Ooooh I love everything about your style- do you have any tips on your technique? (Especially coloring 🙃)
Ahhh thank you so much! ♥ This coloring style is still a pretty recent discovery for me, honestly.
For colors, I recommend trying out shades you’ve never considered. What I do often is I browse the works of my favorite artists or photos with color schemes I want to take inspiration from, and I try to borrow some colors. Even using the color picker tool is okay! You’ll find that some people shade with interesting hues or add lighting in a way you’ve never considered before. Add it to your work and experiment with similar hues!
For example, I started experimenting with complementary colors. Sometimes it’s a bust, sometimes it’s mediocre, and sometimes you find something gorgeous that you want to keep in your inventory of new art skills!
As for where to color...especially shading... that’s a tough one. I’m still learning about lighting and color theory, but for my style specifically, I would say that simple is best. Don’t be afraid to be light and loose with your brush strokes. Heck, shade an entire area without getting stuck on the folds or the soft shading...try to get the lighting down to set the mood of the piece. Once you have the concept of shading in a broad area down, you can proceed to the fine details! If you have a few favorite artists/art styles, it never hurts to try to emulate them (especially a combination of all of them) to find what you like best!
But my #1 tip would be: free up your hand and mind. If you’re pressing down real hard or you’re just STUCK on one part, try to draw in looser strokes. And not necessarily short, light strokes — that achieves a jagged, sketchy look (unless that’s your preferred style!) — instead, try for long strokes. Draw past what you’re supposed to draw, and refine it later. Try new poses, new objects (I need to take my own advice on this haha). Pick a silly stock photo and use the pose to find the baseline shapes of the figure. It enables you to start understanding how shapes work. I found it a good learning experience!
This got a little long, but I hope it helps!
