Coloring

   Yay! Coloring! I love this part!

   Despite my opinion on the topic, I know that the coloring stage of an art piece can be a make-it-or-break-it process. I think the main reason that people mess up in the coloring stage is because they have a color palette that's all over the place. I recently learned a trick that can help with this.

How to Get Appealing Color Palettes

   This trick can only be used in digital, unfortunately. However, it's possible that you won't even need this trick for traditional art because you already have a limited color selection based on the materials you have.

   Disclaimer: I did not invent this trick myself. I learned it from LavenderTowne on YouTube. You should check out her videos. She's a really good artist :3

  Anyways, let's get on with it! To start, go to your lineart layer and add a new layer right above it. On this layer, grab some sort of paintbrush tool that doesn't have smoothing. Basically just use whatever tool you use to color.

   Then, you are going to decide what you want the underlying color to be for your image. It could be a gray-blue, an earthy green, etc. Choose this color and make a blob of it on your canvas beside the lineart. Do this with the brush at FULL OPACITY.

   Next, turn your brush opacity down to 75%, and go ahead and turn your brush size down too. Now I want you to choose all of the colors you were planning on coloring with and make a dot of them on top of the blob you made. Make sure your brush isn't fully opaque so that you can see the base color underneath. Do this for every color you want to use in your image.

  Now, when you color, all of your colors have a unifying undertone. Cool, right? I thought so lol. Again, all credit to LavenderTowne on YouTube for this idea.

The Easier Way to Color

   I don't like using the fill bucket tool to color my art. I do use it to some extent, but I always color on top of it. Know why? Because of all of the little with pixels that don't get colored in by the fill bucket tool! Does this annoy anyone else??

   If it does, I have a solution for you. And yes, it involves the fill bucket tool.

   I have procreate, so I'll be explaining this in terms of procreate. First, turn your lineart layer to reference. I'm not sure if all art programs can do this, and if not, use the selection tool.

   Then, on a layer below, fill bucket in all of the areas that need to be colored. Make it all one solid color. This won't be in the final product. Next, you'll want to make a new layer above this one and set it as a clipping mask.

  Now you can color on this mask without worrying about coloring outside the lines! Personally, I prefer this greatly compared to the fill bucket tool alone. This method allows you to get so much more detail and less white spaces! As always, feel free to leave and questions, suggestions, or concerns in the comments!

Posted on Monday, March 1