’re almost done!
Going to your Filter Tab: Blur for your shading layer, you will select one of the two options - You will select the first options, which is just Blur, to blur your shading in with the colors better. Or, you will go down to Gaussian Blur and take the strength all the way down to 2.00 - as this gives the least amount of blur, which is the best option in a lot of far away characters.
Now, keeping the same Blur choices above in mind, you can do one of those with the outline, or not blur it at all. Just go by what you think is the best option to achieve the closest Voltron style as possible.
And Bingo!! Your edit is complete!
Now y’all know how to make a Voltron edit (at least how I do it), and even though it looks difficult, if you keeping working on this you’ll be dishing out edits in thirty minutes!
I hope this helped. If you have any questions or want more details or want to know how to make other edits (Altean/Galra, outfits, character changes, etc.), send in an ask and I’ll explain further. Good luck!