Need a coloring advice

[Noorie]

So I'm trying to decide coloring techniques for different kinds of lighting and would really appreciate your advices. I decided to use this picture as a base:

Then I think daylight should look like this:

Sunrise/ sunset:

At night under the street light:

At night under the lamp white light:

What do you think? Maybe someone has a similar set of pictures?

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I really like them, actually. Being true to different lighting colors is challenging, but it's so satisfying when you nail it. Only thing I'd say is your sunset/sunrise colors read more 'sunrise' to me than 'sunset'. This is personal preference for handling it, but I typically push the softer, lower-contrast shadows with more of a pink-purple vibe for sunrise, and emphasize more golden highlights and deeper, blue-purple-r shadows for sunset.

Again, personal preference, and I actually rather like the amount of thought and care you're putting into all of these-- the different colors of light and shadow, and paying attention to where the shadows fall on the planes of the face are excellently done.

[candiedcotton]

The one suggestion I have is to remove any highlights that are in shadow. Highlights are just that; they're areas where light is hitting the most sharply. So if it's night time or an area is in shadow, there shouldn't be any lights reflecting off of that spot.

[Noorie]

Hmm I'm not sure I understand you, are you talking about the night one and that there is a highlight done over the shadow layer?

[IndigoShirtProd]

I think they may be referring to the last one. Though, I wouldn't completely forego having light in shadow, they just shouldn't be as stark as a highlight from the light source unless you're trying to go for a specific effect. Having a light in shadow is called backlight and it occurs when light bounces off an object behind the figure that reflects back onto the figure. Other than backlighting, certain object catch and reflect more light than others like shiny fabric or hair. So with the lamp from below example, it's perfectly plausible for the hair to still be lit even if it's mostly in shadow, though it's likely won't be super stark lighting and you probably would see light on the bang and the front of the hair, but not on the high bun.

And I agree with @Scarlet_Cryptid. Sunrise tends to be more pink, sometimes a little orange and sunset is far more golden, even red at times, with bluer shadows due to the fading light from the sun.

I would recommend not only relying on your shadows/highlights for informing the viewer about the time of day but also using blending layers to bathe scenes in a specific color to really push the idea of the location and time (plus it makes things look more cohesive). I like using hard light set to low opacity, around 30-40%.Here are some examples from my comic pages:

[Noorie]

Thank you for such a detailed answer, I will try to play with hard light and see what I can get

[BitterOath]

In your daylight example, you have highlights in places where there would be shadows. Like along the chin or on either side of the neck. It looks like rim lighting, and suggests there are other light sources at play.

[Noorie]

I thought that because it's a day, light will be too scattered to create rough shadows, but light could change color from the sky. Does it look too wrong?

[BitterOath]

Daylight would actually create dark shadows; look at this picture: here

You would have dark, sharped edged shadows - the sun is a giant light source. But within the shadows, you have something called "bounce light". The closer an object is to the ground (or to an object reflecting light), the more the color of the shadow will be affected by the color of the ground (so sometimes things can have a greenish tinge if it's close to grass).

This video by Marcu Bucci also helps explain what's going on:

But also keep in mind style - you have a sharp, cell-shaded style going on, which means you have to be selective about the details you include. If all you included was the shadows, no bounce light, that alone would be enough and less confusing for the reader.

[Pandastrophic]

My fav part of making my comic is doing the lighting/shading part. I personally don't think the lighting needs to be super realistic, it should be realistic enough for the scene but also as an artist you have much more freedom to exaggerate and manipulate it to fit the scene in your comic, i like using it as a tool to convey the emotions in the story.

I use multiply for shadows and overlay for lighting all with the same base colors, as when I make comics it's a lot harder to hand pick new base colors for each scene so using these layer effects helps a lot, this is an example i made a while ago:

Another example from panels in my comic, if i switch the lighting in these two i feel like the scene wouldn't have the same impact.

I hope what I'm trying to say makes sense, i like writing scenes in my comic with lighting in mind, i think because readers tend to notice bigger more dramatic shading it can be used as a tool to set the mood and tell the story better.

[Noorie]

Thank you for an example, it looks really cool

[system]

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