Work from B&W tones to colour?

[Hidd3NNiN]

I've recently been practising digital painting and trying out different things. I traditionally used to do do digital painting through line art then painting on the colours however I'm usually kinda lazy/impatient to finish the lineart before starting on painting. Not to mention I also just can't seem to figure out how people get rid of some lines after painting while still retaining others coz my lines always seems to look thick against the coloured form.

Anyway, I've tried painting from black forms and painting in the image through tonal values alone (No lineart involved, just sketches at most) and then adding colour through overlay layers and I've found myself most comfortable with it. However, I also found its limitations like lack in variation of colour and sometimes the colour just looks weird even after colour balancing and stuff.

My question is is trying to paint like this a 'viable' method? And if so, does anyone know how I can solve the problems I listed above?

[tomwaits4noman]

what I would advise is if your using photoshop

first pick your light source this will affect tones then get reference images with similar light sources study the shading

start your image with a sketch making sure anatomy and perspective are correct then start with a black paint colour the opacity at 20 % or so and build up the shade of the character using the eraser tool at low opacity if you need to make the black lighter

once you have a basic form fleshed out right click on the layer palette go to blending options colour over lay and pick a flesh colour.