"If the design is sound, and the values are correct, almost any colors within reason will work. Beautiful color harmonies, on the other hand, will not save a painting whose design and values are poorly considered."
--Eric Wiegardt
So a couple of folks have mentioned tone/value in their comments on the last few pieces, and I figured it was a topic that might be worth talking about briefly for folks who are new to the concept!
In color theory, colors are thought of in terms of three basic components:
1) Hue is what most people think of when they think of "color" -- is it blue? Is it red? Is it green? Those are all hues.
2) Saturation is the intensity of the color and its purity from white or gray -- is it an electric blue, a pastel blue (mixed with white), or a slate blue (mixed with gray)? Another word for saturation is chroma.
3) Value is the darkness or lightness of a color. You can think of this as how close a color is to absolute white (the lightest value possible) or absolute black (the darkest).
Each of these components is equally important in determining how the eye perceives a color, but when it comes to distinguishing boundaries between objects and reading depth cues, the most important of these is value. That makes a sort of intuitive sense when you think that we can make spatial sense of black-and-white films fine, and that dogs and cats and other animals without trichromatic color vision can still get around fine without bonking into things.
For the artist, that means that before you even begin to worry about what color to make something, you should have a firm understanding of the underlying values to ensure that your painting will read clearly. Classical painters would often draw entire scenes out in charcoal on the canvas, then paint over that drawing (called a "comprehensive") in oils. Whether you're painting in oil, or working digitally, or using colored pencils, markers, or any other medium, the same principle holds true.
When composing an image, give conscious thought to the value boundaries -- the areas where dark meets light, or mid-tones meet shadows, etc. The more a value boundary contrasts (ie, the difference between the two values), the more attention it will attract from the viewer. Use that fact to your advantage by adding areas of high contrast where you want the viewer to look, and using lower contrast in areas of less visual importance.
By way of illustration, look at this quick classic-style portrait. The area of highest contrast is the right side of the face (his left), which is also the lightest value in the entire image. The dark eye stands out and calls attention, and the background that abuts the top of the head, his left ear, and cheek are dark for contrast.
The opposite side of his face is in shadow, so the background was made light to maintain contrast. If the background stayed dark there, the edge of his face would become lost in that shadow, and we would not see the shape of his head as clearly. In some cases, this may be the effect you're after! But if you want his head and face to be the focal point of the image, keeping maximum contrast is key.
His collar and cloak are extremely dark, and the background is a mid-tone along the slope of his shoulders to make his silhouette clear. When followed further down, the background gets darker, de-emphasizing the silhouette in order to allow the figure's hands (light and mid-tone against dark) to stand out more.
By making the hands darker (and therefore less in contrast) than the face, it is less likely that the viewer's eye will go to the hands before the face. If you wanted to make his hands the focus of the image, you could reverse those relationships, making the hands the lightest values in the image and casting all of the face into slight shadow, in less contrast against the background.
By consciously maintaining clear value boundaries, you can build very complex scenes without them feeling busy or chaotic, and can direct the flow of the viewer's eye throughout your piece to some extent, ensuring that they focus on what you want them to focus on without getting distracted by unimportant details.
If you're working digitally in Photoshop, a very easy way to check your value relationships is to add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and set the "Saturation" slider down to -100. This will allow you to view your image in black and white -- you can keep that adjustment layer hidden at the top of your document and toggle it on from time to time to check as you paint.
For folks working in traditional media, a black-and-white photocopy works well, or even a digital camera with a black-and-white photo mode.
I hope this helps get folks thinking about value!
--Eric Wiegardt
So a couple of folks have mentioned tone/value in their comments on the last few pieces, and I figured it was a topic that might be worth talking about briefly for folks who are new to the concept!
In color theory, colors are thought of in terms of three basic components:
1) Hue is what most people think of when they think of "color" -- is it blue? Is it red? Is it green? Those are all hues.
2) Saturation is the intensity of the color and its purity from white or gray -- is it an electric blue, a pastel blue (mixed with white), or a slate blue (mixed with gray)? Another word for saturation is chroma.
3) Value is the darkness or lightness of a color. You can think of this as how close a color is to absolute white (the lightest value possible) or absolute black (the darkest).
Each of these components is equally important in determining how the eye perceives a color, but when it comes to distinguishing boundaries between objects and reading depth cues, the most important of these is value. That makes a sort of intuitive sense when you think that we can make spatial sense of black-and-white films fine, and that dogs and cats and other animals without trichromatic color vision can still get around fine without bonking into things.
For the artist, that means that before you even begin to worry about what color to make something, you should have a firm understanding of the underlying values to ensure that your painting will read clearly. Classical painters would often draw entire scenes out in charcoal on the canvas, then paint over that drawing (called a "comprehensive") in oils. Whether you're painting in oil, or working digitally, or using colored pencils, markers, or any other medium, the same principle holds true.
When composing an image, give conscious thought to the value boundaries -- the areas where dark meets light, or mid-tones meet shadows, etc. The more a value boundary contrasts (ie, the difference between the two values), the more attention it will attract from the viewer. Use that fact to your advantage by adding areas of high contrast where you want the viewer to look, and using lower contrast in areas of less visual importance.
By way of illustration, look at this quick classic-style portrait. The area of highest contrast is the right side of the face (his left), which is also the lightest value in the entire image. The dark eye stands out and calls attention, and the background that abuts the top of the head, his left ear, and cheek are dark for contrast.
The opposite side of his face is in shadow, so the background was made light to maintain contrast. If the background stayed dark there, the edge of his face would become lost in that shadow, and we would not see the shape of his head as clearly. In some cases, this may be the effect you're after! But if you want his head and face to be the focal point of the image, keeping maximum contrast is key.
His collar and cloak are extremely dark, and the background is a mid-tone along the slope of his shoulders to make his silhouette clear. When followed further down, the background gets darker, de-emphasizing the silhouette in order to allow the figure's hands (light and mid-tone against dark) to stand out more.
By making the hands darker (and therefore less in contrast) than the face, it is less likely that the viewer's eye will go to the hands before the face. If you wanted to make his hands the focus of the image, you could reverse those relationships, making the hands the lightest values in the image and casting all of the face into slight shadow, in less contrast against the background.
By consciously maintaining clear value boundaries, you can build very complex scenes without them feeling busy or chaotic, and can direct the flow of the viewer's eye throughout your piece to some extent, ensuring that they focus on what you want them to focus on without getting distracted by unimportant details.
If you're working digitally in Photoshop, a very easy way to check your value relationships is to add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and set the "Saturation" slider down to -100. This will allow you to view your image in black and white -- you can keep that adjustment layer hidden at the top of your document and toggle it on from time to time to check as you paint.
For folks working in traditional media, a black-and-white photocopy works well, or even a digital camera with a black-and-white photo mode.
I hope this helps get folks thinking about value!
Category Artwork (Digital) / Tutorials
Species Rabbit / Hare
Gender Male
Size 420 x 685px
No problem! It's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of color theory, but hopefully it helps get some folks thinking about color and composition a bit more formally ^_^
thought from the thumbnail it was Sander Cohen...good stuff all the same though^^
Hmm... you know, that's the type of thing they never taught us in our art-history class. The woman actually had no concept of art, just data (which was a HUGE put-off, especially when 50% of your test grades were based on obscure points of data for any handful of over 50 objects you had seen).
One of her favorite things was mentioning wiggly lines.
Anyway, to digress to the topic that originally got me into my mini-rant, I find it interesting that the art world uses HSV for colors, as it's a system I never fully learned. Yet oddly, it almost makes more sense -- especially coming from a tech guy, where we play in the RGB (component) world.
All of that junk aside, this is yet another lovely image, and quite educational to boot :D
One of her favorite things was mentioning wiggly lines.
Anyway, to digress to the topic that originally got me into my mini-rant, I find it interesting that the art world uses HSV for colors, as it's a system I never fully learned. Yet oddly, it almost makes more sense -- especially coming from a tech guy, where we play in the RGB (component) world.
All of that junk aside, this is yet another lovely image, and quite educational to boot :D
There are a number of ways to think of color space, and a lot of that comes down to how you're applying it. Tech folks work with additive RGB, print people think in subtractive CMYK, painters have their color wheels, etc. Whatever the framework for specifying or creating colors, each individual color still exists as a combination of hue, saturation, and value, so the info above should hold up equally well, regardless of the medium.
For example, RGB #FFFFFF is still "absolute black" in the sense described above -- it has no determinate hue, no determinate saturation, and the darkest value possible. CMYK #0000FF00 is pure yellow hue, extremely saturated, and very light in value, etc.
Hopefully that distinction makes sense?
And glad it was educational!
For example, RGB #FFFFFF is still "absolute black" in the sense described above -- it has no determinate hue, no determinate saturation, and the darkest value possible. CMYK #0000FF00 is pure yellow hue, extremely saturated, and very light in value, etc.
Hopefully that distinction makes sense?
And glad it was educational!
*nods* I have some familiarity with things, either from dicking around with programs or sheer boredom (they tend to go hand in hand). I still think one of my favorite color conversations was trying to explain to my sister the difference between additive and subtractive color spaces~
Oh man, yeah -- that takes a little while to wrap your head around, haha. I think the first time those two really clashed in my head was when I tried to print something I'd painted in really bright, saturated colors on the computer. It printed out looking completely different, and left me totally confused until I did some reading up <3
And yay for dicking around with programs -- that's totally how I learned, too ^_^
And yay for dicking around with programs -- that's totally how I learned, too ^_^
Aaaah I love it when people give cool bits of artvice! Thanks, I'll keep all this in mind!
thanks so much! i love the painterly feel in that portrait, too. :)
Very well written! I've been trying to explain some aspects of color theory to my wife who is just learning, but some of the terms/concepts were hard to explain, and this is very helpful! Thank you =D!
A lot of stuff in art/color theory makes a lot of intuitive sense once you have the words to describe it -- it's like how talking about sound is super difficult until you have terms like "pitch" or "volume" or "timbre," etc. I'm glad I could help provide a few words!
It's one of the most menacing looking rabbits I have ever seen...ever..
Heh, I love working with value...hue has always been my weakest point. Thanks much for posting this c:
Yeah, hue is probably the trickiest of the three to develop a strong feel for.
Some people seem to take to it very quickly (bastards), but I'm not one of them ^_^
Some people seem to take to it very quickly (bastards), but I'm not one of them ^_^
nice
I like your rundown of colour : > especially attached application
I dont follow enough of these rules consistently <__<//
need to use that ps trick more!
I like your rundown of colour : > especially attached application
I dont follow enough of these rules consistently <__<//
need to use that ps trick more!
Yeah, I don't consider it as much as I should, either -- this is a reminder to me as much as anything ^_^
I usually only really think of it when there's a problem. I'll be dissatisfied with an image because it looks busy or jumbled or just kind of bleah, and try to troubleshoot it. One of the things I check is "okay, how does it hold up in black and white?" Sometimes looking at it desaturated is like "WHOA that's what's wrong with you!"
I usually only really think of it when there's a problem. I'll be dissatisfied with an image because it looks busy or jumbled or just kind of bleah, and try to troubleshoot it. One of the things I check is "okay, how does it hold up in black and white?" Sometimes looking at it desaturated is like "WHOA that's what's wrong with you!"
hmm a really sound way of going about it! Usually I check and change things here and there, and double-check during, but this more technical stuff is usually too much to keep in mind while still trying to be spontaneous... reviewing after is prooobably a good call ehe ^ ^ ;
It's true that keeping loose and spontaneous is totally key at first. I guess the ideal solution is that by actively thinking about stuff like value relationships, you train yourself to establish solid value structure unconsciously in the future. Eventually, it just "feels right" to block in a darker tone around the light thing you want to highlight, or to alternate darks and lights in order to keep boundaries crisp and orderly, etc.
But yeah, until I get to that point, I'll be checking my values periodically as I go ^_^
But yeah, until I get to that point, I'll be checking my values periodically as I go ^_^
as usual the real trick is practice coupled with knowledge ; p
I'll try to be stricter on myself for that too, jalways inspiring seeing such an awesome painter's enthusiasm !
I'll try to be stricter on myself for that too, jalways inspiring seeing such an awesome painter's enthusiasm !
Haha, I know right? It's such a bitch that you actually have to practice to get better >_<
And I'd say to be mindful, but not strict -- if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong <3 That said, practicing with your brain engaged is a loooot more productive than practicing the same stuff you already know mindlessly. So long as you keep thinking as you paint, you'll make steady progress ^_^
...At least I hope so, because that's my plan @_@
And I'd say to be mindful, but not strict -- if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong <3 That said, practicing with your brain engaged is a loooot more productive than practicing the same stuff you already know mindlessly. So long as you keep thinking as you paint, you'll make steady progress ^_^
...At least I hope so, because that's my plan @_@
seems to be working for you so far!
yep, love what you do <3 hard to remember at 5 am some nights <__< but so true
hahaha I've dragged on this response chat to its limits
yep, love what you do <3 hard to remember at 5 am some nights <__< but so true
hahaha I've dragged on this response chat to its limits
I wish I could feature this as my only favorite image for a few weeks.
What's really fun is when you pay attention -only- to value and assign colors later. You can get some really interesting effects that way. I've seen you do this kind of thing live and it's not to be missed. Also, in general, lower value colors recede and higher values come forward and, as you note, don't depend on hue so much. I find the biggest problems not with which colors but how they work next to each other. You can get some really funky depth issues when not paying attention. Then again, you know all this, I'm just adding spam to the sammich. :"D Dood, people love this. Do more. You're an awesome sharer!
Yeaaaah, I do that sometimes 9_9 I'm coming to see that as something of a crutch by now, because it means I never think of anything but value, and don't learn anything about hue or saturation, but yeah, it's totally a decent way of going about things, and has the bonus effect of making it easier to keep track of your value relationships and make sure those make sense before you get too wrapped up in "what color am I making this?" side of things ^_^
Mmm, spam sandwich <3
Mmm, spam sandwich <3
Yes, yes yes yes! x10000 yes!! Whenever people ask me how they can improve their "coloring", I ALWAYS tell them to work on their understanding of value. All the little nuances like contrasting hues and saturation shifts and so forth are important and useful, but not 'til the values are in place, as they're like the glue that holds it all together!
Anyway, you totally said it better than I, so I will be saving this to point people to in the future Thanks!
Anyway, you totally said it better than I, so I will be saving this to point people to in the future Thanks!
Yeah, there have been times when I've seen people do incredibly detailed backgrounds for pieces on this site that obviously took a ton of time and a whooole lot of love, but which kind of devolve into visual chaos and noise because of fighting within the underlying tone structure.
I feel like beginning artists are often tempted to stay in the mid-tones (where it's safe!), and that leads to a very narrow bandwidth of values being used, which makes for almost no contrast, which then leads to the chaos. It takes a deep breath and some courage to throw down a swath of extra-dark shadow, especially if you're working in natural media without the safety net of an "Undo" command.
My hope is that as people start thinking in terms of value a bit more, they'll be enticed to open up that tone envelope a bit and push their darks darker and their lights lighter ^_^
I feel like beginning artists are often tempted to stay in the mid-tones (where it's safe!), and that leads to a very narrow bandwidth of values being used, which makes for almost no contrast, which then leads to the chaos. It takes a deep breath and some courage to throw down a swath of extra-dark shadow, especially if you're working in natural media without the safety net of an "Undo" command.
My hope is that as people start thinking in terms of value a bit more, they'll be enticed to open up that tone envelope a bit and push their darks darker and their lights lighter ^_^
...obviously took a ton of time and a whooole lot of love, but which kind of devolve into visual chaos and noise because of fighting within the underlying tone structure.
I know what you mean; I've been plenty guilty of that, myself. ^^; Actually, when I was really new to using value, I'd often go the opposite direction, and put too MUCH value variation on surfaces... such that the visual chaos came from too many (usually incorrectly placed) shadows/highlights, rather than too few. I guess the end result was same, though: a garbled image that's just too hard to read from any distance. (Like with most things, life drawing turned out to be the answer!)
I sometimes wonder if the objective (vs. subjective) art in this fandom comes from the influence of animation, video games and comics. Those three art forms often (not always, but often!) have a background as a seperate "thing" from the characters that are essentially pasted on top, and don't really interact with one another in terms of light/shadow/color. Perhaps this has led artists who are heavily influenced by these styles to think of their work and process as more of a "screenshot from a movie," rather than a whole, complete illustration. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing, but it can totally be limiting to think that way when you want to achieve something more complex or painterly in quality...
My hope is that as people start thinking in terms of value a bit more, they'll be enticed to open up that tone envelope a bit and push their darks darker and their lights lighter ^_^
I think it just takes (lots of) exposure to more painterly and illustrative influences to start bringing those elements into your work. :) Just keep doing what you'rendoing; I'm sure you're already helping, just by putting more illustration/painting-type work out there! Your values really shine, so hopefully people will recognize that, and heed your advice for using them. :)
I know what you mean; I've been plenty guilty of that, myself. ^^; Actually, when I was really new to using value, I'd often go the opposite direction, and put too MUCH value variation on surfaces... such that the visual chaos came from too many (usually incorrectly placed) shadows/highlights, rather than too few. I guess the end result was same, though: a garbled image that's just too hard to read from any distance. (Like with most things, life drawing turned out to be the answer!)
I sometimes wonder if the objective (vs. subjective) art in this fandom comes from the influence of animation, video games and comics. Those three art forms often (not always, but often!) have a background as a seperate "thing" from the characters that are essentially pasted on top, and don't really interact with one another in terms of light/shadow/color. Perhaps this has led artists who are heavily influenced by these styles to think of their work and process as more of a "screenshot from a movie," rather than a whole, complete illustration. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing, but it can totally be limiting to think that way when you want to achieve something more complex or painterly in quality...
My hope is that as people start thinking in terms of value a bit more, they'll be enticed to open up that tone envelope a bit and push their darks darker and their lights lighter ^_^
I think it just takes (lots of) exposure to more painterly and illustrative influences to start bringing those elements into your work. :) Just keep doing what you'rendoing; I'm sure you're already helping, just by putting more illustration/painting-type work out there! Your values really shine, so hopefully people will recognize that, and heed your advice for using them. :)
Yeah, I think the other thing is probably that the fandom is so character-centric, and the artistic creative process is so democratized (in the sense that the artists who post here are people of all levels of skill, experience, and education) that backgrounds are seen as a sort of luxury item. The "furry-ness" of a piece is entirely in the character, so the background is seen as garnish. Add to that the fact that detailed backgrounds require a good bit of time and effort and skill to create, and it's not difficult to see why few people bother.
And I totally agree that exposure is key -- that's why I started the art hero meme over in my latest journal ^_^ My goal is to show some folks the illustrators who I've learned from, and encourage other people to post about the folks they've learned from so I can check them out for myself!
And I totally agree that exposure is key -- that's why I started the art hero meme over in my latest journal ^_^ My goal is to show some folks the illustrators who I've learned from, and encourage other people to post about the folks they've learned from so I can check them out for myself!
Very interesting, thanks! Readability and clear silhouettes are so important in any art style, be it realistic or cartoony. The comic work I do is delivered in black and white inks, and you have no idea what the colorist is going to do with it. (usually not much good, sadly) Because of this artists try to make the drawing as readable as possible in black and white, filling in lots of parts with black. I love drawing in black and white and it's always interesting to see how much thought went into good, seemingly simple pages. (example: http://tinyurl.com/ya8bzkj)
Sorry, that was kind of off topic, but not quite ;) I love your work!
Sorry, that was kind of off topic, but not quite ;) I love your work!
Not off topic at all! When you only have black and white to work with, value relationships become incredibly important: you don't have hue and saturation to carry the extra weight! The masters of the comic page all have a great understanding of value, and how to lay blacks in a way that blocks in the scene clearly and directs the eye. There's a lot us full-spectrum painters can learn from their mastery of black and white ^_^
thank you for this tut; it's very useful. as soon as I can wrap my mind around it that is. :) it took me years to use other colours than black for shadowing, and it seemed to improve things a lot. a recent picture involving a black rubber catsuit actually brought up the idea of using black ink for stark shadows and black pencil for the main colour instead of just inking it black and leaving highlights open...
some things are done because it looks right, but I agree with you that they require concious thought, at least in the beginning.
Henriekes comment reminded me of Carl Barks' comic works, where he often played with black shadows and black silhouettes to add 'movement' to otherwise even-looking comic pages.
one different question, though: are you perhaps the same Kamui artist who has a gallery at VCL?
some things are done because it looks right, but I agree with you that they require concious thought, at least in the beginning.
Henriekes comment reminded me of Carl Barks' comic works, where he often played with black shadows and black silhouettes to add 'movement' to otherwise even-looking comic pages.
one different question, though: are you perhaps the same Kamui artist who has a gallery at VCL?
That's me ^_^ Although that's all super old stuff at this point...
And yeah, like everything else in art, there are rules and then there are wonderful exceptions. Every convention can be broken to amazing results, but that doesn't mean it isn't helpful (if not necessary) to understand the rules before you break them. After you have a good feel for the rules, it's a lot easier to understand when and why they can be broken for effect, or because it just "looks right" ^_^
And yeah, like everything else in art, there are rules and then there are wonderful exceptions. Every convention can be broken to amazing results, but that doesn't mean it isn't helpful (if not necessary) to understand the rules before you break them. After you have a good feel for the rules, it's a lot easier to understand when and why they can be broken for effect, or because it just "looks right" ^_^
I fell in love with that closeup portrait of a blue-eyed, blonde-haired lioness running clawed fingers through her hair. I think it must be within the first two pages of that gallery...
anyway, playing with rules and conventions can be fun and lead to amazing results. I only wished the many aspiring (and often published-too-early) 'manga' artists would know, and understand, that too.
anyway, playing with rules and conventions can be fun and lead to amazing results. I only wished the many aspiring (and often published-too-early) 'manga' artists would know, and understand, that too.
DDDUUUUUUUUDE thank you so much, iI was looking for an explaination like this!
hmm one could say they found this tutorial very...valuable *wiggles eyebrows*
p.s. I randomly stumbled upon this awesome quote I saved awhile back, and it is totally relevant to the topic at hand:
"If the design is sound, and the values are correct, almost any colors within reason will work. Beautiful color harmonies, on the other hand, will not save a painting whose design and values are poorly considered."
--Eric Wiegardt
(contemporary painter, his website is here: http://www.ericwiegardt.com/)
"If the design is sound, and the values are correct, almost any colors within reason will work. Beautiful color harmonies, on the other hand, will not save a painting whose design and values are poorly considered."
--Eric Wiegardt
(contemporary painter, his website is here: http://www.ericwiegardt.com/)
Nice! And it totally holds just as true for his more abstracted work as it does for realistic/depictional work <3
I added the quote to the entry above ^_^
I added the quote to the entry above ^_^
This is very very helpful. Thanks for creating it! ^w^
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