Some details on how I handle colouring! Really not gospel or sage advice, just a bit about what I do per request ✌️ It's under a read-more because it's quite a lot of babble.. whoops!
This one is good because it touches on the storytelling of colour as well as just the basics. The examples he gives might not be styles you're interested in but I like the advice.
This one especially was a real game-changer for me because it lays out some more practical ways to use the theory outlined in the other video. Sycra's colour tutorials are all good I think.
For me I tend to flat colour fill using a vague idea of these rules/whatever colours inspired the drawing originally. I tend to start with relatively desaturated colours (less than 50% saturation), then once I have a base start adding more saturated ones. You can always change colours as you go if something stops working or you get inspired so it's not a huge deal. Then I muck around with it using some of the techniques listed at the end of the post!
With digital art the options are so endless in a way that's a bit daunting in my opinion, so anything that will give you options to make a decision about rather than come up with something off the top of your head is quite nice I feel. Like how with traditional mediums you might be limited to what paints you have.
Thinking about what I want people to see first while I'm drawing is my main priority when finalising colours, which you'll likely do by making sure that there's plenty of contrast and saturation around it. I'm usually trying to think of how to make the area where I want the most meaning/attention the easiest point to look at.
Not just colour, but say for example the drawing is quite busy or cluttered, I'd try to make the key visual more simple so the eye rests on it, or if the image is plain, add more detail to the focal point so anyone viewing it would want to get their eye in that part to investigate.
As well as that, I like to think about what shape a colour is making in the image, and also that colours are generally used across the whole image if I've used it once. So, if I've used an interesting red somewhere in the image, I'll try use it somewhere else as well, even if only a little bit.
My main rule I use always is to sometimes sit back and imagine if the meaning would make sense to someone who was seeing it for the first time.
Techniques I use to find colours to play with:
-Apply a (usually pale and/or desaturated) background colour as the first thing I do, even if my intention is for the image to be on a plain background or transparent. It's a little easier to pick colours when you have a baseline colour other than white, black or grey, and it's nice to use as a reference for some of the rules covered in the videos above. I almost always remove this background colour or change it in the final image since it's just to help out with the original colour pick.
-Copying the entire flat image and pasting it over the top, then turning the top layer into a filter/effect layer (e.g. Multiply, Overlay etc.). I don't usually keep this layer in the final image, but if any interesting colours crop up while you're fiddling with the filter, you can keep a note of them and then use them on the actual image once you've removed the filter layer. It's a really fun way to visualise what other colours you COULD use, and they tend to be harmonious with the original image since that's where they originated.
-Using colours and not black/grey for the line art, and sometimes removing the line art completely and seeing how that changes what intuition wants me to add. Or putting the lines on overlay/multiply so see how it looks and removing lines that aren't effective.
-Colouring the entire image including lines on one layer, so if something does need changing I'm forced to redraw or colour over it. If you leave a little bit of the part you're changing peeking out, it gives the image a more interesting texture. Like how painters sometimes leave underpainting showing through.
-I love taking photos of stuff with cool textures like well-worn paths or lichens, and I add these as overlays sometimes. If the photo has colours in it as well sometimes you get some cool colours from there which you can use in the final image.
-Pick some base colours for the main shapes in an image, then pick colours only very slightly different from the main colours to fill in the smaller shapes. It gives a slightly stained-glass effect.
I don't know that I can really say I know what I'm doing with colours because there's certainly a lot of stuff I end up recolouring or scrapping because it doesn't work at all ahaha but it is my fave part to do ️😇
If there's something you wanted more specifics on or how a particular drawing was coloured, please let me know and I can make this post even more wordy..! ✌️
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