Struggling with color (CC please)

[rob_curbishley]

Hey guys,


Working on a new illustration. I generally find myself not doing full on environments in my paintings so I wanted to tackle that. I work from greyscale to color and it is causing me all kinds of annoyances trying to paint over. I am not finished, of course, but find myself questioning a lot of my decisions. I try to keep color theory in my mind when making decisions but I am just not feeling strongly about this yet.

I was hoping to obtain some CC, feedback or advice.

Thanks!

[Black Spot]

Other than him being a bit short, his arms are also on the short end. The first thing that I notice is the blue on the creature's head. Is that the focal point? The lighting for him is on the side, but more frontal with the creature. You have nice distance on the background.

[Venger]

I'm not sure you got your tonally ranges right before you started painting?
Define your focus more.
Bring out the forms some more as well, both the lizard and the hero are reading a little flat.
I'm not sure what the story is? is it a scary swamp or a mellow rainforest? remember you can help carry the theme with your colour choices (at the moment, to me, its somewhere in between)
Use more ref as well - water in those conditions is unlikely to be blue, reflected trunks, the green of the canopy will affect the colour.
Quick tonal for you to bring out your focus - which I'm assuming is the hero (who needs work anatomy wise)

EDIT (D'oh! got your light direction wrong - ah well)

[Pavel Sokov]

Venger, you are such an animal when it comes to overpaints. I love learning from them, even if they are on someone elses paintings

[rob_curbishley]

Thanks a lot for the overpaint! I did have a tonal version but yours is loads better. I guess it's back to the beginning to fix it. Any suggestions for applying colors?

[Hexokinase]

Thanks a lot for the overpaint! I did have a tonal version but yours is loads better. I guess it's back to the beginning to fix it. Any suggestions for applying colors?

I personally tend to struggle with adding color onto grayscale images, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Firstly, you'll use MANY color adjustment layers - some on overlay, some on multiply, and the rest can vary. The trick is experimenting a lot with different layer modes, different colored brushstrokes, and different layer opacities. I try to incorporate gradients as much as possible in various (but logical) directions to get some variation in there. Different low opacity layers set on overlay or soft light with selective painting can also bring in some fresh variation. Most importantly though, is that in the end, you'll have to paint opaquely on top of all these layers. It's a lot of work overall, but you can get some strong results if done correctly. Let your values dictate what hues and saturations to use for each bit of the painting.

[Venger]

Don't paint over a greyscale - change it to a base tone (depending on your picture)
You'll still struggle with the cool feeling though (or I know I do)
The thing is to try not to detail everything in greyscale as you'll probably end up painting on top of it on a separate layer.
I've never conquered colouring greyscale well...