Color Theory Questions / Thoughts.

[Interceptor]

I'm aware that the source of lighing will effect the highlights and shadows on a subject in a picture.. But I was looking at this picture by Matt Dixon, the girl has no normal skintones, she consists entirely of purples and pinks, but it looks so natural. And what's even weirder is that the purple ambience is'nt strong enough to have the same effect on the pumpkin, entirely.

And I was comapring it in my head to a picture of Marko's where there's also a duotone background, but is'nt not having the same effect on this girl.

And a thirs picture by Dan Dos Santos, where the background is slightly effecting the subject.

So one backgrounds dictates the color of the picture entirely, the second background has no direct effect that I can see, and the third is somewhere inbetween All images look fantastic.But I'm having problems trying to figure out when it's proper and when it's not. is it a certain color? A certain mood?

(Ps. Matt Dixon, Marko Djurdjevic, DSIllustration... sorry for not asking permission to use these images prior to making the thread. If you want them takendown or something let me know.)

[Azza]

in the second one, I think you should see the background as a vehicle for contrast and depth, so the figure stands out a lot more comparing to the other two.

[emily g]

I'm a little confused about your description of MDixon's piece.
It sounds like you are saying she's under a purple light and so the pumpkin should look purple, too.
To me, it looks like she actually has purple skin, and the lighting is night-time lighting.
So the amount of purple reflecting back into the underside of the pumpkin looks fine to me.
Plus, the pumpkin is it's own warm lightsource.

In Marko's piece, she is definitely being influenced by the light and the color of her surroundings (just look at the color of the foreground).
It's just that Marko grayed and lightenend everything in the background so it would look more in the distance.
If the monsters were in the foreground with her, they would look just the same as she does.

emily

[Elwell]

Yeah, I'm with emily, Matt's girl definitely has purple skin. It's simply not distracting because the whole color scheme is so pleasing (carefully balanced secondary triad) and the values are dead on.

[Rabid]

The only area of lighting that seems off to me in the jack o lantern piece is the warm lighting strength coming from the pumkin, unless this pumpkin is very thin, light never escapes through the pumpkins skin light tends to beam directly from the cuts only, and she isn't close enough to create a strong warm glow reflection off her body and over the entire facial area...but realism is skewed a bit to help get a better sense of the lighting and contrast it better with the cool purplish colors :D :D

example, notice the tones just outside the light source:

http://www.kpla.com/cms/photos/archives/jack.jpg

P.s. sry for the oversized picture I was rushed an didn't have time to reduce :[ :[

[Interceptor]

Thanks everyone!!!!

[Seedling]

P.s. sry for the oversized picture I was rushed an didn't have time to reduce :[ :[

A quick snapshot of a pumpkin in a dark space with a candle in it won't show what the eye sees. Never use a crappy photo to make color decisions.

[jega74]

Hi interceptor, to understand better you can change a color images to B/W, if you just haven't do!
This metod help you to understand the first and second image!
For the third: Dosantos used a cold and hot color contrast, if you look carefully the image you notice that for protaganost dosantos use a red color palette(hot color)instead for dragon he use a blu color palette(cold color).
HELLO

[jega74]

P.S: for more information abaut theory color ,you can buy this book:
Colors art by Johannes Itten

[HunterKiller_]

I would just like to say that's a very nice pumpkin carving.