5 Introduce a grey tone

Once I’m satisfied with the line-art, I create a layer underneath it for my greys. Here I use a default brush and the Lasso tool to colour the figure. The grey is my base tone before I start flatting individual areas, to highlight any gaps, contrast with background layer, and helps me keep in mind the depth of the character. It’ll also assist with my next step, when I’ll create a clipping mask over the greys to start flatting the image without having to clean the outer areas of the line-art.