Choosing colour?

[a.k.a.Ciel]

First off, I am terribly terribly sorry if there's already another thread. I didn't even know what to search for to actually find what I was looking for.

As the title says, Choosing colour.

I have a lot of trouble picking colours appropriate to images, simply because I don't know how. I tried downloading a few swatch packs but then feel awfully puzzled as to which ones I need to use.
Experienced artists seem to pretty much know what they're picking right off the bat, whereas I stare at my colour wheel with a bunch of question marks above my head XD.

I have a feeling it had something to do with colour theory, I've tried finding a few explanations but few made sense to me on terms of actually choosing the right colours for any given project.

I especially have this problem with skin tones and things like grass.

Any help with understanding this would be greatly appreciated, and I hope to god I haven't posted this in the wrong place x_x

Oh, and yes, I do mostly mean digital drawing. I use Photoshop and Sai if that helps.

[dpaint]

Well I recommend working from life for awhile so you can get an idea of what you need to learn. Colors in nature change with the time of day or night and the color of the light affects everything. This will give you an idea of how colors behave from there you can follow up with some theory on the why of it. If you actually practice color mixing from observation it will help you learn to mix color and decide on appropriate color choices given thetime of day quality of light etc. Ultimately you are trying to build a library of information in your head to call on and use to help your work achieve a level of believability and beauty.This comes from practicing the things I've mentioned until it is second nature to you; it doesn't matter if it is digital or not if you don't have understanding you can't make successful paintings.

[LAG]

I second what dpaint said above. Looking at your sketchblog, it appears you like drawing Manga which is fine. I would encourage you to work on your anatomy and general drawing skills first though before getting too worried about painting. It even helps with Manga. For reference though:

This is an excellent Color Theory lecture: Color Theory

A good book is James Gurney's: Color & Light

Master copy's also help, but like I said, work on your anatomy and drawing skills.

[a.k.a.Ciel]

I second what dpaint said above. Looking at your sketchblog, it appears you like drawing Manga which is fine. I would encourage you to work on your anatomy and general drawing skills first though before getting too worried about painting. It even helps with Manga. For reference though:

This is an excellent Color Theory lecture: Color Theory

A good book is James Gurney's: Color & Light

Master copy's also help, but like I said, work on your anatomy and drawing skills.

I've only been actually drawing for 7 months I don't expect to know everything. This exact reason is why I've been scared of posting because I was worried about my lack of experience.

The point was that I just didn't know where to start. Probably should have worded it that way to begin with.
~
Thanks for the links though, I'll give it a try. I just wanted to try getting a hold of colouring, since I enjoy painting and wanted to get a few skills with it down alongside learning anatomy. I just simply didn't understand how to pick colours aside from swatching. My previous colour picking endeavors didn't end very well.

I don't want to go entirely with manga, with the jawlines that cut glass and big googly eyes that would be far too large for their head. I guess I'm just doomed to draw like it =(

Well I recommend working from life for awhile so you can get an idea of what you need to learn. Colors in nature change with the time of day or night and the color of the light affects everything. This will give you an idea of how colors behave from there you can follow up with some theory on the why of it. If you actually practice color mixing from observation it will help you learn to mix color and decide on appropriate color choices given thetime of day quality of light etc. Ultimately you are trying to build a library of information in your head to call on and use to help your work achieve a level of believability and beauty.This comes from practicing the things I've mentioned until it is second nature to you; it doesn't matter if it is digital or not if you don't have understanding you can't make successful paintings.

Thanks, that was helpful :3 If anything, I have this problem with say, being fine picking a middle ground colour, but then going for darker shades...it always just tends to look stuck on? I think it's lack of blending though causing that.

My largest problem right now is line colour.
When colouring line art, as a huge example which is my most common. It's the colour red. If I've done my lines in a brown-ish colour, it sticks out horribly like a sore thumb and doesn't blend well with the red.
Should I be mixing up the line colour with each different thing, like a skin matching one for skin areas, and a red matching one for reds etc? Or is there a colour that encompasses all of them?

[Arshes Nei]

Well honestly,

I'd worry about more drawing than color. I'm not saying ditch color at all, but put your primary focus on getting things to look right drawing...You'll end up understanding color little by little through watching some of those videos, taking a nice romp through the Fine Arts forum and getting books.

[a.k.a.Ciel]

Well honestly,

I'd worry about more drawing than color. I'm not saying ditch color at all, but put your primary focus on getting things to look right drawing...You'll end up understanding color little by little through some of those videos, taking a nice romp through the Fine Arts forum and getting books.

Gotcha. Would this also give me a chance at solving my line problem?
I want to go into rendering, but I also want to be able to retain something like this;



The lines are so sketchy and I love that about it. I don't know how to achieve something anywhere like this. I've seen other artists do it and this one, among others have managed to choose the right line colour perfect.
Is the line colour something that can be learned through colour theory or is it a thing of you either have it or you don't?

They always seem to be running with the same line colour throughout and yet there's never issues like the glaring ones that I get =(

[Arshes Nei]

Well, you're 7 months new to this? It honestly takes a lot of drawing and years to build up to getting certain goals. Even when I hit those goals I find I still have a lot more to learn. I've done this for years but the more time you spend on it daily, the better. This is where I lack because I don't work on finding the time to commit to more studies and improving.

As with dpaint, you should draw more from life and observation, and combine that with studies from imagination. It helps because one takes over where the other lacks. You need to fill up your imagination, but if you only draw from observation you're not working on how to focus and construct with your imagination and learning to get those ideas down.

[a.k.a.Ciel]

Well, you're 7 months new to this? It honestly takes a lot of drawing and years to build up to getting certain goals. Even when I hit those goals I find I still have a lot more to learn. I've done this for years but the more time you spend on it daily, the better. This is where I lack because I don't work on finding the time to commit to more studies and improving.

As with dpaint, you should draw more from life and observation, and combine that with studies from imagination. It helps because one takes over where the other lacks. You need to fill up your imagination, but if you only draw from observation you're not working on how to focus and construct with your imagination and learning to get those ideas down.

See, this is why I'm glad I came here.
The last forum that I was on entirely pushed ALWAYS going for observation, like, they never liked when you said "Oh, I went from imagination just to try and get an idea down for a change."
Talk about a nightmare.
I agree with using references so that you can get anatomy and stuff right, but like, not using your imagination always seemed to me like it was going to make things look...well, just like study after study really.
If that makes sense, I'm knackered so my post construction is getting worse as I type this XD.

I'm expecting entirely too much of myself in one go, I think. Being 7 months new, I probably shouldn't be expecting myself to be able to achieve decent results x_x. I expect it of myself, but it just doesn't happen.

I'm striving to be good, the drive is there. I guess now all I need to do is keep going? Practice until I start going and just keep improving?
I figure never being satisfied is a good thing. It helped me become well known in the gaming community because I was never satisfied with how I played and I improved drastically with that attitude. I guess I need to apply this to my drawing too?

[Arshes Nei]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26636

3 draw from life...

dont just draw from your head...you need to put stuff in your head. draw the figure...draw people on the train or at the mall or airport....get a model or do self portraits.

....


spend just as much time working from imagination. if you are out of balance it will be obvious in your works. Those who do work from life a lot will see right through your mistakes unless you understand what you are making. learn to understand what you see...and how to put that down on the paper.


work just on drawing at first...save painting for when you have mastered value.

J

[a.k.a.Ciel]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26636

You just reminded me of something else...
How does one understand values when they have trouble distinguishing between grays? I never noticed it until I started drawing, but I have a lot of trouble seeing. I don't think there's a form of colour blindness for that so I just pawed it off as my monitor being cranky until I tried buying copics.

I was told that with the inability to see grays that I will never be able to paint properly. Is there any way to do values with a colour?

[sone_one]

if you couldnt distinguish different values youd be sort of blind, because everything would be a grey mess to you. i doubt that and rather blame a lack of patience and endurance on your behalf, learning those things.

[a.k.a.Ciel]

if you couldnt distinguish different values youd be sort of blind, because everything would be a grey mess to you. i doubt that and rather blame a lack of patience and endurance on your behalf, learning those things.

It's not grays in their entirety. Like, Looking through the entire gray set of copics, three of them looked the same to me. My other half, who is actually colour blind, could see them. But I found it impossible to distinguish. When I compared it to one considerably darker, I could tell, but then the three lighter shades, I just couldn't tell.

I don't know if that's because the three shades really did have little difference between them or if my eyes don't like me.

Example;
http://www.refuelled.com/images/copi...rey_12_set.jpg

The first four in that set look entirely the same to me =/ No matter which way I turn my monitor.

[Kuroyue]

Just popping up to say that I have that set of copics and have used some of them until they've dried. The differences are definitely there, and I'm grateful for them.

[Arshes Nei]

Well from the photo, I have a hard time distinguishing from them myself.

Dunno how it looks on paper or in person though.

[LAG]

I've only been actually drawing for 7 months I don't expect to know everything. This exact reason is why I've been scared of posting because I was worried about my lack of experience.

The point was that I just didn't know where to start. Probably should have worded it that way to begin with.
~

Not trying to discourage you. We all keep going back to advice about working on your drawing first, because it is really like building a solid foundation for your image. It is better to get your drawing right then paint, rather than trying to fix your drawing mistakes through the painting.

As to value: Create a value scale

This thread is good to start with basics of rendering tone and value: Basics


Here is a good link with some general tutorials: ItchStudios

[JeffX99]

Do yourself a favor...practice, study and develop your fundamentals with traditional media. Digital tools are just not conducive to learning to draw and paint.

[Conniekat8]

I was told that with the inability to see grays that I will never be able to paint properly. Is there any way to do values with a colour?

Get your eyes checked out, tell the doc you suspect you have issues with this, and they have tests for it.

If your vision is not the problem, considering you're a beginner, you'll learn as you go. Part of learning how to do art, other then learning how to draw and paint and 'do' things is also learning how to sit back and observe and really notice finer points of things (everyone goes through that at some point).... relationships, colors, contrasts, shapes, proportions and a number of other things.

I want to go into rendering, but I also want to be able to retain something like this;

Getting to this level takes minimum 2 years of full time work (getting through art fundamentals) and very possible at least 5-6 years of full time work (school, learning, practicing)

It's a lot like pointing at a pro athlete in a pro game, and saying, I want to do this (only having tried the sport a few times). There are no super magic formulas to learn a specific style, rather you want to learn good solid basic skills to start with. They are called Art Fundamentals.

Picking color palletes and image color schemes and various other ways to work with colors is a part of art fundamentals.

[a.k.a.Ciel]

Just popping up to say that I have that set of copics and have used some of them until they've dried. The differences are definitely there, and I'm grateful for them.

I also have that set of copics, and I can't tell the difference between those four. This is what the big fuss is all about because it's frustrating me.
I've wanted to quit literally every week I've been drawing just because I can't see them thinking I will never be able to actually do things right if I can't see values.

Do yourself a favor...practice, study and develop your fundamentals with traditional media. Digital tools are just not conducive to learning to draw and paint.

I've been doing that with pencils and copics. That's where the grey issue kept coming in.
If I work with like, blue pencils or browns, I'm usually better. It's just the grey problem.

I want to do digital drawing, would I have issues transferring back to digital once I develop my traditional skills? Or should it be a lot easier than trying to just develop digital and forgetting traditional?


I don't think my eye condition is the cause. I have Adie Syndrome, but I never thought pupil dilation issues would cause shade problems

Maybe I'm trying to make value scales too close together? =/ The one on the page that LAG posted seems mostly clear, there's only one or two that I can't actually tell the difference of. (Could be my monitor for this one though).

So, There might just be nout wrong with them and a combo of not being able to see the difference between copics and my monitor maybe not being set right making me fly off the handle.

Just a thought but would it be too farfetched for my issue to be that I don't have the knowledge for it so it could be why I'm not seeing it?

I'm just trying to narrow everything down until I find a cause really. I'm not trying to argue, I just want this problem done and gone with.


TLDR; Expecting too much too quickly of myself and believing I'll actually understand how all of this works right away may be a bad idea?

[Trixtar]

Hey don't worry

I suck at too!
-And no, I can't spot much difference in that image either.

What I'd recommend you to do is to grab various pencils and start playing with the tones yourself. Like 3-5H, HB, 2B, 7-9B.
Then you can test how much it takes before you spot any differences. Just shade a huge line using one pencil at a time applying various pressure to it.

Maybe even go to the point of cutting then out in squares and randomly put them next to each other to see contrast effects?

So really, don't stress yet!
Stress is for when you have a huge bunch of various colors and have to translate that into gray-scale

[a.k.a.Ciel]

I believe that may work. Training the eyes or something like that? I had the same issue when trying to render black hair. Had to really squint at the reference to get it. After that though, I started understanding that there were browns and reds that I would never have noticed before. Guess it's just observations and training the eyes.
I wont give up yet XD

[Trixtar]

Now that's the atttitude

If of any comfort, I'll soon upload the worst acrylic painting to have ever been published on CA :p
Main fail? -The colors!

[a.k.a.Ciel]

Now that's the atttitude

If of any comfort, I'll soon upload the worst acrylic painting to have ever been published on CA :p
Main fail? -The colors!

XD, I dunno. Looking at other people's failures never seems to help me feel better because I still feel they did better than I ever could *laughs*
I lack a lot of confidence in myself, since this is, well something new and I've always believed I'm doomed to fail at everything.

It's a pretty tough feeling to overcome so when I started having the colour and grey issues, I definitely felt that horrible pessimism resurface...

[Trixtar]

Believe it or not, but I feel the same way sometimes!
Not as much as I once did...

Well, seems you are fighting it pretty well so no need for a motivational speech here other than: Keep working on it and focus on the improvement!

Now, I finally got this dug up again I thought you may find it useful too:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...=135551&page=1

[a.k.a.Ciel]

Believe it or not, but I feel the same way sometimes!
Not as much as I once did...

Well, seems you are fighting it pretty well so no need for a motivational speech here other than: Keep working on it and focus on the improvement!

Now, I finally got this dug up again I thought you may find it useful too:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...=135551&page=1

That has to be the most RIDICULOUSLY motivational thing that I have ever read...
Seriously. I need that printed on my wall or something XD

[dpaint]

If you are having trouble seeing close values then ignore them for now and focus on strong design. Most good painters only use a scale of three to five value steps for paintings anyway. Unless you want to paint academic still life paintings or cast drawings your vision doesn't need to be refined to that level.
Make a value scale with a full range from black to white with only five steps. Use that for your drawings.

When you learn to shade you should start with just two values and create an abstraction of white and black and then add middle tones between them in the later stages.
These are examples of the approach I'm talking about from Deane Keller's book on drawing, the Draftmans handbook

[Trixtar]

Remember to add a few of your own if you print it

[JeffX99]

Wow...excellent post dpaint. Another book to add to my list.

[JeffX99]

I've been doing that with pencils and copics. That's where the grey issue kept coming in.
If I work with like, blue pencils or browns, I'm usually better. It's just the grey problem.

I want to do digital drawing, would I have issues transferring back to digital once I develop my traditional skills? Or should it be a lot easier than trying to just develop digital and forgetting traditional?

Good. Don't worry about it too much...just do what you can...see what you can...and interpret as you can.

No issues working in digital, once you understand fundamentals through traditional study.

Just a thought but would it be too farfetched for my issue to be that I don't have the knowledge for it so it could be why I'm not seeing it?

TLDR; Expecting too much too quickly of myself and believing I'll actually understand how all of this works right away may be a bad idea?

This is basically all it is. It is hard to see what we don't yet understand or have any awareness of.

Yep. It takes many years to develop as an artist...and in reality, you never really stop.

[a.k.a.Ciel]

Thank you very very much for this guys. I'm truly thankful that I came to this forum. All of the other forums I went to with this either accused me of being lazy or had a bitchfit at me because "everything must be in proportion. No matter what. We don't give a shit if it's stylized."

I'll give all of that another look over in the morning. It's early yet, but I'm flat out knackered from work. Can never concentrate when I'm like this haha.

[sone_one]

I believe that may work. Training the eyes or something like that? I had the same issue when trying to render black hair. Had to really squint at the reference to get it. After that though, I started understanding that there were browns and reds that I would never have noticed before. Guess it's just observations and training the eyes.
I wont give up yet XD

id have my eyes checked if i were you, yet i think that point mentioned above is more relevant.

back in graphic design school/college i couldnt tell if something was 0.5 mm off center from 5m distance, yet my teacher could. her ripping up our presentations if it happened, taught me to too.

your perception needs to be trained aswell...

another example is when i read about the usage of color in the painting from life thread in the traditional subforum... especially what ron lemmen and david darrow had to say. sometimes we (at least me) just start to see and realize things weve been told are there, and suddenly you cant even avoid it.

youre 7 months in... i dropped hobbies ive been into longer. dont make up excuses for not beeing where youd like to be... just work on getting there.