Shading and colouring tips
So I’ve been asked to do a tutorial for shading and working with colours, and here’s where I have to disappoint you, I am not the right person.
To understand how to shade and colour you need to understand shapes, forms, anatomy, texture and colour theory. I will not explain it to you, because:
a. I’m shit at explaining stuff and
b. I don’t understand them fully myself.
So before we start I need to ask you to go and watch some tutorials on youtube, just make sure they are made by PROFESSIONALS (e.g. Proko) and not just self-taught young hobbyists like myself. Sure, we can give you some tips, but you need somebody with years of experience to fully explain the basics to you. I just don’t want to hurt you by teaching you to do something in a terrible way.
What I can do is to tell you a few tips I’ve learned that seem to work really well for me. Please remember, this is not a tutorial, these are just tips on how to make your artwork more colourful and shiny.
Having said that, let’s just jump right into it
If desaturated colours are your thing, that’s fine, but don’t be afraid to use bright colours as well. You don’t have to go to town and use neons in every piece like I do, but think about using a brighter colour as an accent. For example, if you’re using blues and purples try throwing in some yellow, it will give your artwork some life, variety and will catch the eye of the viewer, so you can draw their attention where you want it to be.
If you have problems with figuring out which colours work the best with each other try using colour palettes, you can find plenty of blogs that post them on tumblr, or use a website that will create one for you (e.g. https://color.adobe.com)
Also, colour theory, go and learn colour theory.
In my opinion, contrast is the most important aspect of your artwork (except for composition maybe), it doesn’t matter if your using greyscale or colours, without strong contrast your art will look dull, flat and boring.
Here’s the quick comparison I made of one of my older pieces. On the left side, there’s an original version I painted, but then I decided it didn’t look appealing, so I kicked the contrast up a notch, which you can see on the right side.
If you’re not sure if the contrast is right, change your file to greyscale, it’s much easier to see it that way. You can also pick the darkest and lightest colour from your work and put them side by side, as you can see below.
To shade something properly you need to know what its form and texture are, a lot of time I struggle with it myself, so you need to find a better tutorial for this.
What I can tell you though, is how to use colour in your shading. Beginners often use black to shade, well, don’t do that. It will make your image look uninteresting and, a lot of times, dirty.
Instead, use colours, the easiest way is to use the same colour with multiply effect or darker shade (left side), but it would look even better if you’d use a slightly different hue (right side)
(btw I only change the shading on his face, hair and jacket are the same)
(oh and I still used multiply on the right side, it’s on full opacity but you may want to turn it down a bit, depends on what you need)
Recently I started colouring shades with the airbrush to get subtle gradients and interesting differences in colours.
As you may or may not notice, I like my light shiny. My secret is using very bright colours with effects: luminosity, overlay and screen. Now, you need to be careful with this, it’s easy to make it too bright, that’s why it’s important to make sure everything has the right contrast.
For lightning, most of the time, I use yellow, cyan and magenta. Often I make a layer on top with overlay effect and gently add colour with the airbrush.
Just remember to experiment and see what works the best for you!
-a very light, almost white shape
-the same shape but now with airbrush and colour
-optional overlay layer with different colour, just to be extra
