A simple guide to picking a great color palette. No matter what the colors are, using colors that are certain distances from each other on the color wheel result in a great contrast of colors. The simple color schemes shown above are used in the most popular logos, posters, websites, paintings, and even movies and television.
threw together a quick little narrated video showing the Photoshop layer breakdown for my Valentina piece! It’s actually a pretty simple process when you get down to it 👌🏼
So, you’re planning on drawing characters with certain undertones but you sure don’t want to make some racist yellowface/redface mess. This subject has been touched on a few times, but I figured I’d give my tips to digital artists out there.
Here’s another really quick tutorial from me:
Start with your base colour on a Normal layer.
Open a new layer ontop of it.
On that new layer, use a very pale yellow, orange, pink (or if you want a cool blueish undertone use a slightly purplish light pink) to cover your base skintone with.
Set that new layer to Multiply, and you’re done.
Note: Multiply layers make the colours of the layer underneath it darker, if you’re drawing someone super pale, mess around with an even lighter colour or change the opacity on the layer. Don’t change the layer to Screen or Luminosity, it’ll completely wash out your image.
The undertones in dark skin are a little richer in colour (in fact most yellow undertones in brown skin are more of a golden undertone), so you can make that Multiply colour that’s a darker pastel yellow or red or what have you.
You can also use this trick to show a blush on any skintone as well!
And if you want more references on undertones on real people, beauty blogs man. They’re the way to go:
Hi Ticcy! I know you have a ton of asks, so I'm so sorry to bother you, but I've been an admirer of your art for a long time, and I've learned a lot by studying your drawings! However, I have a hard time coloring. My colors always look so stale, but your coloring is so warm. What's your coloring process like? Any tips you can give me? Thank you so much! You're amazing!<3
Hello! Thank you!! I’m glad you like my works! /)///(\ About the coloring, I use a lot of levels to give it the right atmosphere… Let’s use John for this, who is very happy to give his face for this explanation
Once flats are done, my first step is put a level in Multiply with a pale yellow color, to give it enough basic warmth
The change is vert subtle, it doesn’t have to be SUPER warmth, just a little bit to give some life to the colors. Then I start to work on the shadows, and I hide the flat colors, to see better the volumes. I use different colors for those, usually they are violet/warmer where the light hits, and blue/colder om the opposite side. (mode: Multiply)
I often add a blue level (mode: Normal) with a very low opacity to not make it too saturated, since with multiply it’s super easy to make the color super darker where there isn’t need to.
Then I work with Overlay levels to add some light on the character. Again, less is the opacity, better it is.(of course it depends on the scene… for these basic pinup I prefer to not exaggerated with shadows and lights)
One problem with the overlay light is that often kills the skin color, so I add some pinkish brushes on the face and hands (mode: Multiply) to make some natural “blush”. After this I pass it on Photoshop, and I play with saturation, colors, hue and other stuff to make the general work looking like I want :)
Tutorials coming up! Hair was voted up so here it is. The full package of this tutorial including psd, video process,brush, high res jpg will be avilable through http://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=1234888&rf=371321
Keep showing ur support and Ill keep making tutorials : )
