General "Art Update" Thread

[Lil Brat]

Pretties *pets*  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Felt like shading and this was conveniently already inked with flat colors down for me.

Experimenting with using more contrasting colors for shadows and highlights.  

[lady leko-chan]

Her hair looks amazing.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

I actually felt the hair came out horrible rofl I like the mix of colors, though and the overall mood of the shading.

I tend to favor shading with purples and blues, which ends up giving it a kind of nighttime or melancholy feel.  

[Kairanha]

*steals your coloring scheme* dramallama  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Thief!! THIEEEEEF!!! scream *shakes fist*

Interestingly enough, while for this one {and most pieces I've done} I used cool colors for the shadows and warm colors for the highlights, for Taus I did the opposite emotion_awesome His/her shadows are reds and the highlights are blues and purples. Seemed appropriate, somehow.  

[Kairanha]

It's something I've been trying to transition into. Using colors to shade highlight to make bolder art instead of shadows=black/highlights=white. My sense for which colors to choose really sucks though. xp  

[ThisEmptySoul]

I started out mostly relying on the burn tool for my shadows and dodge for my highlights. I still use them, but these days it's more often to just add contrast to colors I picked myself. The one I just posted, come to think of it now, I didn't use burn or dodge at all.

I had also tried for putting the shading on different layers than the base color, and I just didn't like the "feel" of doing it that way. I've always done my shading directly onto the base colors and I get a much nicer blend when I do it that way. The only exception is hair. Sometimes I'll put very basic shading directly on the hair layer and then make another layer for trying to make it look like strands.

This is something I came across at some point recently that you might find helpful in color picking... or at least understanding what kind of colors you should be looking at.  

[Kairanha]

I think my mind just broke.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

xd I found it pretty easy to understand because it's something I already observed before reading it. It's not often that shadows in real life are truly black or grey.

Perhaps fortunately or unfortunately, once you start seeing it, you can't unsee it. Fortunate because it gives you a better understanding of shading, but unfortunate because you become more aware how lighting and environment changes the color of things around you which can be kind of annoying at times.

The spouse and I got bulbs with a bluish tint to them to make a more pleasant color in the apartment at night, but I've come to notice that the off white color of the walls and the carpet just makes the whole place seem yellow even despite the bluish lights stressed They also give me a headache if the spouse turns them on during the day because the lights themselves are actually yellowish compared to the light coming in from outside, even though they're supposed to be blue.  

[Kairanha]

I had a feeling about a lot of that, but the "why" always seemed to be something I never quite had explained in a way that I understood. But now strange color schemes I looked at and passed of as a "creative freedom" thing, actually makes sense in the context it was colored in.

Not that I don't get it now, but the realization and going over things in my mind is a lot for me to process all at once.  

[lady leko-chan]

*has this sudden urge to smack TES* talk2hand  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Sketch

Not sure when, but I plan on taking the pen tool to the tats, making them custom shapes, then reflecting them onto the other side. *got too lazy to try to draw them by hand on the other side*  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Just for Icy emotion_awesome  

[Icy Reign]

ThisEmptySoul

Just for Icy emotion_awesome

I swear to GAIA I was just thinking about that piece yesterday! xd That is definitely your best full body piece yet! 3nodding I can't wait for the finished product.