Colors, Shading and Lighting
Before you begin this tutorial, I want to make a few things clear. First, I have no art degrees under my belt, so everything I tell you here is from experience or bits and pieces I've learned through self study. The most art training I've had is a month at the Maryland Institute of the Arts which I won a grant for in the Crayola Art Makers contest when I was 6 years old. I learned how to draw and shade an apple in graphite and got to work in clay ( which I can only remember in bits and pieces now, 20 years later ). That and the art classes I had through elementary and middle school never taught color theory that I can remember. I am not an authority on color use, I am not even an educated instructor for that matter. A member requested a tutorial on colors, so I am giving you what I have to offer. Hopefully it will make sense. I generally don't have to put this much thought into my drawings. Maybe it's something I was born with, an eye for what works and what doesn't, most likely it's just a matter of trial and error, just like it will be for most of you. As a kid I was the worste "colorer" in my class, always. The grant I won was for a collage I made out of construction paper representing the book "Where the Wild Things Are" Apparently I was really good with scissors glue and maybe compositon ^_~
I've been playing with colors for about six years ( since my first PC ) and I still make a muddy mess at times. Experience has given me a palette for my inspiration to dip her paintbrush into. As long as you are open to experimenting, trying new things, taking risks and can forgive yourself when your risks turn out to be mistakes ( and learn from them! ) you will get the hang of colors too. It will be like second nature, you will find your own style and either stick to it or evolve it. So no matter how difficult or complex all this hub bub below seems, take what you can from it, keep at it and trust your taste :)
These are the three primary colors that are the foundation of all other colors. White and black are not colors. They are light levels. White is pure light and black is the absence of light. White added to any color makes the color "lighter" Black added to any color makes the color darker. Pure black is never actually present in colors since colors are just variations on how our eyes view light. This is why realistic artists will tell you never to use black. This doesn't really apply to cartoon style artwork and of course, we create artwork to express ourselves, so if your spirit is filled with black, or in a black mood, then go wild with black ^_~
By blending the primary colors together you get the secondary colors, orange, green and purple.
Adding more or less of the primary colors creates variations of these secondary colors
For example, the color "teal" is a shade of green where blue is mixed into yellow to make green, then more blue is added until the green is almost turned into blue.. Another example, the color "magenta" is red mixed into blue to make purple with more red added until the purple is almost red again, then adding a tiny bit of white.
Blending the secondary colors together create the nuetral colors: brown and grey. Adding white to the brown or grey will make it lighter, adding black to brown or grey will make it darker.
Colors, both primary and secondary, are seperated into warm tones and cool tones.
When creating your pieces pixels or otherwise, it's good to keep in mind what the colors represent..
Warm colors = energy, physicality. Warm colors = Summer.
Cool colors = stillness, thought. Cool colors = Winter.
Warm colors are fiery and energetic, passionate and bold. Hot like the sun, warm like the sand on golden beaches, constantly pounding like the beat of a living heart.
Cool colors are peaceful and timid, spiritual and quiet. Cold like snow reflecting winter skies, steadily flowing like the river into the ocean, quiet like morning glories, smooth like ice.
And of course, civilization has built it's own color associations into all of us.
Red and green for Christmas. Perhaps, we are symbolically bringing memory of the warm summer ( red ) and the promise of spring ( green ) into our winter celebrations?
Orange, purple and black for Halloween. Halloween falls in the season of Autumn, a "secondary" season. The season that is the blend of summer and winter. No wonder orange (warm) and purple (cool ) ( two secondary colors ) are the colors for this season.
All shades of pastel are used for the holiday Easter. Adding white ( light ) to the colors symbolizes our ascent from the cold dark winter, into the bright light of summer.
So you can see in just the holidays, the tone and lightness of colors can be very important in giving meaning to whatever you are making. Humans naturally associate color with memories and emotions, so pay attention to how particular colors make you feel when deciding which to use. A drawing portraying joy ( an energetic emotion ) would make good use of warm colors. A drawing portraying sadness ( sadness NOT rage - rage and anger are energetic colors ) would make good use of cool colors. Using both warm and cool colors in a picture can portray a myriad of emotions, thereby expressing however complex a message you are trying to create.
In the below image, you see how I tend to use color symbolically. I will try to explain how and what the message I was wanting to portray is expressed with color.
Her clothing was designed in various shades of purple and red. Purple and red have long been associated with royalty and nobility. Red is warm, like blood, and I am sure you all know of the "royal blood lines" as well as the wars ( energy, blood ) often waged in order to put this or that one into power. Purple is cool, spiritual, and in fact the queens and kings ruled their lands much like gods ( spiritual, etheral, still ) deciding who lived and died and when their nations would go to war ( red again ). Purple could also represent the steadiness of royalty, their blood descending ( like rivers ) from the first ancestor to take the throne ( the ocean ). Her wings never did feel right to me, but I was in such a mood for Halloween that I used the black regardless.. I suppose that would represent the darkness of her title - "The Dark Queen". The gold trim of her attire is symbolic of her active nature. She is not a Queen who sits on her throne passing out orders for her people to act out. As you can see, she walks WITH her warriors.. She is active ( gold - warm ) rather than sedentary ( silver - a lighter nuetral ) This is also represented in the redder shade of purple that I elected to use for her dress, the red in the purple making it warmer.
Her warrior, Trog, is dressed largely in nuetrals. Had he been dressed in warm colors, his presence would've overpowered hers and I wanted her to be the dominant figure. Had he been dressed in cool colors, he would have looked as if he were foreign to her (contrasting, opposing ) a warrior for another army, and then she would look like a traitor to her own people. Also, using predominantly nuetral colors for him shows his lesser standing in the heirarchy of their existence. She is the queen, he is but her servant, her warrior. He is of the earth ( yellow-green, therefore warm, ) however his silver armor ( versus a darker nuetral, like grey ) represents his elevated spiritual status. He is the Dark FAERY Queens warrior, not a mere mortals subservient.
Other things, like the sun ( warm - summer ) setting ( descending out of view ) with the blue- purple ( cool - winter ) sky taking its place, is symbolic of summer giving way to winter, i.e. being able to view both represents the season Autumn. The warm tree still holds onto Summer with its bold blossoms, the blossoms ( again ) a reminder of summer and a promise of spring. The warm colors also keep the image itself "energetic and happy" ^_^
The little dark faery was a last touch I added. She was created to promote the dominance of the Dark Queen ( small vs large, dark theme to match dark theme, thereby uniting and seperating all at once )
Did you see these things when you first viewed that image? What feelings did it inspire in you? Probably alot of the same things, with a few variations as our life experiences add and take away color significance.
*takes a breath* We are going to go into contrasting, lightness and saturation now..
Contrast is the difference between one shade and another ( usually the difference in brightness ) , or one color and another.
Too much contrast can make an image garish, offensive to the eye, while less contrast will make colors blend together or get "muddy"
The outlines of your cartoony creations are generally medium-high contrasting to your fill colors. Whereas your shadows should be slightly less contrasting to your outline and your lights should be slightly more contrasting to your outline.
Lightness is the amount of light or "white" in your colors. Applying too much light to your color will make your color look as if it is in direct, bright sunlight, whereas adding too much dark or black to your colors will make them look like they are heavily shadowed.
Light can mean the difference between cute and sunny or mute and moody. Just look at the "cute" sites. Their layouts are often pastel. Looking at "sophisticated" sites, you will see they often use dark colors to portray stillness, thoughtfulness. Every so often you will come across a really eye catching layout that mixes the two in a good way. These are easier to achieve with bold colors, which can be created through saturation, our next part.
Saturation is the difference between nearly nuetrals and colors. If you lower the saturation of a color enough, it will become grey. High saturation often leads to colors usually found in those hideous contrasts mentioned before. High saturation = bold, low saturation = muted.
One of my favorite colors is a nearly nuetral purple like below.
bold blue-purple - lightened - desaturated..
I will sometimes use it as an understatement, like a nuetral.
Brightness is a lot like saturation and lightness tossed into one. I played around with the brightness/contrast filter in photoshop. ( Just the brightness adjuster ^_~ ) to make the following example.
Brightness will add light to the color without taking away the saturation levels. This way you have bold, bright colors, instead of bold basic colors or muted light colors. It can also do the opposite obviously ^_~ I can't really tell you how brightness is achieved in paints as I have minimal experience with paint ( four kids and toxic products just dont mix! )
So to summarize:
high contrast can be hurtful to the eyes.
low contrast can blend too much.
low saturation = muted colors
high saturation = bold colors
bold colors = energetic, loud
muted colors = sedentary, quiet
warm colors = fiery, energetic
nuetral colors = brown, grey
brown = a warmer nuetral
grey = a cooler nuetral
cool colors = peaceful, calm
light colors = cute, happy, sunny, cheery
dark colors = mature, serious, moody
Let's try shading a rose..
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