Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Different coloring technique

Hello, I just wanted to explain a small little technique I have been experimenting a bit with lately.

The idea here is to use a different way to colorize something than for example using overlay or the color layer which are very sensitive that you get close to accurate values from the go, example its impossible to colorize something red it you painted it the wrong value! especially with the color layer :)

The idea behind this is pretty simple, on the first example number 1, I rendered every value in pretty much the same value range, the horns on his shoulder and head are going from black to white, and so does the skin.

That would obviously not be the case normally but I am ignoring any variation in the local values, for example the horns should maybe be a dark brown, so if I would want to color it with overlay, I would have needed to keep the values pretty dark if I where to color it with that.

However by coloring it with Hardlight and  for those who do not know, hardlight is a combination of multiply and screen, so if you use a color with a value of 1-50 you are using the multiply portion of the layer effect, and from 51-100 it is screen.

The benefits of multiply is that it can darken something, but also give it a color at the same time, it is not really the same as picking a dark value, example a dark brown and just paint it on top on a normal layer.


Anyways, checking the number 2 example, I basically made a new layer and gave it the hardlight effect, I also gave it the same mask shape as the figure, tho I could have just clipping masked the hardlight to the figure but than I cant add in markings and other patterns as seen in number 3 and still keep the separated from the first layer of colors.

The benefit of coloring it like this is that I can for example make the horns dark with pretty much any colors I want, so in the number 1 example when I was painting in black and white I didn't have to predict it before hand.

In the image number 3, I just clipped 2 more "normal" layers to the hardlight one, those two layers will act just like the hardlight one, but the benefit is I can add patterns and stuff that I can change later, and I dont have to worry about recoloring any areas when adding anything new if I didnt like it.

But if I were to make three hardlight layers instead, things would just go darker and darker since the effect would multiply with themselves.

You can also see I added a more lighter and desaturated value at his chest and arms making the skintones more complex.


So that is it, to summarize, the idea is paint something in the same value range regardless if parts of it is going to have a dark or light value, so when you are coloring you can add complex patterns of colors and value, you can for example make the knees dark since maybe it has dirt on it making it dark,
 or maybe the skin inside the arm is lighter since its hit less by the sun.

There are some flaws, making things lighter in value can make the shadows really saturated, tho u can use it to give it a look of subsurface scattering tho.
And also this is just ment like a base, a lot of more adjustments and painting is required afterwards.

But I thought it was kinda cool so I just wanted to share it!


Thursday, July 4, 2013

Gradients/modifying values

Here is something I want to explain and show, it’s something I apply to many of my pictures, it’s a small thing but can help as a final touch, it can be hard to notice these kind of things in a picture, and if you are starting out it might take years before you ever notice.


 I’m sure there are many variations you can do of this since a lot depending on how the picture looks like with the light situation and so on, in these examples a lighter gradient from the top and a darker one from the bottom fits very good, because the environment is layout in a similar pattern.

So you could also experiment having a diagonal gradient coming from the sides, or from the middle with a fade both upwards and down, maybe even just paint with a brush on different spots depending where it’s needed.

I would even say you can use this is an earlier stage of the painting too and doesn’t just have to be a "final touch", that way it gets a bit more in cooperated into the picture and doesn’t look so added on.


But the idea about this effect is, it makes images slightly more real, it’s pretty much impossible to paint a picture with a built in gradient like that and it’s not that effective to do so!

If you check the third image, you can see that image looks way flat, and that’s how it tends to look like when I paint something.
But when I add a gradient I have now modified all the values 
even further in the image, making the picture even more complex value wise if you think about it abstractly, almost making sure nothing has the same value in each "pixel".


It also helps with taking away a bit more focus from the edges.
I recommend downloading those two images below so you can compare, you will see the gradient doesn’t even have to be very extreme!

I think this is quite commonly used in movies and photographs as well.

I hope it might come to use,
and thanks for reading!





Friday, June 14, 2013

Post 15






  ^ just my typical experimenting with rendering various things and testing ideas, no pretty picture but thats fine!:) its all about testing.