I finally learned why my digital paintings looked so flat after 3 years

I was watching a tutorial by Loish last week and she mentioned using a color wheel overlay to check your values, which I never did. Turns out my contrast was way too low on most pieces because I was picking colors by eye instead of actually checking the numbers. Has anyone else had a basic technique like that totally change their workflow?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan23627d ago

That reminds me of when I tried to learn how to mix colors in acrylics a few years back. I kept wondering why my greens looked so dead and then someone told me I was using too much white instead of yellow to lighten them. Seems like we all have that one thing that holds us back until someone points it out.

robinson.hannah7d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah I actually read something about this somewhere, how using white to lighten anything just makes it look pasty and dead. The article said yellow or even a lighter version of the color itself is way better for keeping the vibrancy going. It's like with skin tones too - I tried mixing a pale peach once and it turned out looking like a corpse until I swapped the white for a tiny bit of warm yellow. I guess the whole thing is that white kind of kills the saturation, so you end up with this chalky mess that has no life to it. Really changed how I think about mixing now, just that one tip.

kim.zara27d ago

Ditch the color wheel and go with gut feeling instead. I've been painting for years and never touched a color wheel overlay, my stuff still looks solid because I rely on my eyes and what feels right. Sometimes overthinking the technical side just kills the natural flow of your art.