RESOURCE STUFF | Paint Bucket/Fill Tool (Patreon)

My father always told while I was growing up; 'Work smart not hard.' 

You may find some artist get a tiny bit precious about the Paint Bucket Tool. Either lazy or it makes the edges look terrible or somewhere in between.

Lazy, I can not agree with. It is quicker to fill an area in one click, then it is to colour with a brush. That is not lazy, it is efficient.

 If you earn form of income through your art time management is very important. Not only finishing art quicker will allow you to work on more art it is far less mentally taxing.

However, the messy edges do occur. There is a super easy way to fix this.

1. Keep your line art and colouring on a separate layers.

2. Using the Magic Wand or Auto Select Tool, select the area you wish to colour. In most programs it shown as a moving dashed line.

3. Go to Select > Modify > Expand Selection.

4. An Expand Selection dialogue box will pop up. Input how much you wish the expansion to be. 

Note: Working on a canvas that is around 1080 x 1920, with line art 10-15px I find that Expanding by 2-5 pixels is more than enough.

5. The selected area will expand. Repeat if the selection area does not expand behind the line art. 

6. Go to your Colouring layer and fill. 

Note: You can also use the colours that you have filled in as addition selection masks to add further details.

My method is not without it's annoying quirks. Tight corners or varied line weights will require touch ups.

Now, every artist has their own processes. This is mine. I prefer to spend most my mental energy on sketching, composition and lineart. Anywhere I can relax and save time I will.