Help me learn how to colour

L.E.O.

I am an aspiring artist with visions of grandness and greatness.

but i suck at colouring... as you can see. i did those in PS using a mouse.

my process is simple, i unlock the image, set it to multiply, make transparent layers, and colour on the transparent ones, until im done painting and think it looks good enough.

here they are...





so any ideas?

yalborap

First, you need to think in a more 3-D way when working with colors and shading. You need a consistent lightsource, and to work from that. Highlights and shadows should be representative of this.

Second is mainly detail-work. Like on that orc-looking fellow in the top of your post. Those big, bulgy veins on him should be colored differently, perhaps with a touch of shading to make them really POP. At the very least, you can help hide if you don't grasp the first one by working hard on the second one.

Hope this helps.

winter_combat_knight

I don't think the colouring is too bad, considering it's done with a mouse. Normally (from what i've been tought) people would use the transparent colour technique you have used, as a 'first' step. but by the end of it, they have completely painted over their original drawing. To do that you really need a tablet.

Loomdun

I strongly recommend studying over proportions of the body + how to create something realisticly with the grayscale (Pencil) rather then... Um this. The more stronger of a understanding you have of how to create form the more... Lesssssssss, Stiff they are.

L.E.O.

yalborap- thanks, thinking in a 3d way is probably one of those small things that make a big difference, ill keep it in mind.

Winter_combat_Knight- if one thing, its that doing this with a mouse is freekin slow.

Loomdun- doing anatomical studies you mean? like drawing the arm and the muscles and so on?

thx everybody.

Nappuccino

L.E.O. wrote: »

yalborap- thanks, thinking in a 3d way is probably one of those small things that make a big difference, ill keep it in mind.

Winter_combat_Knight- if one thing, its that doing this with a mouse is freekin slow.

Loomdun- doing anatomical studies you mean? like drawing the arm and the muscles and so on?

thx everybody.

My apologies for Looomdun, he's well intentioned but isn't the best at expressing himself :P

Pretty much he's saying that you should work on your fundamentals (like anatomy and basic shading techiques) because coloring a broken picture doesn't change how broken it is. Rob Leifeld is a good example of this.

edit: link fixed.

L.E.O.

Nappuccino wrote: »

L.E.O. wrote: »

yalborap- thanks, thinking in a 3d way is probably one of those small things that make a big difference, ill keep it in mind.

Winter_combat_Knight- if one thing, its that doing this with a mouse is freekin slow.

Loomdun- doing anatomical studies you mean? like drawing the arm and the muscles and so on?

thx everybody.

My apologies for Looomdun, he's well intentioned but isn't the best at expressing himself :P

Pretty much he's saying that you should work on your fundamentals (like anatomy and basic shading techiques) because coloring a broken picture doesn't change how broken it is. Rob Leifeld is a good example of this.

edit: link fixed.

lol Rob, what a master. huge tits? check. good looking face? check. spine? who cares!

Nappuccino

Hahaha, yeah. But don't worry. You aren't nearly at Rob's level. That link was just better than any amount of words I could string together

Kochikens

Good luck with your coloUring. Might wanna check out some colour theory while yer at this stuff too, try to work some of it into your stuff.

Loomdun

Nappuccino wrote: »

L.E.O. wrote: »

yalborap- thanks, thinking in a 3d way is probably one of those small things that make a big difference, ill keep it in mind.

Winter_combat_Knight- if one thing, its that doing this with a mouse is freekin slow.

Loomdun- doing anatomical studies you mean? like drawing the arm and the muscles and so on?

thx everybody.

My apologies for Looomdun, he's well intentioned but isn't the best at expressing himself :P

Pretty much he's saying that you should work on your fundamentals (like anatomy and basic shading techiques) because coloring a broken picture doesn't change how broken it is. Rob Leifeld is a good example of this.

edit: link fixed.

Do you have any idea how much rage has been infilled with me just now? OP, if you become like this person I will cut you. In your sleep.

How old is this damn artist? is he going to die soon?

L.E.O.

Loomdun wrote: »

Nappuccino wrote: »

L.E.O. wrote: »

yalborap- thanks, thinking in a 3d way is probably one of those small things that make a big difference, ill keep it in mind.

Winter_combat_Knight- if one thing, its that doing this with a mouse is freekin slow.

Loomdun- doing anatomical studies you mean? like drawing the arm and the muscles and so on?

thx everybody.

My apologies for Looomdun, he's well intentioned but isn't the best at expressing himself :P

Pretty much he's saying that you should work on your fundamentals (like anatomy and basic shading techiques) because coloring a broken picture doesn't change how broken it is. Rob Leifeld is a good example of this.

edit: link fixed.

Do you have any idea how much rage has been infilled with me just now? OP, if you become like this person I will cut you. In your sleep.

How old is this damn artist? is he going to die soon?

Kochikens- ok, cool, see U later. yeah U.

Loomdun- i dont know, but his masterful boobs with no spine will never die.

Nappuccino

Loomdun wrote: »

Do you have any idea how much rage has been infilled with me just now? OP, if you become like this person I will cut you. In your sleep.

How old is this damn artist? is he going to die soon?

I think he's in his late 40's or early 50's...

Loomdun

I am speechless

Nappuccino

To be fair, he started working for his first comic (published) at the age of 18 because his art was "different."

edit: we should prolly stop talking about Rob Leifeld in this lovely chap's thread lol.

edit 2: Chat thread ahoy?

L.E.O.

update---


this was about 2 hours of more work. what say you?

Nappuccino

It's definately an improvement but I can't help but feel that is very muddy seeming. The different shades sort of blur into one overall green thing.... More contrast would probably be your best bet

L.E.O.

damn, ok im gonna contrast the crap out of that thing, its gonna be like a skid mark on white undies.

but not today, i gotta sleep.

Nappuccino

I think another problem might be, that you don't have a real light source. It's hard to tell exactly where the light is coming from and that might be contributing to the murky feeling on his skin (also, don't over to the contrast lol... If you change the picture to greyscale, it should still look nice.

ManonvonSuperock

I would say:

don't just color one area at a time like that. color the whole thing- start with flats then go in dropping in shadows, etc. (when i say the whole thing, i mean everything- background, character, everything.

stop using the airbrush tool. use flat shadows and highlights until you grasp a better understanding of light

also, shadows are not just shades of an object's local color, they often work toward the local color's complement, or have the color from reflected light from a nearby surface in them, etc.

L.E.O.

manonvon- yeah, that sounds good, but i think i should finish this one the way i started it, ill paint everything on the next one... air brush tool trashed.

heres an update, this is really taking forever!

i got a problem with painting metal, this guy has metal on his arms and legs, i cant get it to look like dirty ass rough metal, this is a serious crysis, its putting a monkey wrench on my whole operation. (see red marker.)

NakedZergling

Don't color one area at a time and don't work on white.
The reason you don't want to do these things is that all the colors effect the colors around it.
Its good to lay down basic colors to the whole image and build everything up at the same time.

L.E.O.

yeah, i hear you but im gonna have to be stubborn for this one, cause that is how i started it. ill paint properly on my next one, or is there a way of fixing this one? with out having to start over. im still gonna put a light glow of sunlight(yellow) on all the lighted areas, i think this will bring everything together a bit.

ManonvonSuperock

L.E.O. wrote: »

... or is there a way of fixing this one?.

I don't want to see another progress shot posted until you have a flat tone on every piece of white approximating the overall final color of the area.

L.E.O.

here we go, and holly crap does it look terrible.

somebody save me.

winter_combat_knight

Hey dude, you've done quite well. I think the character looks good, but, yeah the background is a little boring. I honestly think a simple background like this one will look much better. If you don't like it, maybe call it 'finished' and work on something new. Otherwise you may just keep going in circles.

EDIT: ooohh. maybe a badass fire/cave background would look awesome. Orange/yellows etc.

L.E.O.

yeah i think that back ground does look terrible. ill make a more plain version...

L.E.O.

so here it is, this is the final version. ill start on something new soon. thx everybody.

desperaterobots

Isn't standard advice not to try to colour when your background is white?

RubberAC

I liked it better before you made him have neon green veins. Also yeah, try changing your background color to a midtone rather than white.

L.E.O.

RubberAC wrote: »

I liked it better before you made him have neon green veins. Also yeah, try changing your background color to a midtone rather than white.

dont really know what you mean by that. here is a screen of my layers... all other layers after the original lines are set to normal.

nakirush

Yeah... I had written up a long post about value and shading, then my browser crashed so here's the highlights:

-Very little range of value
-Need darker darks and brighter brights
-Colors on the skin are all the same value and need more variation to make it visually pleasing (orange spots, blood veins)
-10 minute paintover:

-Cheers

L.E.O.

thx for the paint over, i see what you mean, mo contrast... gonna bump it up on this next one.

this is what im gonna colour now. any suggestions on how to tackle this or any comments on the sketch welcome.

NibCrom

Draw backgrounds. I know it's tempting to just draw people, but they need their surroundings. Your drawings will suffer in the end if you only work on characters.

The objects your characters are holding look strange. The shovel is bent and the wand/tree doesn't match up.

Are you scanning in color? Black and white? Grayscale? I would suggest scanning in pure black and white. Your scans will be much cleaner.

L.E.O.

haha, its not a shovel, its a piece of concrete that he ripped off the ground.

about the BG, well i dont know, i should prolly work on colour for now, then ill take the next step later.

scanning was done in colour, i didn't pay too much attention to that, will keep it in mind for the future, thx.

anyways, heres this small update, i got the darks and lights in there, all in one go, it looks better than doing everything separately, and its more fun. i basically did the same layering style, original lines are set to multiply, the rest are normal, BG colour is in a separate layer(is that right?), and ill just paint over all this later. sound good?

Shiboe

L.E.O. wrote: »

haha, its not a shovel, its a piece of concrete that he ripped off the ground.

about the BG, well i dont know, i should prolly work on colour for now, then ill take the next step later.

scanning was done in colour, i didn't pay too much attention to that, will keep it in mind for the future, thx.

anyways, heres this small update, i got the darks and lights in there, all in one go, it looks better than doing everything separately, and its more fun. i basically did the same layering style, original lines are set to multiply, the rest are normal, BG colour is in a separate layer(is that right?), and ill just paint over all this later. sound good?

So you know, that you have to tell someone what it is (the shovel concrete thing) should tell you that you didn't do it right. Whatever you're drawing needs to speak for itself. It looks like you're going in the right direction with the new one.

JohnTWM

while I admit that the little shadowy dents in the concrete don't quite work, I did get what it was. Like a no parking sign ripped out of the side walk or something. But this brings to mind another question of what is a medieval style goblin or orc doing with a modern era object as his club? Just kind of a weird continuity issue for me :P

ManonvonSuperock

yeah, i thought it was a shovel.

NibCrom

ManonvonSuperock wrote: »

yeah, i thought it was a shovel.

And a background could have solved this. If we had seen where he had taken the concrete from, it would have been more obvious. Characters need context!

L.E.O.

JohnTWM wrote: »

while I admit that the little shadowy dents in the concrete don't quite work, I did get what it was. Like a no parking sign ripped out of the side walk or something. But this brings to mind another question of what is a medieval style goblin or orc doing with a modern era object as his club? Just kind of a weird continuity issue for me :P

ahaha man, oh man, i am drunk its new years, let me tell you, its a SUPER MUTANT from fallout, yeah happy new years everybody.

JohnTWM

aaah ok, I haven't played any of the fallout games but from what I hear from my friends this explains the issue :P

ManonvonSuperock

man, i've been playing the shit out of fallout and i didn't notice that. but then again, bethesda being good at many things are not known for original character design.

EDIT: I completely take that back after a quick image search shows me that the supermutants look pretty much the same as they did in the original fallout.