Layering Different Tones

I was coloring a little girl for a graphic I am working on and I realized that I was going to color her in a different way than I have shown before, so you get this fun tutorial.

Usually I talk about coloring by layering colors in the same family, starting light, and adding dark, then going back and blending with the same light color. Today I'm going to show you how I sometimes blend with an entirely different color.

Blending with a different tone
In this image, I want a blue overtone, but I had a limited color range (I was being too lazy to walk into the other room and get all my markers). So, rather than start with a light blue, and gradually work darker, I started with a BG sequence.

1. In the first image, you can see I had BG01, BG45, and BG49. I added colors as layers, just like normal.

2. Here I added my more subtle blue tone by layering B41 over the whole image. I used it to blend, instead of the BG01, because the BG01 was too intense, and I needed a softer tone. Notice how the shadows retain their intensity, but the highlights now have a softer blue tone, and many of my harsh lines have softened (my final output will be very small, so i am not trying to blend out all streaks.

3. Last, I added the other colors to finish off the image. Because B41 is still in the same similar range as the BG family, you don't see much subtle variation, except that the BG has lost it's intensity.

But what if we totally switched color families?

Here is my second example. In this case, I did exactly the same thing, but I started with the fairy in the BV family. When you look at the second image, notice how the pale blue totally changes the whole feel of the artwork. I like this purple sequence much better. The blue highlights really set off the purple shadows.

So, in each case, only the base color changed. I know I have talked about base colors in the past, but I really want to drive the point across that the base color can change the whole feel of your work. This is a great way to work with a limited color range, or to match an image to a specific paper.

I hope I inspired you to experiment a bit with your color range, have a Happy New Year!