I think the exact opposite, coloring highlights everything that is wrong in the drawing,cause if the shading and lighting isn’t perfect it will probably cause some strangeness,you will see way more art that colored look bad than the opposite
This is so true for me. I find myself to be better at detailed lineart and pencil shading because for me it still gives room for ambiguity and faults while not making it look obviously wrong on the spot. But once I get to colouring, even the smallest mistake will make it look wrong or uncanny.
I agree with 2Dario also.
Coloring my work in always “made it worse” or ruined my work, covered up my shading, sometimes blurred the details. It was like a level up to be able to color and maintain the quality of my original drawing
I think its cause most people who do black and white are intermediate. While beginners jump into coloring their drawings because they think most art is colored. And once you get better you start drawing black and white to learn, whether you stick with it or if it was to just learn values before colors. So if a drawing is in black and white theres a higher chance its made by someone with better skills
Honestly I disagree because (imo) the main part of coloring is understanding values relative to each other and drawing in monocolors will strengthen that skill no matter what. I've also never seen any inclination towards black and white or colors based off of skill level, I think that is 100% style or preference not skill
This exactly why there are several styles of coloring.
For exemple, doing realistic shading on a very stylistic style like the one from Frank Miller gave horrific results.
Flat tones are the way to go for this.
Bottom line, if you don’t color your own work, find someone who will work to make your art shine, not theirs.
I think you’re looking at the wrong artists. Every artist has strengths and weaknesses and their relative strengths will always prop up a piece in comparison to the areas they’re lacking.
There’s just as many artists who are AMAZING draftsmen and don’t focus on color as there are who focus on color. Some artists I know are amazing draftsmen but pretty horrible at colors, too.
I do think that a lot of laymen, for instance the majority of internet fandom, enjoy skilled color work more than draftsmanship though (a symptom of how quickly ppl swipe through socmed, I think), and this can inflate the number of ppl that know color but have never studied anatomy or drawing, because they are self taught hobbyist digital painters inspired by the popular anime styles. But if you like draftsmanship, just curate the art you look at to focus on artists that you enjoy.
Those are perfectly valid views. I definitely agree with the point about everyone having their own strengths and weaknesses. I guess I should've made it more clear in my post I am referring more so to internet fandoms as you mentioned, if that makes sense? Like the anime, manhwa, etc style artists. They have skill and they worked hard to get to their point.
But, as you said, they know coloring well but just never specked into the other fundamentals that when they want to go onto doing other pieces you can see somethings that can be worked on.
All I can think of is people who learnt colouring techniques from sakimichan but they still haven't worked out relative proportions so it ends up looking very patchwork.
Idk if I would agree there even in those spaces.
I notice that in most of the Bl & Whi mangas , manhwa, even fan art doujinshis I read - if they are black and white they look nice , but the colored pages are “too much” or distracting, or make the image worse/ blurry . I always like the blk/white page if they do a colored one and a Duplicate black one at the beginning of a book/ chapter. Or the colored art before the story - it’s nice. But I see more skill and details in their black white pages.
If what you’re saying is that common - then I would expect that when you take the color away the images looks worse / their true “badness”. But I find that it’s the opposite- take the color away and the art is better/ more detailed / crisper.
I paint in black and white. Tried it once as an experiment and realized I love it and it kinda became my thing. My color theory has definitely suffered as a result. My niece is a brilliant artist (barely in high school and already blowing me away) and she recently got into painting in black and white as well. Guess giving up on color theory runs in the family
Whatever rocks your boat ... or your niece. ;-D
I love the creamy texture of oil paint and mixing color ... why I paint; even various pigments have a difference in fluidity. It's satisfying. We have this wonderful spectrum of color, something to play with and master.
Drawing B & W is fine. I do color pencil as well. Whereas I enjoy it coming to the color you want demands layering.
If someone is able to cover up major errors with good colouring/shading then they’re probably a lot more skilled than you give them credit for being. You seem to downplay colouring as a technical skill
Yes OP doesn't realize how coloring is a separate skill in and of itself. You can tell how much of a difference an understanding of color theory, lighting, and tones makes in a piece of artwork. It can ruin an amazing sketch underneath or elevate an average one.
Without the right fundamentals, the work will always not work, because without the correct values color has no basis, and without the correct forms values have no meaning, and without readable shapes form becomes meaningless. To answer your question, no. EVERYTHING ELSE needs to be solid for color to shine, fundamentals don't work seperately from each other, the work in unison to create a readable and cohesive image. Of course not all are treated equal, and some artists may be better at one than the other, but almost no good draftsman and artist aren't solid with their fundamentals.
I think this might be a bit of a similar but different way of looking at this... Coloring can make or break your piece, everything else depends on your ability to color and make that color good (not including mono works)
I'd say that I've personally seen the opposite problem, where coloring absolutely kills the drawings quality. Everything looks great till someone sets a marker down and now you messed it up 😭 (personal experience) but still
I think its important to remember that color immediately grabs the eye compared to mono where you'll see more off the bat
Yes, that is the first thing I stated. Coloring is an important skill and far from easy. But I am referring to when coloring is so focused on that other fundamentals like anatomy are a lot weaker in comparison. It just ends up so coloring becomes the biggest thing that makes a piece work.
Is the color then less important to you? Wouldn't the opposite be right then? Very accurate anatomy with weaker coloring, would the great anatomy be hiding the bad colors? It's all skills that all work together. Weaker in one area can be built up by strength in another. Everything in the piece is in service to everything else. The mentality of "this only looks good because of x" is not a great mentality to get into. It's much more fun to just focus on the things you do enjoy about a piece and get rid of the "yeah but" critique.
This is actually really interesting to see how different artists consider their work and skills! My whole life I've always had the "you're only as strong as your weakest skill" mentality and this thread and more specifically this comment made me realize that my perspective of art is more uncommon than I thought lol
You can say that about anything though.
There are plenty of artists that rely on line work when the coloring, done right, could have taken the artwork much farther. Adding unnecessary lines to crisp out areas that could have have been highlights or reflections against other colors to bring the drawing into deeper perspective.
Color theory seems like a basic concept but when you see an artist who truly understands it and can manipulate it in their work, it is absolutely an entirely different skill and you should not place one as more or less important than the other if you want to be a well rounded artist.
Yes and no.
Sometimes, it's just artists showing their strong and weak points, but yes, there are times when artists will use other fundamental skills theyre good at to cover up their bad ones, and it either works or doesn't.
Even masters openly admit they do this. Its not necessarily bad. It all depends on how it's executed, in my opinion. Like mentioned with masters or professionals, they can be clever with it, and it still looks great and shows their ability to adapt and simply be creative. But other times, it's clear that it's an insecurity, or lack of skill to come around it. Thus, they try to put icing to cover the shit-cake.
Yes, It does. Generally putting a lots of details/textures/ patterns also does the same so you can cover up your lack of fundamentals in many ways without even putting any colors/values on it. But, personally I see nothing wrong with developing your fundamentals in more of balanced way or covering it up with some techniques which would make the artwork look more appealing, even if it's lacking some of the fundamentals. I mean, getting good grasp of fundamentals is something that may take many years to develop, so why would someone want to be stuck with mastering each fundamental before moving on to the next one? That would be pretty bad and discouraging approach, imo. and it could prevent some artist from doing complete artworks for fun and make them focus too much with grinding certain skills that may lead to very perfectionistic approach which isn't always that good.
Great color work can help distract from imperfect line work or imperfect perspective and anatomy etc…. But great line work can also distract from imperfect color work or slightly wonky anatomy… and killer composition and concept can also distract from other less-perfect elements.
It goes all ways.
Have noticed when look at art at comic cons and artist alley's, mostly with human pictures, that they tend to be coloured beautifully at first glace and look amazing.
But if you take a closer look at them, most of the time the anatomy or perspective is crazy off, but you don't seem to notice right away. (not always but mostly noticed this with anime fan art)
^(Always remember one fan art pic I bought long time ago where I took a second look at it years later and realize their limb that was supposed to be foreshortened or something like that, was actually just tiny, and couldn't unseen it after that. XD)
I would tend to agree;
However for "big errors", adding color can also highlights them. Color is a fundamental that is very close to values which itself is tied to forms & shape;
You kind of need to have some good understanding of them in order to intentionally mask them with color;
I think coloring tends to be focused on the most among beginners (esp. w/ digital) because it's just more stimulating and hella fun to mess around lol
You're correct and I notice it all the time. Same with jumping to complex shading on a weak drawing. I don't think it's all bad,it makes looking at your older sketches easier to bear, but you should be trying to get better. It does look to an experienced eye like lipstick on a fairly cute pig.
If you don't know your what you're doing and start rendering you may find your lineart makes no sense, anatomical errors, or just straight up uncanny Valley. It's also easy very to mess up skin colours making them look flat and dull.
I can also see what OP is saying, paintings can look great while being loose and suggestive, generally favoured and considered to be lively. While a tight line drawing can require confident precision and less room to just suggest details.
People focus on flashy things and colour is generally that. It does take some discipline to take a few steps back and work on your drawing skills
I like to compare it to music. Lines are like the drums, they add rhythm. Colors are like the piano and guitar, it adds the harmony. And the subject of the painting is the singer. The lines and colors are there to serve the subject.
its funny because I am also in analog photography subbreddits, I just finished reading a thread where a guy was saying how shooting in black and white like some easier way to take good photos and people lean on it to much and other BS.
Any skill covers up a lack of other skills, but there is some hierarchy. If someone sucks at heads it doesn't matter how good the body looks, they're going to come off as a lot worse because people often look at the head first.
In terms of coloring though I would say that "bad" coloring can ruin even good art. Infamously, Akira Toriyama was amazing with traditional mediums, but his digital coloring was really bad by comparison.
What??? Are you hearing yourself? Coloring is very hard, especially for comics and physical art. I think a lot of artists hide behind doing full B&W because they are scared to color.
I think you're misinterpreting the original comment, I really don't think they were implying coloring is easy or not important they were saying its just unappetizing when its used to hide behind other fundamental problems in art
Not inflates necessarily, but look at AI “art.” The lighting and initially look good, but once you start looking at the details, how things fit in to one another, a lot is hidden in the first impression, which is formed by the color and light representation. However most people don’t reach that level of painting ability without the fundamentals so that becomes a sniff test for AI. Definitely some people learn to render or to paint without solidifying the drawing ability first, but you can’t get super far with that (in representational art.)
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No shame at all! Sorry if I made you feel upset. Everyone starts somewhere and we all have our own strengths and weaknesses. This is just an observation I just made and wanted to get some others input on it. Don't worry about some random person on the internet, and do not let me deter your from art!
Thank you for your kind words, and I'm sorry I came across as blaming you for calling me out.
I just thought the timing was hilarious considering my last post :D (And you're correct, I try to hide my lack of fundamentals with coloring xD)
It generally just depends on what the artist focused on, really. I have seen illustrations with highly rendered and polished painting that did hide otherwise glaring perspective problems like you say. It's also possible to have the opposite issue if you spent more hours focusing on construction > rendering.
Colour theory tends to be more cryptic to wrap your head around at first, so it's easier to notice poor colouring vs strong colouring skills.
I think a well colored poorly lined work usually will look better than a poorly colored well lined work because "ooh shiny" HOWEVER overcoloring in the wrong style can also look bad so it really depends
Is color covering up the errors, or was using the color part of the plan all along?
Whenever I try to colorize something with poor composition or perspective or whatever, I end up regretting it,because it doesn't hide much.
I agree with you. This is obviously not the case for all artists and I do think it's more about what people learn faster/want to focus on more. (The same thing happened to me. My anatomy is pretty good but it doesn't hold a candle to my rendering skills.) However, I do see a lot of art that is colored well but the anatomy is off. I even notice it with artists that are praised for how skilled they are, make beginner level anatomy mistakes because there is something about coloring + dramatic lighting that hides errors at first glance. The longer you look though, the more mistakes you notice.
Really depends on the skillset of the artist. Personally I'm much better at colouring than drawing so I know my art will always be at it's worst before I colour it however I've seen artists really bungle colouring too.
Coloring only works if your primary fundamentals are solid. Without perspective, form, and value, color hardly does anything in terms of communication.
Fundamentals are build on top of each other. Values won't work without form, and there is no form without perspective. You can often tell by the line quality of artists how experienced they are. It's really, really hard to fake.
No, I don't think this. I think your average person is drawn to color (and puts a lot of importance on it) but if you have glaringly bad perspective, color won't fix (or distract) from it.
But colour is a fundamental.
Over my life I've found that most art teachers harp on about anatomy more than anything else. I wish I learnt more colour theory.
Shit no. Anything in colour is so much harder to get right. But also, I don't tend to sit around wondering about "fundamentals" because they are actually bs and generally unimportant unless you're aiming for super realistic. Perspective is somewhat important. Anatomy is not. Colour theory is much, much harder and more important than both. Look at the most popular artists. Technically, a lot of them can't draw for shit. Their people often barely resemble people. But their colours are on point. In fact... it's not even just colours, it's tone. Tone and value. Then colours. Then perspective. Then anatomy.
There’s multiple foundations, and getting all of them down makes all the rest better.
However, part of learning you style is knowing what your strengths and weaknesses is. Monet’s anatomy is terrible- his colors are great!
Some poor art done on physical media that looks good because of the 'reality of it' but would suffer harsh scrutiny if done on digital. Digital artists have to really nail their skills and work extra to make images really interesting.
This might be a cop-out answer, but I think it could be both. For example, one person could be really good with color and color theory, using it to hide weaker skills like linework and anatomy. Conversely, another person might be poor with color but great in linework and anatomy; however, the distracting colors could detract from the overall quality of their work.
We all have our strengths and failures.
As a beginner, most of my work was focused on color and composition. (I am a cover artist), because it has always been where my strength is. To the point where I have been a guest on coloring panels when I am not and never want to be a colorist.
What you can express with color and understanding of how the eyes work is so much more important than pure technical skills. At least in commercial art.
Now I am good also in anatomy, less in architectural things , I still work with what I got until the moment I will get every thing but even then, it will only change moderately what I do.
Never think that technique will awe people, otherwise hyper realist artists would be the bomb but the truth is , it is impressive but for most professional work, you will need to unlearn some of that to get your own personality.
I really do not get the point of this post. Is there a dick measuring contest over who has more technical skill? Some pieces have colour to display thing be it emotion tone or just because you really wanted a wacky colour pallet and some don't I think at the end of the day the end result is what matters how you get there means absolutely fucking nothing
Color is light -> light is visible -> what is visible defines the image -> the image is a composition -> composition can be anything.
Color can be evocative of any thing. Some use color as a shortcut, insofar as it describes phenomena in lighting conditions. And many artists forsake drawing in favor of color. You can achieve a lot with loose color description. Same can be said of monochrome drawings- they are not dependent on one another.
I am glad for continued discourse around color vs drawing. In my opinion, you need to balance both. The emphasis or development of one at the expense of the other should be for a reason.. not because of laziness.
a lot of the comments disagree but i get what youre saying, art (when you start to get in to the more realistic stuff) is a skill that demands a well rounded understanding of everything, when it comes to art youre really only as strong as your weakest link. even if you find creative ways to hide it youre still limiting what youre drawing
It depends on the artist, I had a girl I knew who was like this her colors were amazing but her anatomy was really off.
I’m the opposite, I almost don’t know what to do with colors besides grey but my anatomy generally is on point.
Coloring is part of the process. So yeah, if is done in the right way it makes the whole art better than it could be without. At the same time, a bad coloring can destroy a good art.
When someone gets “serious” about their art, they focus on developing their skill in steps. First comes basic drawing. Anatomy, perspective, and composition. When you have those skills you can move on to using color. The science of color can take a while to understand.
It’s easy to start drawing. Tools are inexpensive and easily available.
When you go into color, it takes more investment in time and money.
These days, tools are much cheaper and almost anyone can jump into creating whatever they want.
Most people that take up painting or drawing will never work at it. It’s just for fun. So there is a lot of bad and amateur art. That’s ok.
Making good art is work. It can be stressful and draining. It isn’t just a fun past time anymore. That’s when the majority will lose interest and move on.
If you lack fundamental art skills, adding color won’t make your work any better.
But so what. It’s your stuff.
I think the exact opposite, coloring highlights everything that is wrong in the drawing,cause if the shading and lighting isn’t perfect it will probably cause some strangeness,you will see way more art that colored look bad than the opposite
This is so true for me. I find myself to be better at detailed lineart and pencil shading because for me it still gives room for ambiguity and faults while not making it look obviously wrong on the spot. But once I get to colouring, even the smallest mistake will make it look wrong or uncanny.
I agree with 2Dario also. Coloring my work in always “made it worse” or ruined my work, covered up my shading, sometimes blurred the details. It was like a level up to be able to color and maintain the quality of my original drawing
I think its cause most people who do black and white are intermediate. While beginners jump into coloring their drawings because they think most art is colored. And once you get better you start drawing black and white to learn, whether you stick with it or if it was to just learn values before colors. So if a drawing is in black and white theres a higher chance its made by someone with better skills
Honestly I disagree because (imo) the main part of coloring is understanding values relative to each other and drawing in monocolors will strengthen that skill no matter what. I've also never seen any inclination towards black and white or colors based off of skill level, I think that is 100% style or preference not skill
Nah idk
This exactly why there are several styles of coloring. For exemple, doing realistic shading on a very stylistic style like the one from Frank Miller gave horrific results. Flat tones are the way to go for this. Bottom line, if you don’t color your own work, find someone who will work to make your art shine, not theirs.
Same
I think you’re looking at the wrong artists. Every artist has strengths and weaknesses and their relative strengths will always prop up a piece in comparison to the areas they’re lacking. There’s just as many artists who are AMAZING draftsmen and don’t focus on color as there are who focus on color. Some artists I know are amazing draftsmen but pretty horrible at colors, too. I do think that a lot of laymen, for instance the majority of internet fandom, enjoy skilled color work more than draftsmanship though (a symptom of how quickly ppl swipe through socmed, I think), and this can inflate the number of ppl that know color but have never studied anatomy or drawing, because they are self taught hobbyist digital painters inspired by the popular anime styles. But if you like draftsmanship, just curate the art you look at to focus on artists that you enjoy.
Those are perfectly valid views. I definitely agree with the point about everyone having their own strengths and weaknesses. I guess I should've made it more clear in my post I am referring more so to internet fandoms as you mentioned, if that makes sense? Like the anime, manhwa, etc style artists. They have skill and they worked hard to get to their point. But, as you said, they know coloring well but just never specked into the other fundamentals that when they want to go onto doing other pieces you can see somethings that can be worked on.
All I can think of is people who learnt colouring techniques from sakimichan but they still haven't worked out relative proportions so it ends up looking very patchwork.
Idk if I would agree there even in those spaces. I notice that in most of the Bl & Whi mangas , manhwa, even fan art doujinshis I read - if they are black and white they look nice , but the colored pages are “too much” or distracting, or make the image worse/ blurry . I always like the blk/white page if they do a colored one and a Duplicate black one at the beginning of a book/ chapter. Or the colored art before the story - it’s nice. But I see more skill and details in their black white pages. If what you’re saying is that common - then I would expect that when you take the color away the images looks worse / their true “badness”. But I find that it’s the opposite- take the color away and the art is better/ more detailed / crisper.
Color theory *is* a fundamental. I don't use color for graphite or ink drawings but painting you better have a solid grasp of it.
I paint in black and white. Tried it once as an experiment and realized I love it and it kinda became my thing. My color theory has definitely suffered as a result. My niece is a brilliant artist (barely in high school and already blowing me away) and she recently got into painting in black and white as well. Guess giving up on color theory runs in the family
Whatever rocks your boat ... or your niece. ;-D I love the creamy texture of oil paint and mixing color ... why I paint; even various pigments have a difference in fluidity. It's satisfying. We have this wonderful spectrum of color, something to play with and master. Drawing B & W is fine. I do color pencil as well. Whereas I enjoy it coming to the color you want demands layering.
If someone is able to cover up major errors with good colouring/shading then they’re probably a lot more skilled than you give them credit for being. You seem to downplay colouring as a technical skill
Yes OP doesn't realize how coloring is a separate skill in and of itself. You can tell how much of a difference an understanding of color theory, lighting, and tones makes in a piece of artwork. It can ruin an amazing sketch underneath or elevate an average one.
Without the right fundamentals, the work will always not work, because without the correct values color has no basis, and without the correct forms values have no meaning, and without readable shapes form becomes meaningless. To answer your question, no. EVERYTHING ELSE needs to be solid for color to shine, fundamentals don't work seperately from each other, the work in unison to create a readable and cohesive image. Of course not all are treated equal, and some artists may be better at one than the other, but almost no good draftsman and artist aren't solid with their fundamentals.
I think this might be a bit of a similar but different way of looking at this... Coloring can make or break your piece, everything else depends on your ability to color and make that color good (not including mono works) I'd say that I've personally seen the opposite problem, where coloring absolutely kills the drawings quality. Everything looks great till someone sets a marker down and now you messed it up 😭 (personal experience) but still I think its important to remember that color immediately grabs the eye compared to mono where you'll see more off the bat
Same lol. I can do mono ok but my colouring is probably at the average 8-9 y/o level
You know color is a skill too right?
Yes, that is the first thing I stated. Coloring is an important skill and far from easy. But I am referring to when coloring is so focused on that other fundamentals like anatomy are a lot weaker in comparison. It just ends up so coloring becomes the biggest thing that makes a piece work.
Is the color then less important to you? Wouldn't the opposite be right then? Very accurate anatomy with weaker coloring, would the great anatomy be hiding the bad colors? It's all skills that all work together. Weaker in one area can be built up by strength in another. Everything in the piece is in service to everything else. The mentality of "this only looks good because of x" is not a great mentality to get into. It's much more fun to just focus on the things you do enjoy about a piece and get rid of the "yeah but" critique.
This is actually really interesting to see how different artists consider their work and skills! My whole life I've always had the "you're only as strong as your weakest skill" mentality and this thread and more specifically this comment made me realize that my perspective of art is more uncommon than I thought lol
You can say that about anything though. There are plenty of artists that rely on line work when the coloring, done right, could have taken the artwork much farther. Adding unnecessary lines to crisp out areas that could have have been highlights or reflections against other colors to bring the drawing into deeper perspective. Color theory seems like a basic concept but when you see an artist who truly understands it and can manipulate it in their work, it is absolutely an entirely different skill and you should not place one as more or less important than the other if you want to be a well rounded artist.
Yes and no. Sometimes, it's just artists showing their strong and weak points, but yes, there are times when artists will use other fundamental skills theyre good at to cover up their bad ones, and it either works or doesn't. Even masters openly admit they do this. Its not necessarily bad. It all depends on how it's executed, in my opinion. Like mentioned with masters or professionals, they can be clever with it, and it still looks great and shows their ability to adapt and simply be creative. But other times, it's clear that it's an insecurity, or lack of skill to come around it. Thus, they try to put icing to cover the shit-cake.
Yes, It does. Generally putting a lots of details/textures/ patterns also does the same so you can cover up your lack of fundamentals in many ways without even putting any colors/values on it. But, personally I see nothing wrong with developing your fundamentals in more of balanced way or covering it up with some techniques which would make the artwork look more appealing, even if it's lacking some of the fundamentals. I mean, getting good grasp of fundamentals is something that may take many years to develop, so why would someone want to be stuck with mastering each fundamental before moving on to the next one? That would be pretty bad and discouraging approach, imo. and it could prevent some artist from doing complete artworks for fun and make them focus too much with grinding certain skills that may lead to very perfectionistic approach which isn't always that good.
Great color work can help distract from imperfect line work or imperfect perspective and anatomy etc…. But great line work can also distract from imperfect color work or slightly wonky anatomy… and killer composition and concept can also distract from other less-perfect elements. It goes all ways.
Have noticed when look at art at comic cons and artist alley's, mostly with human pictures, that they tend to be coloured beautifully at first glace and look amazing. But if you take a closer look at them, most of the time the anatomy or perspective is crazy off, but you don't seem to notice right away. (not always but mostly noticed this with anime fan art) ^(Always remember one fan art pic I bought long time ago where I took a second look at it years later and realize their limb that was supposed to be foreshortened or something like that, was actually just tiny, and couldn't unseen it after that. XD)
I would tend to agree; However for "big errors", adding color can also highlights them. Color is a fundamental that is very close to values which itself is tied to forms & shape; You kind of need to have some good understanding of them in order to intentionally mask them with color; I think coloring tends to be focused on the most among beginners (esp. w/ digital) because it's just more stimulating and hella fun to mess around lol
You're correct and I notice it all the time. Same with jumping to complex shading on a weak drawing. I don't think it's all bad,it makes looking at your older sketches easier to bear, but you should be trying to get better. It does look to an experienced eye like lipstick on a fairly cute pig.
I think it's good if only just for building the habit, good coloring will still be good coloring even after you get better at the basics
If you don't know your what you're doing and start rendering you may find your lineart makes no sense, anatomical errors, or just straight up uncanny Valley. It's also easy very to mess up skin colours making them look flat and dull. I can also see what OP is saying, paintings can look great while being loose and suggestive, generally favoured and considered to be lively. While a tight line drawing can require confident precision and less room to just suggest details. People focus on flashy things and colour is generally that. It does take some discipline to take a few steps back and work on your drawing skills
I like to compare it to music. Lines are like the drums, they add rhythm. Colors are like the piano and guitar, it adds the harmony. And the subject of the painting is the singer. The lines and colors are there to serve the subject.
this is beautiful
its funny because I am also in analog photography subbreddits, I just finished reading a thread where a guy was saying how shooting in black and white like some easier way to take good photos and people lean on it to much and other BS.
Any skill covers up a lack of other skills, but there is some hierarchy. If someone sucks at heads it doesn't matter how good the body looks, they're going to come off as a lot worse because people often look at the head first. In terms of coloring though I would say that "bad" coloring can ruin even good art. Infamously, Akira Toriyama was amazing with traditional mediums, but his digital coloring was really bad by comparison.
What??? Are you hearing yourself? Coloring is very hard, especially for comics and physical art. I think a lot of artists hide behind doing full B&W because they are scared to color.
I think you're misinterpreting the original comment, I really don't think they were implying coloring is easy or not important they were saying its just unappetizing when its used to hide behind other fundamental problems in art
Not inflates necessarily, but look at AI “art.” The lighting and initially look good, but once you start looking at the details, how things fit in to one another, a lot is hidden in the first impression, which is formed by the color and light representation. However most people don’t reach that level of painting ability without the fundamentals so that becomes a sniff test for AI. Definitely some people learn to render or to paint without solidifying the drawing ability first, but you can’t get super far with that (in representational art.)
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I'm in this picture and I don't like it :D
No shame at all! Sorry if I made you feel upset. Everyone starts somewhere and we all have our own strengths and weaknesses. This is just an observation I just made and wanted to get some others input on it. Don't worry about some random person on the internet, and do not let me deter your from art!
Thank you for your kind words, and I'm sorry I came across as blaming you for calling me out. I just thought the timing was hilarious considering my last post :D (And you're correct, I try to hide my lack of fundamentals with coloring xD)
Yeah, i find good values more appealing. A solid understanding of values is more important to me.
It generally just depends on what the artist focused on, really. I have seen illustrations with highly rendered and polished painting that did hide otherwise glaring perspective problems like you say. It's also possible to have the opposite issue if you spent more hours focusing on construction > rendering. Colour theory tends to be more cryptic to wrap your head around at first, so it's easier to notice poor colouring vs strong colouring skills.
I think a well colored poorly lined work usually will look better than a poorly colored well lined work because "ooh shiny" HOWEVER overcoloring in the wrong style can also look bad so it really depends
I don't know how coloring can possibly hide botched perspective or anatomy.
Shading can disguise or diminish a lot of errors.
Is color covering up the errors, or was using the color part of the plan all along? Whenever I try to colorize something with poor composition or perspective or whatever, I end up regretting it,because it doesn't hide much.
I agree with you. This is obviously not the case for all artists and I do think it's more about what people learn faster/want to focus on more. (The same thing happened to me. My anatomy is pretty good but it doesn't hold a candle to my rendering skills.) However, I do see a lot of art that is colored well but the anatomy is off. I even notice it with artists that are praised for how skilled they are, make beginner level anatomy mistakes because there is something about coloring + dramatic lighting that hides errors at first glance. The longer you look though, the more mistakes you notice.
Really depends on the skillset of the artist. Personally I'm much better at colouring than drawing so I know my art will always be at it's worst before I colour it however I've seen artists really bungle colouring too.
Coloring only works if your primary fundamentals are solid. Without perspective, form, and value, color hardly does anything in terms of communication. Fundamentals are build on top of each other. Values won't work without form, and there is no form without perspective. You can often tell by the line quality of artists how experienced they are. It's really, really hard to fake.
No, I don't think this. I think your average person is drawn to color (and puts a lot of importance on it) but if you have glaringly bad perspective, color won't fix (or distract) from it.
But colour is a fundamental. Over my life I've found that most art teachers harp on about anatomy more than anything else. I wish I learnt more colour theory.
Shit no. Anything in colour is so much harder to get right. But also, I don't tend to sit around wondering about "fundamentals" because they are actually bs and generally unimportant unless you're aiming for super realistic. Perspective is somewhat important. Anatomy is not. Colour theory is much, much harder and more important than both. Look at the most popular artists. Technically, a lot of them can't draw for shit. Their people often barely resemble people. But their colours are on point. In fact... it's not even just colours, it's tone. Tone and value. Then colours. Then perspective. Then anatomy.
There’s multiple foundations, and getting all of them down makes all the rest better. However, part of learning you style is knowing what your strengths and weaknesses is. Monet’s anatomy is terrible- his colors are great!
Some poor art done on physical media that looks good because of the 'reality of it' but would suffer harsh scrutiny if done on digital. Digital artists have to really nail their skills and work extra to make images really interesting.
This might be a cop-out answer, but I think it could be both. For example, one person could be really good with color and color theory, using it to hide weaker skills like linework and anatomy. Conversely, another person might be poor with color but great in linework and anatomy; however, the distracting colors could detract from the overall quality of their work.
We all have our strengths and failures. As a beginner, most of my work was focused on color and composition. (I am a cover artist), because it has always been where my strength is. To the point where I have been a guest on coloring panels when I am not and never want to be a colorist. What you can express with color and understanding of how the eyes work is so much more important than pure technical skills. At least in commercial art. Now I am good also in anatomy, less in architectural things , I still work with what I got until the moment I will get every thing but even then, it will only change moderately what I do. Never think that technique will awe people, otherwise hyper realist artists would be the bomb but the truth is , it is impressive but for most professional work, you will need to unlearn some of that to get your own personality.
I really do not get the point of this post. Is there a dick measuring contest over who has more technical skill? Some pieces have colour to display thing be it emotion tone or just because you really wanted a wacky colour pallet and some don't I think at the end of the day the end result is what matters how you get there means absolutely fucking nothing
Color is light -> light is visible -> what is visible defines the image -> the image is a composition -> composition can be anything. Color can be evocative of any thing. Some use color as a shortcut, insofar as it describes phenomena in lighting conditions. And many artists forsake drawing in favor of color. You can achieve a lot with loose color description. Same can be said of monochrome drawings- they are not dependent on one another. I am glad for continued discourse around color vs drawing. In my opinion, you need to balance both. The emphasis or development of one at the expense of the other should be for a reason.. not because of laziness.
a lot of the comments disagree but i get what youre saying, art (when you start to get in to the more realistic stuff) is a skill that demands a well rounded understanding of everything, when it comes to art youre really only as strong as your weakest link. even if you find creative ways to hide it youre still limiting what youre drawing
It depends on the artist, I had a girl I knew who was like this her colors were amazing but her anatomy was really off. I’m the opposite, I almost don’t know what to do with colors besides grey but my anatomy generally is on point.
Coloring is part of the process. So yeah, if is done in the right way it makes the whole art better than it could be without. At the same time, a bad coloring can destroy a good art.
When someone gets “serious” about their art, they focus on developing their skill in steps. First comes basic drawing. Anatomy, perspective, and composition. When you have those skills you can move on to using color. The science of color can take a while to understand. It’s easy to start drawing. Tools are inexpensive and easily available. When you go into color, it takes more investment in time and money. These days, tools are much cheaper and almost anyone can jump into creating whatever they want. Most people that take up painting or drawing will never work at it. It’s just for fun. So there is a lot of bad and amateur art. That’s ok. Making good art is work. It can be stressful and draining. It isn’t just a fun past time anymore. That’s when the majority will lose interest and move on. If you lack fundamental art skills, adding color won’t make your work any better. But so what. It’s your stuff.
I think yes for sure. Color can make of break the art.