Coloring technique?

[InsertFunnyUserName]

I've been trying to improve my coloring techniques for quite some time, but the problem is proving to be rather stubborn. Every time I go to color something, it either turns out having too much contrast and looking... I guess like plastic like this and the picture below or it turns out feeling flat, dull and still somehow resembling plastic like this. The last example is the best out of the three, but I'm still not entirely happy with it and, judging by the score, neither is the rest of the art portal.

So, how do I color these things to make them look more lifelike? I've been experimenting with different levels of contrast and different variations of colors and I don't feel like I've made a lot of progress. Any suggestions?

[InsertFunnyUserName]

No one has any thoughts at all? Come on, someone has to have something to say.

Here's some practice that I did today. I tried putting my brush at around 60-70% opacity this time, though I'm not sure how much it helped. I think the one on the top right is the best out of the three.

[Luwano]

Well I am not an expert with colours, but to me it looks like your colour choice is responsible for the "plastic" look in some parts of your drawings rather than the colouring technique. I don't think it's that bad anyways, but the reason you are not satisfied may be that some colours are too saturated (e.g. the blue hair on the pic you posted on your newspost) while some are too pale (e.g. the skin).

Also your lines, or the edges of your colour "areas" are pretty wobbly. Cleaning this up could help get a less "plastic" look.

[InsertFunnyUserName]

At 6/26/11 02:39 PM, Luwano wrote: Well I am not an expert with colours, but to me it looks like your colour choice is responsible for the "plastic" look in some parts of your drawings rather than the colouring technique. I don't think it's that bad anyways, but the reason you are not satisfied may be that some colours are too saturated (e.g. the blue hair on the pic you posted on your newspost) while some are too pale (e.g. the skin).

Also your lines, or the edges of your colour "areas" are pretty wobbly. Cleaning this up could help get a less "plastic" look.

Hm, good point.

Does this seem better for skin? Another practice. Is there enough contrast between the shadows in and highlights? Or too much?

[Vonschlippe]

First off, I believe you have to work on anatomy, because that does remove a lot to the quality of the piece. Even before you start looking at color theory, your drawings would improve a lot if you used some reference, both for the proportions and poses.

When it comes to rendering skin, a lot of people find it hard to move away from a weakly saturated beige and some nondescript brown for the shadows. Skin requires a lot of varied tones in order to appear correct; there should be some red in the shadows, but also pale (blue?) highlights. Don't be afraid to use some blue, green, and other colors that can make the skin come to life. The neck you featured in your post used only two colors! Feel free to practice adding more hues to your rendition of skin.

I find it is easier to paint skin at first under white lighting, and then do some color adjustments using overlays in order to fit the color scheme and mood of the rest of the picture. This allows me to focus only on contrast at first, and then leaves me some creative freedom to edit the colors I've painted. I've included an example of what I mean by "white lighting". The final picture had blue hues, but I painted the neck as if the light was white, making the skin beige and brown (like your own).

One final trick when it comes to actually painting the skin; you'll need to add irregularities to the skin if you don't want it to look like plastic. You can make your own custom brushes (as I have) in order to suggest skin grain, but you can also play arround with filters (such as an overlayed gaussian monochromatic noise layer) in order to achieve a different effect.

I hope this helps!

[InsertFunnyUserName]

At 6/26/11 10:09 PM, Vonschlippe wrote: First off, I believe you have to work on anatomy

Yeah, I probably should use references more than 25% of the time.

When it comes to rendering skin, a lot of people find it hard to move away from a weakly saturated beige and some nondescript brown for the shadows.

I'm always weary of going too far and making the character look like either a zombie or a rainbow, but I know what you mean. I see that a lot in other people's drawings, but I've been struggling to figure out how to make my characters look like such without having the blues and greens overpower the browns.

I find it is easier to paint skin at first under white lighting, and then do some color adjustments using overlays in order to fit the color scheme and mood of the rest of the picture.

Good idea. I hadn't thought of that.

Any tips about how to add ambient light without having it seem too abrupt or without having to rainbow into it?

One final trick when it comes to actually painting the skin; you'll need to add irregularities to the skin if you don't want it to look like plastic.

Ah, that makes sense.

I hope this helps!

Definitely. :]

[MajesticBob]

I have never been good at coloring, Your stuff looks better than what I can come up with.