One piece of feedback about my color palettes really hit home last week

I was posting my digital portraits in the weekly share thread and someone said my skin tones all leaned too yellow. At first I got defensive because I spent hours on those blends. But then I went back and looked at my last 4 pieces and they were right. I had been using the same warm base layer for every single portrait without checking the reference. I started mixing in more cool purples and blues for shadows and it made a huge difference. Has anyone else gotten a comment that stung at first but actually improved your work?

2 comments

2 Comments

finley_lopez9813d ago

I read this thing in a Chris Oatley podcast episode where he said color harmony is 80% observation and 20% technique. It made me realize I was relying on memory instead of actually looking at my references. Since then I started checking skin tones against the actual photo and my portraits finally stopped looking like everyone was jaundiced.

taylor.mary13d ago

Kinda gotta disagree with that framing though. Observing is important sure, but technique is way more than 20% especially when you're trying to push colors past just copying a reference. If you only rely on observation your palette stays flat and you never learn how to make colors pop or feel intentional.