Hi! It’s Hanairo! Over the years, I’ve been experimenting and finding new ways to add more color to my art. Without having everything look overly-saturated and obnoxious, like my old art from 2015. 😳 (Example below…)

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First off, I would like to say that I am not an expert on color theory or anything, these are just some things I’ve learned and tips that I want to share if you want your art to look more colorful, pop, or pastel! Feel free to try them out, and have fun!

Color values

To make the picture pop, you want a good contrast in values; values are the lightness and darkness of a color. It’s easier to see the different values if we look at our picture in grayscale.

To easily do this, you can make a new layer above the rest, click on the blending mode pull down menu (located above your layers) and select color.

Then, with the bucket tool, fill it all in with black or white.

Now that it’s in grayscale, we can more easily see the color values, and it’s easy to toggle on and off too.

Compare the colors next to each other, if they are too similar, they will just blend together and the viewer’s eye will not be drawn to them.

Try adjusting the colors to be either lighter or darker until you’re happy with the contrast. This will add more interest to your picture.

It’s not too different, but I slightly darkened her hair and the gold accents.

Color wheel

To get a more colorful result, it’s good to use complimentary colors. When looking at the color wheel, complementary colors are ones that are opposite from each other.

For example: orange is complementary to blue, green is complementary to purple, etc.

There are many ways you can use these colors to make the others pop!

Warm and cool colors

When adding highlights and shadows, it’s most common to use warm colors for highlights, and cool colors for shadows.

Colors like red, orange and yellow can be considered “warm”, while colors like blue, purple, and green are considered “cool”. On the color wheel, warm and cool colors are split like this.

Although this is the most common method, you can also do the opposite and use cool colors for highlights, and warm colors for shadows.

Shading white and black

A handy tip for shading white or black objects, is to NEVER shade with gray.

White is bright and often reflects the colors around it.

I usually use a combination of pink and blue to shade white, as in this example.

Other colors like yellow, or purple can work great too, it all depends on the color palette and if you want a pure white, or an off-white.

This example is a bit softer, and more on the purple side.

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Unlike white, Black doesn’t reflect light, but I find that instead of using pure black or even gray, it looks better when using a color that is a very dark shade and is desaturated.

If it’s on a character, I might use another color from them. Or for hair I will sometimes have it be more of a very dark brown.

As you can see, this one has a blue hue to match her outfit.

While this one is more brown and natural.

Light and shadows

In the darkest of shadows, there is light (and color).

I will often add a light blue or purple color to my darkest shadows, including under the neck, certain clothing folds, and the back of the hair.

If shading blue or purple, I might use pink instead. You could also use a complementary color.

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A way to help a character better blend into an environment, is to add a faint yellow highlight on the same side as the light source, and a faint blue shadow on the opposite side.

 

 

I use the gradient tool to do this on a separate layer and turn the opacity down pretty low.

Coloring line art

Sometimes colored line art can look more appealing than all black line art, especially if you’re going for a softer pastel look.

One way to do this is to make a layer above your line art layer (if you have multiple layers for line art, put them all into one folder), then on your new layer, click “clip to layer below”.

Now whatever you color, will only be on the lines!

I use the airbrush tool and choose colors from the area I’m working on.

I try to avoid making the line art lighter than the colors around it (as shown in this lovely example from 2015 again).

I mostly go around the outer edge of the character, and I also color the lines for the face.

It’s not always super noticeable, but I think it makes a difference.

Adding subtle color

If your picture is done, and you still wish to somehow make it look more colorful, here are some ways you can add subtle color to certain areas.

Using a different color of the same value, you can add splotches, highlights, or bounce lights to add interest.

Bounce light comes from the opposite direction of the light source, it is the light “bouncing” off of an object and back onto the character.

For this I use a light blue around the edge farthest from the light source, and set the opacity to 50%.

One way to easily change colors is similar to how we changed the picture to grayscale, but instead of choosing “color” blending mode, choose “hue”.

Now you can use whatever color and tool you wish to add different colors.

I kind of like the rainbow effect on her hair!

For a fun "prism" effect

Make a new layer and set the blending mode to “overlay”, draw spheres or geometrical shapes in whatever color,

Then use “Gaussian blur” and adjust the strength to your liking.

Filter> Blur > Gaussian blur

I set it to 50.28

Then click this button that says “lock transparent pixels”, and use the rainbow gradient tool to color them in.

You can now play around with the gradient and adjust the opacity to your liking!

I personally like the one on the right!

You can also make the shapes with the selection tool, if you prefer.

And now, the finished art!

Closing

That’s all the tips I have for now. As I said, I’m not an expert, and I don’t consider this to be a “correct” way to color. It’s all up to your personal preference and creative imagination. Art should be fun and enjoyable, after all! Thank you so much for reading! I hope this inspires you to experiment with some of these ideas for yourself, and have fun with it! 😊

If you’re interested, you can view my art gallery on my website linked below. ↓↓↓

See you next time!