Introduction
Mixing colors is a recurring activity in painting, it helps us to obtain new tones by joining various colors and creating a chromatic variety in our illustrations.
In this tutorial I will explain my method to mix colors when painting a character and what tools I use to do it.
You can continue reading the text version of this tutorial or you can watch the Spanish video version of this tutorial
Basic concepts
Before we start we need to know several concepts that will help us better understand the use of the tools.
color properties
To better understand color we must know the three properties that make up a color.
These properties are: Hue, Lightness, and Saturation.
Application
The tone is basically a synonym of color, thanks to it we can identify any primary color and all its combinations.
Brightness
Lightness is the amount of black or white added to a color, this together with saturation can help to obtain softer or more intense tones.
Saturation
Saturation is the way to add or remove intensity to a color, we will say that a color is not saturated when it looks gray, and it is more saturated when the color is more intense.
Degraded
The gradient is the transition that we have between two colors or more, this is very useful to be able to select the intermediate tones of our color palette.
Opacity
In the digital environment there is a feature known as opacity, with it we can control how transparent the color we are using is. This feature helps us to obtain intermediate colors between two or more colors very quickly.
Blending Modes
Blending modes are adjustments that can be made to a layer so that its content is related in a different way to the rest of the layers below it.
We can also configure brushes with blending modes, this is very useful for people who prefer to work with as few layers as possible.
Tools
Color Wheel
In the color wheel we can select the color we want and modify its different properties, we select the tone(A) by turning the ring that is on the edge of the color wheel. To modify the other two properties we will use the triangle that is in the center, to adjust the brightness(B) we will slide our selector vertically and we can modify the saturation(C) by sliding our shape selector horizontal.
Eyedropper
This tool allows us to select the color we want from a specific area on our canvas.
It is super useful to take a color and mix it with others, thanks to the characteristics of the brushes and the blending modes of the layers.
soft edge brush
This brush has a blurred edge which helps us to obtain a gradient between several colors in an easy and controlled way.
hard edge brush
This brush has a solid stroke and helps a lot to define edges and to generate texture when mixing colors.
Tool Properties
To mix colors with our brushes we must configure some parameters of their properties. We do this from the Tool properties window, which we can activate from the window Tab and selecting the tool properties option.
The tool properties window will show us shortcuts to the configurations that we have chosen and to see all the available configurations we must click on the key icon.
In the Ink section we will find the two sections that help us mix colors, in the upper part we will find the opacity and the blending mode, and in the lower part we will have the color mixing. I divide these options in two since we cannot activate the blending mode of the brush and the advanced opacity controls while the color mixing option is active.
Blending with Opacity
To mix with opacity we must make sure that the Color mixing option is disabled, then we must activate the Pen pressure option, this will help us to vary the opacity depending on the amount of pressure we apply to our tablet.
To mix colors I recommend having a base color and then selecting the color we want to mix, we will select the color to mix with the eyedropper and lightly press our digitizer pen against the tablet to activate the opacity and thus obtain a new color, if we want to continue creating a gradient we will take that new color and repeat the steps again
Mixing with color mixing
By mixing with the color mixing we have less control of the tones but we obtain an interesting variety of colors. One of the advantages of using this method is that we have more parameters to tweak and find a setting that suits our workflow, I personally like to adjust everything to work with the pressure of the digitizing pen.
One of the most important parameters is the mixing mode since this allows us to decide how the colors are going to be mixed. Now I will explain to you what is the difference between the two options that it offers us.
Standard
This option only takes into account the two colors that we are mixing and ignores the rest of the tones when creating the mixture.
Perceptual
Perceptual mode emulates the way pigments mix in real life, using the intermediate tones to create the color mix.
To paint with this method I select a base color and then the color to mix to start mixing, here I control the amount of color to mix with the pressure of the pen.
painting a character
Now that we know the basic concepts and how the tools work I will show you my process to paint a character.
Lineart
This is the line that defines each of the parts of our character. I like to start the painting process by defining the line because it makes it easier for me to block colors.
color block
In this step I create a layer for each color then activate the transparent pixel lock on each layer, this helps me to paint only on the color layer and prevents me from going outside the areas that are not painted.
NOTE: A useful way to move between layers while you have the brush active is by using CTRL + SHIFT + Click on an area on the canvas and it will automatically select the layer where those pixels are located.
Add basic lights and shadows
Now is when we begin to give our character a bit of volume, with a soft-edged brush we will give touches of light and shadow. To decide what colors I should choose for the light and the shadow, I must first decide what color the light will be and what color the background is, since this will be reflected in our characters.
In this case I already have the Base Color (B) and the Light (A) is going to be yellow, so I slide the tone selector in the direction of the light color and increase the light a bit. saturation and lightness. The shadow(C) will be a purple color, this is because the background is this color and it is reflected in the character, I select my base color again and slide the tone selector looking for a purple tone and reduce slightly saturation and lightness.
A mistake that we all make when starting out is to use white for the light and black for the shadows, this generates a huge contrast of tones and our illustration will look dirty because of it. Avoid using pure black and white to mix colors.
There is no rule that tells us how much we should vary our tone to select the colors to use, but this is a way that has worked for me and I use in all my work. Selecting good colors requires experimenting and seeing what suits the work we are doing best.
adding more volume
Now I add more volume using a hard edged brush and using the blend with opacity, the idea in this step is to repeat the process above, grab the highlight and shadow colors and slide the slider to their respective tone, and in this way create brighter for the light and darker tones for the shadow, generating more contrast between the two. We can perform this step as many times as we deem necessary.
Blending modes to integrate the character with the background
Something that helps me to highlight the character more is to use the blending modes of the layers, I use a layer in Multiply mode for the shadows, and I paint with a soft purple brush the area in which I want to reinforce the shadows , and I use a layer in Overlay mode for the lights in which I paint the areas to be highlighted with yellow. If the shadows and lights are very intense, you can lower the opacity to vary the color with the color settings to achieve the result we are looking for.
The colors to choose depend on the light and shade you decide to use.
NOTE: I recommend you to organize all the layers of your character in a folder and then create the blending mode layers on this folder and using the clipping to layer below option we will achieve that the blending mode layers only affect the character folder. character and not the rest of the layers
Last details
Now we can add more details using the techniques we have learned so far, in this case I added more details using a hard edged brush such as highlights, textures and some lighting touches on the shell that help further integrate the character into the setting and emphasize the shadows more.
You can also paint the lineart by blocking the transparent pixels and painting over the line or use a new layer and the clipping to layer below option.
In the image I show you some areas in which I emphasize light and shadows
final words
Mixing colors is often hard at first but gets easier the more you do it.
The technique I use to paint is simple, basically you have to create tones of light and shadow and with the dropper and a brush with variable opacity mix the colors, then repeat these steps creating new layers each time until we have the result we are looking for.
Tell me in the comments if you found the tutorial useful and feel free to ask any questions you have, I'll gladly try to answer.
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Thank you for reading!
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