So we should have something catchy for the 12 Days
of Proko. You know, like uh... ♪On the first day of Christmas Proko gave to me a video from Marco
Buchi...♪ yeah, except I can't sing that song, someone else has to come in and sing it
for - [clears throat]. Is that camera on? Hey everyone. So, in my last lesson here on Proko,
we talked all about how the planes of the head interact with a light source and we painted a
complete black and white version of a character. Let's pick up the lesson right where we left off
and talk about ideas for adding color to this. We'll be tackling three overall topics; what
to look for when painting flesh colors, how light interacts with flesh colors and how color
is influenced by its surrounding environment. Fleshtones and Color. I have some good news, there really is no
such thing as a "correct fleshtone color". In fact - hang on a second, I
could scroll my own skin through all the hues we have available to our
vision and it still looks like skin. One thing that can really help with believable
skin tones though, is the idea that skin isn't just one color. In fact, there are three pretty
common zones of color we can think about. It's quite common to look for
a more oakery colored brow, warmer reddish cheeks and nose and
an ever so slightly cooler jaw. You can apply this idea, starting from any base
color, to establish an overall color key. I’ll show you what I mean, but for the moment,
let's replace the complex form of a head with a simple egg. Now, let's give these
eggs some fleshtones. To establish this, start first with an overall average bass
tone. This can essentially be anything. So, here I’m using the palettes we just
sampled as reference. Then from that point, make a shift toward ochre for the upper area.
You don't have to go to a saturated yellow ochre or anything like that, just a little
move toward ochre is enough. The resulting colors in our two studies here will be different
because they began from different base colors. However, the general relationship I’m going
for is the same. I’ll apply the same idea for the reddish zone now. Moving toward
red to various degrees on each of these. It doesn't have to be the same red either.
So long as it's redder than what's there, it'll read just fine. I’m letting the colors
mix on the canvas. Sometimes I’ll sample the result and paint with that color just to get
whatever blending style you're looking for. And now the same thing for the cooler lower area. Chances are, the paintings you choose to study
from will give you quite different looks. But these are all totally valid starting
points for believable flesh tones. Okay, but stop everything... I’ve used the words
"cooler" and "warmer" a few times already in this lesson. Now, those words don't describe
actual objective colors, rather, they indicate the relationship between colors. Any color on the
color wheel could potentially be warmer or cooler given the right context and we need to dive into
these concepts before moving on with our painting. The most basic idea of warm versus cool is that
they occupy two opposite sides of the color wheel. Generally, we think of this area; reds,
oranges, yellows as the warm side of the wheel, which kinda makes sense since these are the colors
of literal hot fire [Ya-ouch] and then this area, blues, violets, we generally think of as
the cool side. I guess that makes sense too, right? Because these are the stereotypical colors
of, you know, ice, water, snow and cold stuff. Then the colors in the middle, you can think of
as transitions between the two overall categories. Anyway, those are the basics that a lot of
us learned in elementary school. And while this categorization is accurate, I guess, red is
often thought of as objectively warmer than blue. It lacks subtlety and isn't enough to
carry us through any real art scenario. As artists, the colors we have to deal with
are often much closer together than these two swatches. For example, how about these two
colors? Which would you say is the warmer one? The answer is a little less crystal clear, isn't
it? But I’ll posit that this one is still warmer. But here, that red that was cooler before
is now warmer compared to this new swatch. These are the comparisons we have to get used to
making over and over again. You'll make thousands of them in a painting. And the way I like to
determine warm versus cool is by basing it on a model of how color actually moves in real
life. So, what moves color? Well, light does. Light and Color. The problem with local colors or
base colors is that's not all we see. Whether it's an egg or a human head or
anything else, what we see is always a combination of the local color plus the light,
but it's not an equal balance of the two. Light weighs more than local color or base
color, those two terms mean the same thing. And light nearly always accounts for most
of the color that ends up hitting our eyes. So, let's take a look at how that
works back here on the color wheel; the first thing we need is a local
color or base color to work with, let's say this red again. Also, let's put a ball
over here which will live update with our color wheel demonstration. That way you get to see kind
of the theory and application in the same screen. So, currently there is no light hitting
the ball, it's just the flat local color similar to where we left our egg
studies a minute ago. Let's now bring in a light source. We'll make it your average
incandescent light bulb, which is this color. Okay, the first thing we have to do right away
is update our ball to give it a simple light and shadow side. I’m not changing any colors just yet,
only changing the value of that base color. Actual color changes will happen next. Because we're
talking about light, we'll start by adjusting the color of the light side first. Our base color
is what's on the color wheel now, that red swatch. So, remembering that light is generally
the stronger factor in the color equation, that orangy yellow light is going to
pull the red local color toward it. I’ll maintain about the same
level of saturation here. These are both fairly saturated colors rooted
firmly in the warm section of the color wheel, so there isn't much of an actual temperature
change here, more like a small hue shift. Anyway, how far that base color goes
toward the light depends on the light's strength relative to the scene. You have
to evaluate that on a case-by-case basis. But, if the light source is strong
enough, it can dominate the local color and fully pull the color to match that
of the light. That's a pretty special case though and doesn't happen too often.
So, be selective when you make that choice. Okay, let's bring the color back to its
original base color starting position. The closer a local color or base color is to the
light source, the easier the light is able to pull it. If we started with a cooler red as our base
color, I’m calling this color cooler by the way, simply because it's closer to the cooler
section of the color wheel, the light would move it warmer. But generally, again, depending
on the strength of the light, it would not reach the same level of saturated warmth as our
original swatch which went all the way here. So, when thinking about how the colors of
your subject are affected by the light, this is the visual you should have in mind.
And another little wrinkle to add in all this, currently we're looking at a pretty saturated
light source color, but let's take, say an early afternoon sun color which is much less
saturated, it's about here on the color wheel and we'll go back to our original red base
color, you might think the less saturated sunlight color will likewise desaturate
this red. But no, that's not what happens. So long as that light source is
on the warm side of the wheel, we won't lose saturation of any color reasonably
within the warm range. The result of the lesser saturated sunlight is that it simply won't
pull the red as strongly into the yellow hues. It'll still have a color influence, just
not as much as if it were very saturated. Alright, now, what happens when we have a
local color on the warm side of the color wheel but a light source on the cool side
of the color wheel? This is where things get interesting. The color has to traverse through
this gray zone in the middle of the color wheel. The gray zone is a versatile section
of the color wheel because in theory, every color has it in common. That means
that colors join at this point. So, when a color has to cross from one overall
category of the color wheel to another, the gray zone becomes kind of a
border crossing. When a color is here, it could potentially go anywhere. Think of it
like having a travel visa or something. So where does our color go? Well, naturally, the light
motivates it to travel this way toward its color. And once again, how far it will get depends
on the relative strength of the light source. The more saturated the local color is, the more
fight it has against the light color and it may stop before it even gets to gray. So, in this
example, the light source is able to cool off a warm color by dragging it closer to gray and
hence closer to the cool side of the color wheel even though it stopped before it
actually got into the bluish range. Whereas if a color is starting from
here, chances are much higher that a blue light will be able to pull the color
through gray making it cross into its hue. And this same logic of course applies in reverse
to a warm light source and a cooler base color. So, now, revisiting those two
words, "warmer" and "cooler", it's a constant evaluation of where the
color starts and where it's moving to. It's crucial that you have those two pieces of
information before assigning a temperature. So, is this color warm or cool? Well, I’m not
sure yet, I need another swatch to compare. Ah, there we go. Now I have
a way of categorizing it. Egg Study: Adding Light. So, let's add some lighting to our egg study.
Now, even though we just talked all about color, the number one consideration is value. So,
without even thinking about color just yet, I’ll select out the shadow side
and simply adjust it to be darker. I’ll now apply the exact color theory we
just went over to the light side of this egg. I’ll use that same warm tungsten light for this, and with that in mind, I’m sampling
areas to get my local base colors, then I make an adjustment on the color picker
to bring that color closer to the lights color and simply paint it in until you think it looks
good. And remember how our fleshy colors have variety? Well, I’m using the exact same thought
process for all of these various base colors. Because of the light's pull, your resulting colors in the light can become a little
more uniform than they started, and that's okay. In fact, it's totally natural. I
am trying however, to keep that separation intact while also letting the light do its thing. It's
just a balance you have to keep your eye on. Okay, it's time now to move to the shadow side
of the egg. We haven't discussed shadow colors yet. Colors move around a lot more in shadow. It's
largely based on the surrounding environment. To show this, I’m adding this bluish background. The
idea here is, because light rays bounce around, a lot of the shadow colors are
influenced by that bounced light. Think of the colors in your background as
being like little light sources that all have their own distinct pull. Now, bounced light
in shadow is weaker than an actual light source. So, the pull exists but it's
not as strong. In this study, that blue background is going to pull our base
colors in the opposite direction as the light. And I’ll allow the parts of the egg that point
upward to receive the most of that blue light. Kind of like it's a blue skylight coming down. Remember, I don't have to literally make those
colors blue. As long as they're going that way on their journey through the color wheel, I
can pick a wide variety of cooler colors here. The parts of the egg that don't point upward are
going to receive less of that blue light. So, these shadow colors will still be cooler than
the colors in the light but not as cool as the colors fully influenced by the blue. Also, feel
free to be creative with your color choices. Again, so long as the shadow colors share
the general direction of movement on the color wheel, it'll all look like it goes together. There's a common painting cliché that says "warm
light gives you cooler shadows". And while that speaks to a pattern that does often occur in
nature, the statement itself is misleading. It's not that warm light somehow creates cool
shadows, it's simply that warm light will pull the colors it hits toward that warm, but it
will not pull the shadow colors toward that warm because the warm light is not
hitting the shadows. Therefore, it's by default that the shadow
side will appear cooler in context. Alright, here's the finished egg study.
And by the way, if you want a deeper look at how colors move around in shadow, I
have a dedicated presentation about that on my own YouTube channel. Feel free to check
that out for more shadow information goodness. Painting the Head: Application. When it comes to applying color to the head,
it's really no more complex than the egg was. The complexity is in the drawing. Which is to say, getting all the planes and their
corresponding values correct. My first Proko lesson was all
about that part of the process. So, please make sure you watch that if you haven't
already. Without that stuff well established, you won't get a good painting no matter how good
your color is. So, what I’m establishing first here are the base colors and then splitting
the head into big light and shadow families. This is where my blocking stage ends and
I start refining the painting from here. Just a quick technical note; I had my line
drawing on a separate layer and my color on a layer underneath but that's it, just two layers,
and now I’ve turned off the line layer and I’m simply working on one paint layer. I’m now working
into the light side, just like I did with the egg. You'll notice that the base colors I started
with were already pretty close to the final light colors. This is something I do quite often.
Instead of starting with a base color and then adding light, my base colors are kind of already
in the direction that I think the lights will go. Now, you don't have to work that way of course,
but I find that it helps momentum a little bit. Remember the three color zones of the
head we discussed right at the beginning; ochre up top, reddish in the middle and cooler at
the bottom. Even though I’m adding half tones and shapes and planes, you can see how I’m still
trying to adhere to that basic structure. It's okay if like some of the red goes on the
top or the bottom or some of the ochre shows up on the jaw, that's fine. In fact, that
can help the expressiveness of your color. In this way, painting is less like a coloring
book and more like weaving things together. You've probably noticed that I’m spending
most of my time in the light side. This is partially because the light is
dominating this particular setup but in general, the light is where we expect
to see the most modeling. Our eyes, after all, are receptors for light, so they
look to the light for the most information. In fact, you could just keep your shadows one
flat color and value and it'll still work. In this painting though, it is time I get in there and add
some of that bounce light. I’ve got a pretty muted blue background, but it is a very much cooler
background than the light source is. So, just like I did with the egg, watch for me trying to
sneak those cooler temperatures into the shadow. It's also important to note here that because
I do have some cool colors in the light, I probably want to push some of the cooler
colors in my shadow even cooler. This will help maintain the overall relationship
between the warm light and the cooler shadow. Alright, so, I’m pretty much reaching the end of
this demo. Now, if you're doing quick studies, you could stop before this, or if you're
doing something more refined, feel free to push on from here. That part is all up to you
and the purpose of the art that you're doing. I hope this demonstration served the
purpose of tying this lesson together. I’d like to thank Proko and his
team for having me on. Also, if you like this video, feel free to check
out my YouTube channel. I also have premium content including an upcoming color survival
guide, which will be much like the format of this video except it'll cover a far broader
range of topics and I’m selecting a lot of the most important things I know and use as
a professional illustrator. You can find that and more at MarcoBucciArtStore.com. So,
thanks for watching and happy holidays!
