Some of you asked for a color tutorial, and Iāve been kicking around ideas all day about the best way to do one. Iāve tried to do them before, and sometimes theyāre helpful, but mostly I feel like theyāre not. And I think thatās because I try to explain color theory, which is too big of a bite to take. Color theory is somethng you should read about because it will help you with your art. I just canāt tackle it here.
Instead, Iām going to do what I did in the blocking tutorial and just take you through my own steps in building a palette for a realistic portrait using a model/reference.
So I grabbed a random screencapā¦
Right away things get tricky because film, no matter how good the film is, is not real life. And the colors are so contextual (and sometimes very filtered), that they look ugly or nonsensical when translated to an art medium.
For example, if I were to guess, Iād say he had a pale complexion and was wearing a light green tunic.
But if I actually go in and color-pick the image, this is what the colors end up being:
Those are not the colors I expected.
So how do I deal with that discrepancy? I take what I know/want (pale man, light green tunic) and what I actually see (dark red, dark grays), and I figure out how to get from one to the other.
And hereās the funny thing about color: It doesnāt actually matter that much.
What matters more is the value of the colorāitās lightness and darkness. As long as you get the lightness and darkness right, you can pretty much make any color believable. And I know this is true because hereās a painting by Van Gogh, who puts greens, blues, pinks, bright oranges, and dark reds in his face, and it works. And not only does it work, but it makes a huge emotional impact:
So I suppose my overall advice would be to not be afraid of using the wrong color because you can make any color work. Whatās more important is how it compares to the other colors around it.
When I make a palette, I look at the value first. I look at what the light is doingāWhatās dark? Whatās light? Whatās in the middle? Where are the shadows and highlights? I donāt choose brilliant or surprising colors like an Impressionist might, though. Instead, I go for colors that fit the mood I want to convey, which is mostly quietness and softness. If I wanted to convey more visceral emotions, I might pick more visceral colors. But thatās not my style.
So now letās go back to Denis, and hereās the color palette I would choose for his portrait:
And hereās how it would look if my colors were applied in the same places:
(I did not color-pick the gold turban in my first example, but I decided to add it here in my own palette so you can see how it changes along with the other colors).
Basically, all Iāve done is a value adjustment. Iāve brightened the colors, adjusting as I see fit, but Iāve kept the differences in value between them the same. In other words, the range between the colors in my palette is pretty close to the range between the colors in the original cap.
Itās not the colors, see? Itās the difference in value. And thereās not much of a difference. My style is soft, and I prefer muted, subtle colors. So I keep my range pretty narrow. If I put everything in grayscale, you can see what I mean:
See how close the grays are to each other? Nothing is too white, and nothing is too black. Thereās not a lot of contrast.
And this is why Van Goghās choice of colors is so convincing. Look what happens when I convert his portrait to grayscale:
Everything looks natural. You canāt even tell he used weird colors because Van Gogh understood that you can do whatever you want with color as long as you keep the value between the colors consistent.
It takes a lot of practice toĀ āseeā things like value range and differences in light and dark. But learning how to see a good range in valueāand then to produce a good range using any colors you want, even if the colors go against what you know or observeāis probably the most important thing about working in color that I can think of.Ā I think thereās a lot you can learn about color theory in general, and all of it can be useful (and the internet is full of resources to help you), but you have to be able to work in those black and white values first. <3
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