#gradient maps r my bff……

[tarteggs]

vash and wolfwood argue about ghosts, and absolutely nothing else.

a comic i made for the fic lots of people, lots of sides have been taken by procrastinatingbookworm on ao3! i really enjoyed reading it and liked the imagery a lot, so i thought it would be fun to draw something based on it!! ^^

[quinnonimp]

your colors are always sooo good :0 got any tips?

thank u v much !!

and ermmmm i think if ur someone like me who has a very difficult time committing to art things and is a bit insecure abt colors, drawing with anti-aliasing turned off is rly helpful, since u can change any of the colors very easily by using the bucket fill (tolerance set to 0 and anti-aliasing turned off, itll fill only that specific color area. plus if u want it to fill every area with that color u can turn off "apply to connected pixels only") if u wanna make adjustements whatnot

color theory wise i have a LOT of thoughts since im quite the unprofessional art-loving mess - but its 4am so i dont feel like making an entire essay (and also i dont rly think my thoughts or advice r very helpful anyway), so ill keep it short (my tips r not beginner friendly im sorry for that):

ill typically have flat colors be saturated, while shading colors desaturated

do not underestimate greys, its extremely flexible and can look like a variety of colors depending on the pallet around it

^^ these parts of the color wheel r my bff as someone who uses warm tones/red extremely often. often when i use a color i dont actually use the obvious "correct" tone, but rather smth slightly off (like making my reds be a bit on the orange side, my blues just gray, greens r a desaturated/dark yellow, etc etc)

i never use pure white, ill dabble in pure black sometimes (for sketching esp) cause it looks pretty nice as a contrast, but since i find it easier to use darker colors i dislike using pure white and u will like never see me purposefully use it unless its for a highlight or on mspaint lol

the way i usually start out deciding the pallet will be derivative of how light/colorful the darkest is or how dark/colorful the lightest color is. the main middleground color (usually for me thats a strong red) is probablymore important than both of those though, and what i tend to make the background

personally i absolutely suck at using filters/gradient maps and dont actually know how to use them to my full advantage, but do NOT be afraid to use them !!! use them all u want!! and honestly? its a talent of its own to know how to use the right filters/gradient maps/etc. ur not lesser of an artist or cheating when using these, they r viable tools at ur disposal !

ty for the question even if my response wasnt great !!