Need Help Realistic Coloring

Oh my heck you do?? Coloring is my favorite part

What folks have said here are all good reasons. There are so many.

But for me, part of the reason why one should always try to choose the color directly is because of all the brilliant ways colors actively try to trick us. The brain blends more things than you would think and training yourself to see past it and trying to pick up on what is actually happening will be far more useful than just relying on the eyedropper. The main reason is because that takes all interpretation and artistry out of it... colors have mood, after all, and your subconscious choices will reflect that.

Two,... well, your subconscious choices are fooled easily. Take color illusions for example:

http://bytesofscience.blogspot.com/2007/07...usions-and.html

http://www.moillusions.com/2008/02/color-t...new-aspect.html

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/09/1...ical-illusions/

http://amazingillusions.blogspot.com/2007/...t-illusion.html

http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=705

The big point in all of those links is that color is all about its relationship to other colors, usually those right next to it. A tone that looks pink really can be a gray green. Light and shadow will completely upset tones as well and a white in sunlight will have certain reactions to being in shadow... but you still need to know how to spot this, else you'll be drawing the wrong tones.

Take for example this piece: http://lipking.com/images/Lipking_figure_36x18.jpg

Her armpit area on the back looks warm and peachy from the sunlight. But her elbow is much colder pink. Her bum is even blue and purple. But here's the test: take this image into photoshop and eyedropper it to see what it actually IS. They're not outright blue, not outright cold or warm, It's about how the tones relate to each other as well as about how the light bounces through skin (areas like the nose and forehead have less flesh, which is why they're colder but cheeks look rosier — they have more blood running through them), light bouncing off materials, and including the light color itself.

If you took a photo of this scene the artist Jeremy Lipking painted and eyedropped those areas to paint that way, you may get something similar, but it wouldn't FEEL as right. Because he knows the physics behind the light, because he knows how skin works and has studied it, because he has developed his observation skills, this piece feels more real than a photo would because of those slight nuanced exaggerations he's imbued.

This is why forcing yourself to see and understand the color subtleties will help you immensely. It's not to make it harder for you now, but to develop you well to make you a better artist from now to the future. ;}

Oh, and if you really want to bake your noodle, try this:
http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77 (it looks odd, but pick your country and I think it'll work)

http://www.jscottsmith.com/2009/06/16/how-...-you-see-color/ <-- this is a round about way of getting to the test if that link doesn't work.

Incidentally, I got a perfect score first time. ;} *wink*

This post has been edited by Merekat on Nov 6 2009, 04:17 PM

Jerk, I got a 15. I was perfect in everything except for the third bar, and only on the green side. For some reason I was having a lot of trouble distinguishing between the colors. Well, that's not true, I could tell the differences, I just couldn't tell where each one would go in order. I just kept flipping them around until I found something I thought worked, I may have gave up a little . Well at least now I know my eyes have a bit of trouble with the cyanish-purple-green part of the spectrum. Guess I'm just not as pro as Mere haha.

I got perfect too :3

Yet I suck many times more than Mere.

T___T~

Hmm... I got a 48. This does not bode well. Oh no. Oh nonononono...

A 4, with the mistakes being in the green-blue transition. I blame staring at all those other illusions beforehand :V

Got a 20. Man that thing makes you work! >.<
Something that helped was I would drag a tile on and off of the bar, making all the others slide back and forth one space. I could tell the difference in light/darkness sometimes where I couldn't tell by hue alone.

@Blondie: I don't like coloring because I take so long to do it before I'm satisfied. Often I get bored and stop working on pictures simply because I'm tired of it.

This post has been edited by Sajomir on Nov 6 2009, 11:04 PM

I got a 10! woo! it started to mess with my eyes after awhile.

- Zek

Heheheheheh >:3
I got a 0, thank God. If I'd gotten anything else, I would have probably been pissed off all night. Thanks a lot for the most stressful five minutes I've had in awhile Mere.
Strong scores from everyone though, as expected from an art forum. *Is proud of everyone, and happy to share the title 'artist' with you guys.* I wonder how the 'average' person would do on such a test? I have to admit, I had to do a little thinking for the green/purple hue bar, so I think my practice and hard work might have made up for my eyes a little bit, which makes me very happy. =D

This post has been edited by jimthegreat1012 on Nov 7 2009, 09:18 PM

I got bored and made my brother take it. He's a computer science major and is not an artist at all.

He got a 4 compared to my 20 >.<

Heh, ouch.
Well, some people will just have good vision, of course. It's not like not being able to tell the difference between two hues out of a thousand is gonna hurt you as an artist too much anyway, hahah.

This post has been edited by jimthegreat1012 on Nov 8 2009, 03:49 PM

hehe well, don't feel too bad, guys. It's not a reflection on your ability as an artist whether or not you got a good score on that test. The test only really shows two things: one, the state of your hue choosing abilities as they currently are; two, perhaps a bit of where your genetics makes hues a little more tricky.

Guys typically have more troubles with the red/greens I think was the statistic (but girls can have color blindness influences too). If you find that a good section of your issues were in that area, you might want to take a couple of those eye tests to see if there's a measure of color trouble.

Secondly, that test can show where you may want to practice more hue differentiation. One of the troubles was because some of those squares were a different value, not only different hues. THIS is where the practice and learning to tell your color nuances would come into play. You can improve there, it's a learned trait.

I recently had the opportunity to worry about hue tones to the tune of 3500 variations just to whittle down what I wanted (which was considerably less a count than that). After judging that many tones, I rather quickly learned to spot right off whether something was greener or too saturated or whatever than I wanted. Looking back, it would have been intriguing to take the test prior to the work and then see if there was a difference after. But alas, I found the test only after. ;}

So the point is, some parts are just the equipment you have and you'll need to work around it, or work harder in those areas. And the other flip side is you can improve your discernment through practice. Perhaps it wasn't until now that you seriously started looking at these nuances; I know it was within the last year or two for me that I could look at something that looked one color and see many.

You'll get it. You just have to start looking for it. ;}

I did the test and my score was 4.

Seriously Merekat where did you find all those illusions lol? On this one Link I was like that's such a load of crap my eyes aren't blind and in the top image, squares A and B are different fucking colors, but after a screen shot and an eyedropper test alas they were in fact the same color, but I still can't see it. They look like different colors to me.

@Sajomir: Well I really like doing detail, and as far as getting "tired" of it.. that's what self-discipline is for! If you did complete a coloring to your satisfaction I bet you'd think it was worth it.

This post has been edited by MysieBlondie on Nov 9 2009, 04:15 AM

I feel so small T.T

This post has been edited by beta male on Nov 9 2009, 12:30 PM

lol Beta, you're still one of the posters here that I look up to, eye for color or no.

Part of me wants to blame my monitor for this stupid color test, too, but that'd be kinda lame on my part. XD

Thanks Saj. Hm... I took the test again and got a 4. I guess I was just too sleepy or something at the time. It also helps to look at the bars from a distance. I'm guessing that says something when actually painting.