LOVELESS WALKTHROUGH

This "walkthrough" highlights some of the more important/interesting steps I took in Photoshop CS2 to create this Loveless wall. I use Illustrator CS2 and Photoshop CS2 so if you're using a different version of these programs, I can't guarantee that you'll see the same tools and options that I do. I'm also going to assume that you're fairly comfortable with both programs. Anyways, hope you'll find this walkthrough helpful in creating your own walls :)

1. Vector the outlines in Illustrator CS2 + Export to Photoshop CS2
I won't go into details about how to vector in Illustrator, since that would require its own tutorial and there are lots of good existing tutorials out there (devART is a good place to look). For this wall, I decided I liked the unfinished sketchy look (a.k.a. I got lazy), so I just did a partial vectoring of the original scan's outlines.

Sadly I'm not as familiar with Illustrator's many options as I am with Photoshop, so after I finish outlines/base colors I always export the Illustrator file to Photoshop (File > Export... > Save as type Photoshop (*.PSD) > Select Resolution: Medium (150 ppi)*, Options: Write Layers, Preserve Text Editability, Maximum Editability, Anti-alias)
* Selecting Resolution: Screen (72 ppi) will produce a very respectable PSD file as well; the resolution selection basically comes down to what your system can handle. My old laptop would cry if I select Medium; my new computer freezes when I select High. Go for the best of whatever your system can handle.

2. Tweaking base colors
I decided that I wanted a dark background for this wall, so with that in place I started tweaking with the blending options for the color base layers. I lowered the opacity for Ritsuka's hair/skin color blocks, and set his shirt shading layer to Exclusion: 52% to get that semi-transparent look.
Duplicating layers is a good way to make colors more vibrant, so I duplicated the layer with Ritsuka's hair/skin color base and set the copy to 51% opacity to make those colors stand out a bit more.

3. The clipping mask is your friend
Most of the cool color gradients you see over the outlines in this wall is made possible because of clipping masks. Clipping masks allow you to color over a shape without going over the boundaries of the shape, and I've definitely found the clipping mask to be one of the most useful tools in PS.
To make a clipping mask, create a new layer above the layer you want to mask. Right click on the new layer and select "Create Clipping Mask" in the drop-down. In this case, I created a clipping mask over Ritsuka's outlines. Now I can color over the outlines with whatever I want!

4. The clipping mask is your friend cont.
I grabbed the standard round brush and picked out a shade of blue, then colored the blue over the outlines in the clipping mask layer. I alternated between the brush and a eraser set at low opacity to create that gradient look. I also created a clipping mask over Ritsuka's hair base layer, and brushed in a warmer shade of purple to make his hair stand out a bit more.

5. Ctrl+Alt+U is also your friend
Ctrl+Alt+U pulls up the Hue/Saturation menu, and that's another helpful PS tool that I abuse often as a color tweaker. Here I wanted to adjust the hue of the striped texture in the background. The original stock was blue, but I wanted a warmer tone to contrast with the blues in the outlines. So I changed the hue to an orange shade and tweaked the lighting/saturation a bit to get the effect that I want.

6. Color Overlay
I created a new layer, grabbed the paint bucket, and made a solid purple layer over the whole background to again to create a warmer tone using layer blending options. I set the purple color overlay layer to Hue: 100%. See the difference in the background color here from the thumb in step 4?

7. Blocking out textures
I didn't want to have a uniform striped-texture going across the whole wall that shows up behind Ritsuka, so I created a layer above the striped texture, eye-dropped the gray background color (with the purple overlay layer hidden!) and then used a brush set at low opacity to color over or "hide" the stripes behind Ritsuka. I rounded out corners using the brush and also blocked out some of the stripes beneath the smoke-swirl outlines because I thought that created an interesting look.

8. Done!
I smacked on my siggie and that's it for this wall! Click on the thumb to see the final product. Hope you enjoyed reading this walkthrough more than I enjoyed writing it (j/k).