#also i hope there arent too many like spelling errors i didnt read overthis

[iobottle]

A Little Explanation On How I Choose My Colors

Ok so a while ago i was asked to do a tutorial on how i choose colors! im no professional or expert or anything but i do think explaining how i do things could help someone else! i wasnt sure if they meant picking colors for designs or just for like art and shading in general so ill go over both(this may get a bit long sorry)

-so for designs what i actually focus on the most in my designs appearance wise is color bc i love using it so much! since a bitch needs structure i give each oc a main or base color and base the rest on what just looks good with it i usually go with base+grayscale or base+colors right by it(ie red and orange)

-heres a few to get an idea of what i mean also i included palettes and while i dont use them myself it might be helpful for someone else

-its also helpful to change your canvas color to a color you want to be a base/mood

-now i usually have my sai window something like this:

-i dont make official palettes for anything i either color pick or wing my art bc i do think it helps alot with confidence in colors or something like that (just make sure you dont whitewash characters color pick the skin if youre worried)

-my personal preference is to not use full black/white or fully saturated color(bc most of the time i will be putting an overlay on so that will saturate my pics more) also for my insp swatches theyre from various media that i liked the colors on! if you find something with colors that standout to you color pick them and look how they relate to each other! it really helps to look at the color wheel and then then colors to see how saturation and where on the color wheel stuff is

-now for an image its very important to think that you arent gonna get your base colors right the first time!! when you draw characters more and more you get a feel for what colors you like best just slap on some colors you think will work and use the fill tool to make changes when you see fit!

-small process gif of me trying to pick colors (you can see my unsaturated color bias) but if youre stuck making things coherent for a certain mood like nighttime etc overlays can help!

-a little trick i like to do is put an overlay over the pic and colorpick the colors while the overlay is up then fill them on the layer with the un overlayed colors it will make it darker and weird looking initially but when you take of the overlay those nicer colors will still be there and now you can edit them

-anyways on to the shading! i wont go over form and light sources since that would make this Very long so heres me slapping a bit of colors down its mostly color picking the base and moving it around to get various colors i like its all very spur of the moment and i colors almost haphazardly because im trying to have a bit more fun with it

-a neat little trick i use is the zigzag color picking technique(?) its hard for me to explain so i tried to draw out how the movement of my picking goes and provided some palettes so ppl can color pick those to see for themselves now in shading i try to use more Non Realistic colors bc i think they provide a cool pop

-now hair is..even less easier to explain its mostly a gradient shown below and i hard blend it all and then add dashes of various other color using the same technique above

-my technique involves sort of subtle shading and if thats not your style you can definitely use what i talked about to make highly saturated art and if you do shade similarly and are not satisfied with how dark or noticeable it is

overlays are your best friend! just make note on using not very saturated ones because then you can make colors muddy and confusing

Thanks for reading I hope something in here was helpful! Always remember art is supposed to be fun and if you want to go wild with colors you should always do so!!