Digital Painting.

[Archerion]

I have a question. I noticed on here that alot of ppl paint there picture and black and white. Then next thing its in color?

I noticed all the shadows are the same and the highlights are exact but in color? What is the purpose and how do you get the color.

I am guessing that changing it to color mode then getting base color.


Please clarify.

[badass]

In photoshop, you press Apple+U (for macs) and open a window that allows you to alter the saturation, hue and brightness (if i remember correctly), and in that window you can select a box that changes it from grayscale to color.

[Kiera]

mhm, does this tutorial answer the question? (http://haikera-baiketsu.deviantart.com/art/Greyscale-Colouring-Video-Tut-114086641)

[Archerion]

Thanks Kiera that's the perfect answer to what i was asking.

[Viridis]

My question is, why is this a preferable method to simply painting directly with the colors? I see a lot of people do this method, which reads to me a lot like doing an underpainting in oils.

But I also think it contributes a lot to the biggest issue I see in digitally painted work-- where everything looks rather flat, because the shadows are just grey/black, or darker versions of the main color, (and highlights are white) instead of mixing in blues/purples and other colors the way color theory says you should for normal paintings.

So why do so many people do this and not just paint with the colors right out?

[Black Spot]

My question is, why is this a preferable method to simply painting directly with the colors? I see a lot of people do this method, which reads to me a lot like doing an underpainting in oils.

But I also think it contributes a lot to the biggest issue I see in digitally painted work-- where everything looks rather flat, because the shadows are just grey/black, or darker versions of the main color, (and highlights are white) instead of mixing in blues/purples and other colors the way color theory says you should for normal paintings.

So why do so many people do this and not just paint with the colors right out?

If you look in the Critique section, you'll find that black and white is well known for deadening a picture and people are told so in no uncertain terms.

[Aaron Death]

Yeah I agree. If I use black and white before color, both my color and my value suck after I color it, it's strange. I find it impossible to make a colored painting in that way.

Linda Bergkvist strongly advises people not to do that, and I follow her advice.

[XanaChama]

I wondered the same thing, but I tend to use the value painting as a guide. I'm still learning color theory, so it's a challenge for me. If I just slap a color layer on top of it and paint away, I've learned nothing new. But I'm sure it has some uses as an under painting.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

I create a top layer filled solid white and set to "Hue" that can be turned on and off to check my values. (When I remember to do so anyway XD)

If anyone can think of a specific disadvantage to doing this however, please let me know.

[Jason Rainville]

My question is, why is this a preferable method to simply painting directly with the colors? I see a lot of people do this method, which reads to me a lot like doing an underpainting in oils.

But I also think it contributes a lot to the biggest issue I see in digitally painted work-- where everything looks rather flat, because the shadows are just grey/black, or darker versions of the main color, (and highlights are white) instead of mixing in blues/purples and other colors the way color theory says you should for normal paintings.


Colours are complicated, and often times when we see a contrast in a painting, it's a contrast of colour or saturation. The actual value of the colour may not be changing. This may lead to rather boring vlaues. The values are worked out first so that it's made sure they're right without complicating things with colour just yet.

As to the second part of your question - like black spot said, people are told often enough to vary the hue/saturation for certain areas. Plus, I don't think a whole lot of people do the values completely, rendering to finish, then setting an overlay layer on top and following exactly. That would be the hugest pain to have to try to match up your colouring to the values EXACTLY the first time around. Rather it's used as general values, then a general colour layer. From there things get flattened (or a new layer is created) and colour is directly painted on top to finish the image. after that other overlay or multiply layers can be added to change the colour of certain areas without affecting the drawing. Otherwise, we'd have to paint on 2 layers each time we wanted to render something out.

[Black Spot]

A dark brown overlaid with a deep purple/red/green makes a great dark. Likewise a very pale yellow/blue/pink works fine. It all depends if you want cool or warm values, and what the base is, objects around etc. The only time I use black is if an object is black, but then overlay it additional tones of the area surrounding it. You don’t want the under painting to fight with the colours on top, which is why it’s good to lay it down in brown or blue; this goes for traditional as well as digital. I’m still a noob at digital painting, but I use the same principals.

[Viridis]

I see. I guess from what I had seen (especially in WIP's in the CHOW threads) I thought a lot of people did the underpainting in black and white and then overlaid the colors directly on top of those.

It seems this is a technique people are kind of taking from oils (where I know you're supposed to do an underpainting first) and maybe that's why I was a little confused. I'm not a fan of oils at all, and work mostly in watercolor or colored pencil, both mediums where it's not really as necessary to do an underpainting-- I just put the colors down directly. Even if I occasionally block shadows in lightly first, (in watercolor) they're usually a very very light blue or purple, and not a full value structure.