Your coloring is so good! How do you decide where to put the extra bits of color? It really give it some extra pop and I'm so jealous
Thank you!! Hmmm. I'm ngl I've slept So Little so dw if my answer is kind of odd, you can always ask again!! So like. I assume with extra bits of color you're referring to hue shifting? Which I usually use to complement shadows!!
Like this— Ink's pants going from reddish to more of an orange tone while Nightmare's get sort of a green vibe! These in particular aren't that random, as they come from the color Bouncing from the Other objects...!!
Ink's pants change color since they want to match the color of his scarf— so they go more toward orange/low sat red-orange. Nm's own are green-ish since they're being affected by the surrounding grass!!
I usually decide to use it when I feel like the shadows are too monotonous/if some elements feel "off", as they kind of give it a sense that Stuff is In the Same Plane Interacting?? My rule is that the darker the shadow go the more Color bounce it receives while the Lighter an object is the More the Color Bounces out of it
Theres also base color hue variation, which I usually use when I want to bring attention to the lighter tones...!! Like.
Here's Nightmare again. He's got a lot of stuff going on— bluish-purple light, yellow tones andd neutral color light on some parts. Since he's darker in complexion, he has a lot more of hue shifts than Ink does. I choose the purple light to complement the color of the vial (as I want to make it seem more Strong since its color is Super reflected) and the funny looking petals in the ground. Yellow tones is to fit the scene— since everything around has a yellow tone, it makes sense for the overall shadow color to be yellow, I believe. Since its also a dark yellow, it doesn't work much as a light so everything retains a similar value— like. If you look from afar, you don't notice Something that stands up, it looks somewhat whole. The cyan rim is cuz the Sky is Cyan and it helps with Nightmare's silhouette since otherwise he'd get lost in the trees...!!
Other random color stuff is for example the Red parts in the mountains?? Those also follow a Logic in My Mind™, as they work in a transition between the low sat blue/cyan of the mountains to the purple shadows. Like. If I only used the blue and purple, then it'd look Far away, but since I wanted it to look cohesive and Not actually that Afar I put in some low sat pink, which looks red in context...!! So it has a tryad, blue, purple and pink and. Looks more harmonious.......!!
There's also hmmm. Random Sections of color to help with silhouette/differentiation— which I usually make a bit Lighter/more saturated in a similar color
Like. Nightmare's hoodie is a Saturated, Bluer shadow (vs the cyan shadow of the sweater), as it helps w distinguishing the shadow from Afar but isn't that disruptive to the Only Blue thing I have going on
While I have random Yellow on Ink's scarf to help w silhouette as the shadows would look too plain (chest-scarf) or would have gotten confused since they'd have a similar dark tone w other shadows (beginning of the tails-scarf)
Something similar happens w Ink overalls. Since I already used a yellowish tone to color bounce w the golden rim of his top (see the underarm...!!) I "recycled" it by using it as a Silhouette distinguisher on the hole of his pants, and exaggerated it on his leg to avoid confusion....!!!
It's hard to describe but also try to limit your color palette...!! You can achieve a lot of effects w reusing colors for the Effects I described here and like. Limiting the colors you use help a lot w making art look cohesive/not eye owie, which is a thing I like to evade........!!!!
If you have any questions feel free to ask!!:]]
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