Color Tutorials

My current lust in the drawing world is color. I'm reading everything I can get my hands on about color, color theory, and how to compose a scene with color. My colors are good, but they're really not great. I could do better, and I want to do better.

Most of the stuff I read is either below my skill level or above, but I read it anyway. (You never know what you'll learn from even the simple stuff!) So, you can imagine my delight when I find a tutorial on the exact things I needed to hear and learn to make the next big step!

Well, really, a series of tutorials, but nevertheless. Tony Cliff did a few posts about things he learned over the course of his graphic novel Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant and his submission to Flight 8. And they are wonderful.

1. Everything I Learned About Color Over 6 Months and 150 Pages: Part 1
   Topics: Thinking about value in the planning stages, the importance of value to determine silhouette (and its importance in general!), and how the color picker is lying to you.
2. Everything I Learned About Color Over 6 Months and 150 Pages: Part 2
   Topics: Texture, manipulating Photoshop brushes, and artistic confidence.
3. The Black Fountain: New Techniques, Part 1
   Topics:  Process, primarily. Thumbnails, sketching, flatting. But download that "look good" button. Great plug-in.
4. The Black Fountain: New Techniques, Part 2
   Topics: More process, manipulating Photoshop brushes for digital inking, Gurney's "gamut mapping" technique for color (holy crap), manipulating hue/saturation/brightness, double importance on value, color for a deadline.
5. The Black Fountain: New Techniques, Part 3
   Topics: Refining his experiences with the new techniques, explaining how they helped and what he'd do differently next time, and summing up the whole shebang.

If you're looking for a nice take on color, take a look at those links. Another one I've used that's a more basic primer on color is How I See Color - A Tutorial by *purplekecleon on deviantArt. It's a great little flash with lots of good examples. It also reinforces the idea that VALUE is most important, moreso than hue.

Speaking of, one of the things we learned in graphic design is 1) always design your stuff in black and white or grayscale before assigning color, and 2) once you've done color, print it in black and white to make sure the values contrast enough. If they don't contrast enough, you're doin' it wrong. Probably. (Unless bad design was your intention?)

And for a list of other tutorials I've got saved in my favorites...

1. F*cking Gradients: How Do They Work
   A nice little tutorial about integrating gradients into your color process. It's a little reminder on light and light sources, and how to keep shape in mind as you're working.
2. Understanding Your Style, Part 1 & Part 2
   This is a phenomenal tutorial just talking about how we integrate what we see and learn from into how we draw. It talks about inspirations, how to draw from life instead of cartoon, and similar things. But it doesn't say that it's bad, necessarily, either. It's very informative and a good read.
   I actually think about this tutorial a lot, since I learned to draw primarily from anime and my favorite cartoons as a kid. Picking up on where you get particular "symbols" can be very hard until you start training yourself to notice.
3. Coloring Walkthrough
   This is a tutorial for `alexds1's process for coloring The Meek. It involves research, synthesizing, utilizing Google SketchUp, and of course, color. Beautiful work, as always.
4. Horse Tutorial
   This is a hilariously written but still extremely useful tutorial on drawing horses. Horses are hard to draw, man! 
5. Collected Thoughts on Brushes
   A very nice overview of the options for photoshop brushes, and how they can be changed to make different effects. Check out toerning's paintings. Sooooo pretty! 

Comments

[AF Matamoros]

That is funny as hell; "F*cking gradients. Thanks for the cool tutorial posts. I like the blog, the website. Best of luck to you!