Choosing colors (swatches)

[Kirotsu]

Well, hello to everyone, I'm having some problems with my color palette, no, nothing about the software, I'm having problems choosing colors.

Let's see... I'm an amateur artist, first I tried a manga style, but now I've been working in the coloring area (objective: matte painting). So, to understand some techniques, I downloaded some brushes and a color palette. Everything alright until I formatted my disk and I forgot to backup those brushes and swatches, so naturally, I wanted to kill myself (Both brushes and swatches were found by chance, I don't remember who made them).

Anyway, my main problem are the swatches, I would like to make my own selection, but I can't choose correctly the colors, sometimes they're too saturated, unnatural, or gray.

Anyone can tell me how should I choose colors? Any tips about what kind of picture should I use? How much saturation should be between a color and another?


*I hope this is the right topic... I'm really sorry if I posted in the wrong one...*

[Metsys]

I'd get a good book on color theory. "Color by Betty Edwards: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors" is a good one.

If you are having trouble recreating a color that you see, some good practice is to do realistic paintings using color photos as reference to try to match the colors perfectly—you can test yourself by using the eye dropper too, but don't use it to cheat. Use good professional photos that have great colors. Also, do a bunch of master copies of art that you like, and then test yourself the same way. You'll want to learn all you can about color theory first so that you can understand why those artists used the colors they did. It'll be harder to learn from replicating their work if you don't have that theory down.

Oh, one more thing. When I paint I work with raw colors. (Here's the swatch that I use: http://glenmoyes.blogspot.com/2008/10/color-wheel-photoshop-swatches.html. I don't think about saturation that much when choosing colors for my brush; if there's an intense color that I need to knock down I'll get either slowly work in the raw compliment color (using a low opacity brush), or I might use the desaturate tool if I'm lazy and there's no indication that I used it in the final image. If I have a color on my canvas that's wrong, and I want to add more green, I just pick raw green (or rather the right hue of green), set the opacity of my brush really low and work it in until it's right. Color is so perceptual that I don't even bother trying to pick the exactly color for my brush, just the color it needs and slowly work it in. I'm basically mixing colors on my canvas. This is why I like working with digital media; with real paints you need to mix the right color on your palette before it goes on your canvas, but because I've had my formal training in paints first and learned that color mixing accuracy before I went to digital (which I recommend everyone to do), I can work even faster painting digitally. I'll also eye drop my canvas to choose colors, which helps the colors on the canvas already be harmonized. Using the value study as my underpainting helps me add color on top of it and still retain the values from my value study. Almost all of the amateur paintings that I see with clashing colors really just having clashing values.

If the colors I'm using seem to be communicating the wrong mood, I'll just use the same color adjustment tricks that I use for photography on my painting. That way I can still keep my color harmony, values, and brush quality while changing the mood of my piece.

Hope that helps.

[Kirotsu]

Thanks a lot for your reply!

I searched around the web for that book, and I think that I would be able to get it one of these days.

Yeah, I think that the best I can do is to train myself to understand color mix, my main problem is that I tried more digital painting than traditional, but after some practise, I'm sure that both will get better.

Thanks a lot for your tips ^^