I have zero understanding of how to actually use color. Everything always turns out like the right. I can get away with grayscale but my style has drifted towards a cartoony/pin-up look and greyscale is ruining everything I make. Why does everything I try adding color too turn into complete garbage and how can I learn to do this?It literally looks better to just leave shit grayscale in the end and it's killing me
Whatever you're doing to add color is changing the values of the greyscale image. You're flattening out the image and using incredibly desaturated and bright colors, maybe not on purpose and is the result of a blend mode. I do like your watercolor/marker look. Maybe try only adding colors to where the shadows would be.
read color & light by james gurneythen do a gazillion value and color studies
>>7144425Thank you for the visual and I can see how using saturated colors can help. My main problem I think is not knowing what colors to use. A lot of americana/pin-up artists I follow like Gil Elvgren/Romain Hugault seem to use everything from dark brown to extremely bright pink for white skin tones, and I have no reference for how they choose these colors.
>>7144384soulful style. dont lose it
>>7144384>I have zero understanding of how to actually use colorHave a great control over value is step 1. Then do many color studies.I'm currently going through this myself, and after dozens of color studies I'm starting to understand how to teach it, but I've sweat so much to get there, I'm reluctant to spell it out.Color studies is a tedious road, but it'll work eventually.
Forget about colors and focus on values - almost all of the problems you'll encounter with colors are actually abut values
>>7144537While values are critical, once you have them set up, colors then play a consequent role to communicate different emotions and moods
>>7144544Yes but it's not as important. Your art can look tasteless or convey the wrong emotions if you put the wrong colors. This is easy to change. However if your values are wrong, your art will just look bad. With or without colors.
>>7144384Learning about your warms and cools is a good place to start. Using only burnt sienna and ultramarine blue (and mixes of the two) is a great way to better understand color, if you get those and the values correct then you'll have a better chance at succeeding when you start to branch off into a wider palette. A common mistake many beginners will make is trying to use way too many colors at once. Also you need to be unafraid of pushing your values more.https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=0efhbRGgubs&ab_channel=EverettsWatercolorshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgAvJ0X2nT8&ab_channel=JamesGurney
>>7144384>Learning color from zeroI've been dedicating 2024 to answering that exact question, email me if you wanna discuss in more detail but what has helped me the most was realzing what the difference was between my perception of the 'correct' color in hindsight (after putting it down) and my inability to perceive the 'correct' color in foresight (before applying a single color).Trick seems to be related to food, and maybe pussies,idk.
