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AbelDraws
Nov '19

So, I really, really want to experiment a bit more with coloring in my art in general, especially in my comic. I want to stop just seeing a tree and coloring it green and brown, I want to play around more with colors and set the mood better.

Because of that I decided I wanted to try pushing the coloring in my comic so the page's main colors reflected the mood and all that.

In the first pages I've been making a point to draw colorful, bright pages, with lots of green (it's mc's fave color as well so that's a plus lmao). An example:

image.png720x1018 663 KB

They're not all as colorful but you get the idea.

Now, things are going south and that's when I wanted to get more experimental with coloring. Having more yellowish colors when mc's is in danger or scared, bluer hues for when he's sad as frick and all that. I did this on the last page and, since there were almost no actual bg, they were just blocks of colors, it worked nice enough

image.png720x1018 635 KB

But now I'm working on the next page and.... It didn't work quite well? I think I just went too far lmao. A friend told me it looks as if the characters were in a enchanted forest and another told me it looked like it was autum because of the leave's colors, so I really should fix this x'D

image.png900x1273 603 KB

Do take into account the page is not finished. I still need to color some stuff in the bg of the last panel, add clouds, adjust colors, delete some lines, add details, shadows, etc.

Should I just leave the trees and everything be its natural color? How can I keep the color palette and not have it look weird?

I'd really appreciate some input (and good examples for this if you can think of any), I really want to make this right but I'm still very very green x'D

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    Nov '19

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    Nov '19
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fleohr
Nov '19

You are doing pretty great so far!
Besides the mood, I'd change the palette if it's night, so the bright green would look dark blue or purple

There is a horror comic I read which changes a lot the coloring to give more horror vibes:

(it's in chinese, but this episode shows bright colors as everything is fine and then it's all dark showing how scared is the main character)

AbelDraws
Nov '19

I just checked some chapters of the comic and it has some very nice visuals <3 it's not exactly what I envisioned in my head but it does have some things I want to learn from :smiley:

Also the thing is, it's supposed to be daytime in that scene so that can't rule can't be applied here c': I'll save that for another ocassion tho. I'll def have to tone it down a lot with the color change tho lmao I went too far, I realise more the more I look at it x'D but hey, gotta experiment. I need to find the perfect balance between pushing the colors so they fit the mood and... Well, the color makins sense and not confusing the readers agshkjlgjñsag

Thanks a lot for the help!

antimekii
Nov '19

The colors looks real good and I believe what you're looking for is palette consistency?

Try placing your flat colors in one layer then clip it towards your desired color. (I usually start with picking grays for this then move towards colors for my desired mood. Purple for night time. Orange for day time.)

part 1.png945x807 432 KB

Then press overlay.

part 2.png945x805 509 KB

This way you can go crazy with the colors without worrying too much about losing color consistency in pages and panels.

AbelDraws
Nov '19
1

Yeah that'd work way better than what I did ahdkkg

Normally (in ilustrations, in the comic up until this point I only colored with base colors and then added cell shading and little else) I do just that, coloring the drawing with base colors and add some layers on multiply, overlay etc to adapt the colors a bit, but I wanted to try pushing it a bit more. In the end I lost all consistency tho so I'll go back, color the page like you said and try to adjust the colors that way <3 thanks!

joannekwan(ง ˙o˙)ว here to help~
Nov '19

I think the most current page is looking good! If you're trying to evoke sunset or dusk, I would push the foliage toward blue/purple a bit more so that they don't come off as an autumn red.

AbelDraws
Nov '19

Nope, it's supposed to be daytime sahjkflsg I really appreciate the feedback tho, it made me realize I pushed the colors waaaaaaaay too far here, it leads to a lot of confussion x'D I'll remember that way to color the foliage for whenever I need to draw a sunset scene tho <3 thanks!

AbelDraws
Nov '19

Oooh thank u!! I'm saving that channel <3 I've taken a quick look at it and I want to watch many of his vids. I can't atm but I'm sure I'll learn some interesting tips from there <3

JRHoch
Nov '19

If you don't want to always use natural colors for a scene, you can use a color scheme that has a more psychological feel. Often the entire scene can be done in two predominant colors--blues and yellows, browns and purples, etc.-- and this way it won't look like Autumn or Halloween.

I use a lot of color experiments in my comic https://tapas.io/series/Afterlifer3.

AbelDraws
Nov '19

I just checked it out, it looks very interesting <3 that's what I was going for, I'll try to keep it in mind next time >:smiley: this time I'll just use an overlay layer I think, since it's not as dramatic , I think? Ahdkgk anyway, thanks a lot :smiley:

JRHoch
Nov '19

Good luck. The great thing about working digitally is if you don't like an effect or scheme, you can always make changes on another layer. Sometimes I just throw things at the wall to see what sticks!

silacinnamon
Nov '19

I really like when people use colours to set the mood! I agree with everything people already said here. My other suggestion is that you could try keeping natural colours in most of the page so the readers don't think it's night when it's daytime etc, but you can change the colours just in specific panels as a "dramatic flair".

Here's an example from Asterix:

asterix.png996x313 607 KB

And one from my comic:

pg-18.jpg800x1100 495 KB

But I personally don't like to overuse the "changing the background to a totally different colour" thing, so I can save it for jokes or really dramatic/important moments :3

AbelDraws
Nov '19

This, this is key. That's why the page is so very confusing asjklfsaf thank u <33 and yeah I think I'll save it for key moments and make more subtle adjustments in color (with an overlay layer and all that) in the "normal" panels/pages. Also your style is the cutest thing <3

Thanks a lot for the advice <333 You and the rest made me realise exactly why it was so confusing and how to fix it (more or less, I tried x'D)

Here's the finished page :smiley: I finished it an hour ago or so, I think it's way less confusing now. It's far from perfect but hey, I'm learning, I'll improve with time

five cap 2 9 color.jpg940x1330 739 KB

silacinnamon
Nov '19

Yay, I'm glad it helped!! I like the new page, it's already getting better :3