Painting and colors!

[dollarchan]

So, does everyone here have a technique they follow when painting? Most people do, I think. But what's gotten my attention lately as something I pretty much ignored before is the picking of colors. This is because I used to just pick a greyish tone, put a top layer on Multiply and do all the shading on grayscale. I never worried about the base

Comments

[maichan]

I tend to wing it when it comes to color. I normally just decide if I want the palette to be warm/cool or saturated/desaturated, and then just pick colors within those ranges as needed.

To avoid things looking plastic, I like to use background patterns or keep the texture of the paper from the original drawing. Then, I set my layers to multiply so that the texture comes through when you add color and helps keep things from appearing too flat.

I also love playing around with real textures for fabrics, using them almost like custom brushes. And sometimes instead of picking a lighter color, I use the erase tool set to 50% opacity to subtract the highlights rather than add them.

[serenada_art]

I love how you colour. It's so simple---LOOKING. I don't for a second think it's easier than much of the stuff out there, but somehow I think of your work in terms of hues instead of colours. It's all very suggesting.

When I want to learn to colour, I would like to try and emulate artists like you (I'm not brown-nosing, seriously), because I think that's how my brain processes colour. I really really can't see colour the way artmetica uses it, so where would I start?

But I'm probably just making that up. Still, I'm going to keep an eye out for any tips you give, in case it really is something I can adapt.

If I ever go colour--I'm looking at my BB drafts, and I don't know! Doing spn_cinema in colour has really thrown things off.

[maichan]

Aww, you're so sweet. If you ever want some help with your coloring, feel free to PM me.

[dollarchan]

And sometimes instead of picking a lighter color, I use the erase tool set to 50% opacity to subtract the highlights rather than add them.

You mean erasing the base color lightly so the white layer behind comes through and it looks lighter there, right? Or is it something else I didn't grasp? It's been a long time since I used a scanned drawing instead of doing it on photoshop from scratch, so I don't remember how that worked anymore. I do remember there was some work involved with levels and channels before you could start painting, I think.

[amberdreams]

I have so much to learn!! I only just found out about multiplying layers...Before that, the only tool I used was contrast and curves. I do know that for my own work, I love a lot of strong colour.

[dollarchan]

I admit I have no idea how to use curves. I've never used them in Photoshop. I have used them in After Effects but even them I was just trying it out blindly. I don't really know how they work, even.

[amberdreams]

I use them in Gimp after someone showed me you can get different effects by using the 3 colour channels instead of using brightness/contrast - but I am just playing around to see what happens, there is no expertise in what I do!

[serenada_art]

I don't know jackshit about colour--ask trolleys whose inbox I deluged with pleas for help when I made my first foray into more than monochrome.

However, when looking for tips, I did find this: The magical effects of color By Joen Wolfrom, turned to the chapter on shadow hues. I haven't had time to assimilate it yet, but it looks like it might be useful.

[dollarchan]

Thanks for the link! I'm looking at the rest of the book and it's pretty intimidating, I guess I still have a long way to go.. Somehow books on color always seem filled with scary graphs and numbers and things I don't wanna think about when I'm painting :\