Comment 88559
Parent Comment
Urgh- don't worry. Colour still makes me cry :/ I don't get these people that just mistakenly on purpose make a crap lineart look amazing with their colour skills. All I know is that with going to conventions and selling my art, my use of colour holds me back immensely, so I've had to find a way of rectifying it. It's been a hard road for me since I've spent most of my artistic live avoiding colour all together 
It did mean though that contrast wasn't an issue to me at least XD Luckily, there's a lot of science involved with colour and as long as you know the fundamentals, the shape, and how to compliments colours together, you can ice off any cake with sellable spender.
With the Christmas lights thing, you CAN get colour pickers that take an average colour of an area of pixels, but I'm nto sure what version of Photoshop does that. It'd be an option under the eye dropper if you have it. It's still a bit of a dodgy method though for the other reasons I listed
Yeah- he's got GORGEOUS art and when I read his book, his level of understanding for what he looked at was not only extensive, but very easy to follow. There's a LOT of information in there though. I'd suggest doing what I'm doing and get confident with colour, then learn each fundamental 1 by 1. There is SO MUCH to talk in from that book. It'd be the book I'd recommend for fundamentals though, definitely
Doctor Who pic- Yeah, I picked that one cause it had weird lighting on it with that blue It was big surprise to me just how blue it was. I'd actually like to re-do this picture to see how much I've progressed with just colour in the last 3 years actually. I think I'd see far more ambient colour now with all my practice, and I have a much better colour range with the Polychromos And yup- a Doctor Who fan here! I still haven't watched all the current stuff let alone the old stuff, but I'm getting there. The group I watched them with skipped half of David Tennant's run cause they didn't like the storylines T.T (That group is REALLY bad for missing out whole seasons cause THEY didn't like an episode T.T I didn't get the choice ) It makes a lot of things rally awkward for me cause people keep giving me spoilers. My flat is going to watch them all with me though TuT
Doing stuff in greyscale first is a method that some people do to keep contrast, btu keeping an interesting hue range is just as important. I've seen some tutorials where people set up Photoshop so that they flick their picture on and off greyscale with the channels to see how it looks. I adopted a method which has the thumbnail option in photoshop where you have a small version of the image. If it reads well in tiny form, then it's an effective picture I like that method a lot cause it sort of also does the grey scale job for me cause a lack of contrast is obvious in thumbnail size. Maybe not so much for others though?
Oh- you can thumbnail your image inline if you use the [thumb#####] tag on PD A reminder is under the text box under [codes] Critique though... I'm not the best person to give help, but take my thoughts with a grain of salt as I try!
I feel that the woman blends into the background too much. I feel that the background should be closer to black so that her form is mapped as there, cause I don't think she's meant to merge with it? Sometimes putting some ambient lighting to separate her from the background can be a thing. Perhaps the room behind her is palely lit? Something to give her silhouette a soft edge. That with colour change would spell out that she's not meant to merge with the shadows. I also feel her face is very stark. You may *want* this sterile look depending on if she's a dead pan expression character. If she's more friendly though, I'd suggest giving her face some more shape to balance off her dark lips. For moon light, it depends on how intence you want the scene to be. You can give it a cold lonely feel and make it that blue, or make it more serene and give it a more natural look by doing a slightly blue light (cold light) on just the peaks of her, and blend it out gradually and have na equally intence warm shadow to compliment it. Having a shadow the same intensity is important. If your highlight is intense but the shadow is not, it'll change the perceived colour of the object. If the object has a metallic or gloss finish of some sorts having a small pine of cold white is fine, but only a tiny one to show the surface texture. Skin has a slightly gloss finish due to the oils in our skin, but nothing that would reflect a pure white without it being washed out. When you decide the mood of the picture, that's when you decide on the light intensity and colour. Or... that's how I see it. Again- I'm still learning all of this so do experiment
And no problem I LOVE art, and enjoy helping others out I'm not an expert, but if I know something that can help I have no issues explaining it TuT
It did mean though that contrast wasn't an issue to me at least XD Luckily, there's a lot of science involved with colour and as long as you know the fundamentals, the shape, and how to compliments colours together, you can ice off any cake with sellable spender. With the Christmas lights thing, you CAN get colour pickers that take an average colour of an area of pixels, but I'm nto sure what version of Photoshop does that. It'd be an option under the eye dropper if you have it. It's still a bit of a dodgy method though for the other reasons I listed
Yeah- he's got GORGEOUS art and when I read his book, his level of understanding for what he looked at was not only extensive, but very easy to follow. There's a LOT of information in there though. I'd suggest doing what I'm doing and get confident with colour, then learn each fundamental 1 by 1. There is SO MUCH to talk in from that book. It'd be the book I'd recommend for fundamentals though, definitely
Doctor Who pic- Yeah, I picked that one cause it had weird lighting on it with that blue
It was big surprise to me just how blue it was. I'd actually like to re-do this picture to see how much I've progressed with just colour in the last 3 years actually. I think I'd see far more ambient colour now with all my practice, and I have a much better colour range with the Polychromos And yup- a Doctor Who fan here! I still haven't watched all the current stuff let alone the old stuff, but I'm getting there. The group I watched them with skipped half of David Tennant's run cause they didn't like the storylines T.T (That group is REALLY bad for missing out whole seasons cause THEY didn't like an episode T.T I didn't get the choice ) It makes a lot of things rally awkward for me cause people keep giving me spoilers. My flat is going to watch them all with me though TuTDoing stuff in greyscale first is a method that some people do to keep contrast, btu keeping an interesting hue range is just as important. I've seen some tutorials where people set up Photoshop so that they flick their picture on and off greyscale with the channels to see how it looks. I adopted a method which has the thumbnail option in photoshop where you have a small version of the image. If it reads well in tiny form, then it's an effective picture
I like that method a lot cause it sort of also does the grey scale job for me cause a lack of contrast is obvious in thumbnail size. Maybe not so much for others though?Oh- you can thumbnail your image inline if you use the [thumb#####] tag on PD
A reminder is under the text box under [codes] Critique though... I'm not the best person to give help, but take my thoughts with a grain of salt as I try! I feel that the woman blends into the background too much. I feel that the background should be closer to black so that her form is mapped as there, cause I don't think she's meant to merge with it? Sometimes putting some ambient lighting to separate her from the background can be a thing. Perhaps the room behind her is palely lit? Something to give her silhouette a soft edge. That with colour change would spell out that she's not meant to merge with the shadows. I also feel her face is very stark. You may *want* this sterile look depending on if she's a dead pan expression character. If she's more friendly though, I'd suggest giving her face some more shape to balance off her dark lips. For moon light, it depends on how intence you want the scene to be. You can give it a cold lonely feel and make it that blue, or make it more serene and give it a more natural look by doing a slightly blue light (cold light) on just the peaks of her, and blend it out gradually and have na equally intence warm shadow to compliment it. Having a shadow the same intensity is important. If your highlight is intense but the shadow is not, it'll change the perceived colour of the object. If the object has a metallic or gloss finish of some sorts having a small pine of cold white is fine, but only a tiny one to show the surface texture. Skin has a slightly gloss finish due to the oils in our skin, but nothing that would reflect a pure white without it being washed out. When you decide the mood of the picture, that's when you decide on the light intensity and colour. Or... that's how I see it. Again- I'm still learning all of this so do experiment
And no problem
I LOVE art, and enjoy helping others out I'm not an expert, but if I know something that can help I have no issues explaining it TuTComment ID 88559
![[Art] Tron Legacy- Sam Flynn WIP](https://storage.googleapis.com/paperdemon-prod-la/submissions/thumbs/art_img_thumb_33949_000283504b21251bedf232de3304cba05ebcab39f2153.jpg)
"It's been a hard road for me since I've spent most of my artistic live avoiding colour all together"
I always avoided colour with any non-digital work. It always seemed like the moment I started using coloured pencils, all the nice b&w work I did would just be annihilated. I have to admit part of the draw of digital for me was just that--since I can hit "save" as much as I want, it is tough to destroy anything by experimenting on it.
"With the Christmas lights thing, you CAN get colour pickers that take an average colour of an area of pixels, but I'm nto sure what version of Photoshop does that. It'd be an option under the eye dropper if you have it"
I still agree with you that it's a crutch; I'll start eyeballing it and see if that helps me. Plus, I use Paintshop. Easier to use, but fewer capabilities.
"It was big surprise to me just how blue it was."
I notice I've started to reframe my thinking about what colour "is." I mean, technically skin for example really is blue under blue light. It's only fleshtone under neutral light. The tone brings warmth into the blue when it mixes with the light, but it's still ... blue. I am not sure why that is hard for me to wrap my head around.
The David Tennant episodes accounted for a lot of my favourites. Season 4 with Catherine Tate is still my very favourite season. I wish I could watch the classic episodes, but I can't seem to find a good deal on them anywhere. The BBC seems to insist on releasing them one at a time instead of in nice packaged sets.
Previously the woman in my picture wasn't merged into shadow like that, but it looked unnatural to me. I'm thinking though that maybe it would look more correct if I used a warm colour and did a very fine/faint backlight like you are suggesting to imply a light from somewhere behind her. That also might bring a tad more warmth into the picture (otherwise, I was going for sterile/stark/cold). Problem before was probably that the backlight was the moonlight again, which didn't make sense to me. She is also a rather rigid/expressionless person, but I'm still wondering if you could give me more tips on your idea of "giving her face more shape"? Because it's not something I excel at, and I need to know it for other characters. I've been reading more comics lately in part for that reason. Comic artists seem soooo much better at that than most artists.
" or make it more serene and give it a more natural look by doing a slightly blue light (cold light) on just the peaks of her, and blend it out gradually and have na equally intence warm shadow to compliment it." Also probably not what I'd want on this image, but an awesome idea which I will keep in mind for future moonlight images! I've been paying more attention to how TV directors handle nighttime lighting, and I notice they have to make all these decisions too. Scenes which are colder/more depressing they leave in all blue, but scenes with more warmth in them they do exactly what you suggested.
Anyway, another cool thing about digital is that there's no reason I can't save a second copy of this image, switch to to greyscale, and re-colour it in a different way to practice/experiment.
I always avoided colour with any non-digital work. It always seemed like the moment I started using coloured pencils, all the nice b&w work I did would just be annihilated. I have to admit part of the draw of digital for me was just that--since I can hit "save" as much as I want, it is tough to destroy anything by experimenting on it.
"With the Christmas lights thing, you CAN get colour pickers that take an average colour of an area of pixels, but I'm nto sure what version of Photoshop does that. It'd be an option under the eye dropper if you have it"
I still agree with you that it's a crutch; I'll start eyeballing it and see if that helps me. Plus, I use Paintshop. Easier to use, but fewer capabilities.
"It was big surprise to me just how blue it was."
I notice I've started to reframe my thinking about what colour "is." I mean, technically skin for example really is blue under blue light. It's only fleshtone under neutral light. The tone brings warmth into the blue when it mixes with the light, but it's still ... blue. I am not sure why that is hard for me to wrap my head around.
The David Tennant episodes accounted for a lot of my favourites. Season 4 with Catherine Tate is still my very favourite season. I wish I could watch the classic episodes, but I can't seem to find a good deal on them anywhere. The BBC seems to insist on releasing them one at a time instead of in nice packaged sets.
Previously the woman in my picture wasn't merged into shadow like that, but it looked unnatural to me. I'm thinking though that maybe it would look more correct if I used a warm colour and did a very fine/faint backlight like you are suggesting to imply a light from somewhere behind her. That also might bring a tad more warmth into the picture (otherwise, I was going for sterile/stark/cold). Problem before was probably that the backlight was the moonlight again, which didn't make sense to me. She is also a rather rigid/expressionless person, but I'm still wondering if you could give me more tips on your idea of "giving her face more shape"? Because it's not something I excel at, and I need to know it for other characters. I've been reading more comics lately in part for that reason. Comic artists seem soooo much better at that than most artists.
" or make it more serene and give it a more natural look by doing a slightly blue light (cold light) on just the peaks of her, and blend it out gradually and have na equally intence warm shadow to compliment it." Also probably not what I'd want on this image, but an awesome idea which I will keep in mind for future moonlight images! I've been paying more attention to how TV directors handle nighttime lighting, and I notice they have to make all these decisions too. Scenes which are colder/more depressing they leave in all blue, but scenes with more warmth in them they do exactly what you suggested.
Anyway, another cool thing about digital is that there's no reason I can't save a second copy of this image, switch to to greyscale, and re-colour it in a different way to practice/experiment.
The flesh tone blue thing... it's a lot to take in. That's why it's hard. it's why it sometimes has to come down to trial and error- see what works. I could tell you stuff if I knew, but it wont mesh till you try it. I suggest attacking one problem at a time, and making a doable check list of things to learn that are important to you, then isolating that one thing down. Linearts are hard? Find a pro artist's pencils, print it off and practice on that. Nice finishing techniques a problem? Copy an artist you like and credit them. Dont' like the effect of your medium? Find a new one and try it out on something you're comfortable drawing. The whole picture doesn't need to be a change if you're learning.
Giving her face shape... Urgh- I dont' know how to explain that all, sorry. I don't know what your light source is meant to be like, and what her bone structure is. I can say the generic planes of the face, but I think perhaps you'd get more out of it if you did some grey scale studies of faces in different angles or lighting conditions. It's *really* hard for me to give you confident advice on this cause the colour is a major part of this, as well as the face its self. I could only give areas I'd expect a shadow based on what you have here, and the face shape you're portraying may be in accurate to what you want to portray.
A suggestion I CAN give is for expression however
My advice though? Leave this picture for now and move on for a while. A big thing people have when learning is perfectionism and sometimes driving in the deep end first is not a good idea if you don't have a deadline. I often ditch a partial sketch, doodle, lineart, or coloured image half way or in the process somewhere if it gets too hard, and often I'll go back to it a fresh. Move on for a month or two and swat face shapes/ colour or what ever, and go back to the picture knowing for yourself and *understanding* what needs to be done. That's my advice. Keep all your art in a clear folder, revisit it often, and don't be affraid to abandon art you're not ready to draw. You gave it a really good effort, and you should be proud of it- there's no shame in leaving it for a while at all
lol. I have a problem with my brain doing that all the time, even when I'm not doing something creative. I never thought to chalk that up to runaway artistry as opposed to some problem with my brain not functioning right.
"Mistakes can be beautiful."
That is so true. When I make jewelry, I have a rule that I never discard anything. If I don't like it, I just keep working on it until I do like it. I have literally never discarded a piece in progress. And even discarded elements usually get used later in something else. People ask me my techniques, and I am like "Accidents!"
Thank you for another great looking reference on facial expressions. While you are at it, I have a request. I am only just getting into comics. I would love to see a list of your favorites. =D
Thank you again for all of your help and support!