not exactly about your characters so im not sure if it's the place to ask, but ive been experimenting with colour lately and you're one of the people I look up the most to in that sense, and ive been pondering a question... How much of your work with colour is you implementing theoretical knowledge of it and how much is purely intuitive? Cos people talk a lot about "studying colour" and i just don't feel like there's really much "studying" to be done about it, like I know the basics of colour theory but actually good colourwork is so intricate i feel like im swashing in dark waters blind whenever I try to recreate it
Honestly, to me at least, color is one of those things where you’re only going to understand how it works after trying new things with it. That being said, I think color theory and studying color have its place, but its not the end all be all of successfully coloring!!!!
i think the most valuable part of color theory, for me at least, is just learning the types of color schemes and going from there. These things…
Just knowing the first like, half of these can get you far honestly. I’d say a good chunk of my art is just complimentary or triad colors at their core, im really drawn to that.. for the sake of Learning heres some examples in my own art
from left to right… primary triad, analogous (enough, at least) and complimentary … honestly, if i follow a scheme, it always turns out plenty fine!!
What’s more important than color itself is value, which I see a ton of artists neglect. I did too for a longgg time and i regret it, because learning values made my color use 1000x more effective. Basically, dont be afraid to make things dark or light.. not everything is Medium.. well sometimes they are but whatever PUT SHADOWS AND HIGHLIGHTS ON THINGS and it will help the overall image AND the color
Another thing about color - it’s just light, so treat it as such. Layering color can make it shine through, which is especially helpful if youre trying to make something high contrast or “glow”. I think sooo many digital artists completely pass by the fact that this is an option in digital - just lower your brush opacity, set the brush settings to multiply, or use a transparent brush and you’ll see what I mean. I will show you in my own art though
This background is pretty dark, and obviously the subject is bright as hell which is what I wanted. To get this effect, i didn’t just use black for the background but rather i went over it with a highly saturated redorange and royal blue like 4 times each to get it that dark while still having some depth. And as a result, the borders on the figure “glow”
Also, with digital art, using things like the curve tool can be really helpful if youre not happy with your colors. I’ll use this as an example
my first draft of this was like, REALLY red which i wasn’t loving. I wanted it to be low contrast in the background but it wasnt and that was bugging me sooo i just adjusted it using tone curves. Saved me the torture of recoloring…
In general though, color is pretty intuitive and the more you do it, the better at it you’ll get. Plus, art is visual so, you can probably tell when something is not pleasing to look at lollll. definitely study the colors of artists you like and see how they use it, be observant of how color and light work irl, and practice, and color will come to you before you know it
