[Step by Step]Coloration Process (20 Patrons Special) (Patreon)

Dear patrons,

thank you from the bottom of my heart for the long term support! Since we finally reached the 20 patron benchmark, I thought this would be a good time to finally show a bit more of my workflow. Certainly there will be more how-to specials in the future but it would also depend on how many of you really would like to see such kind of content after all.

I am currently working on some new icons for the patron pledges. While doing this I also saved every important working step of my coloration process. I kept the step description short, because my previous text was deleted due to Patreon's automatic log out function which scrapped my whole text in a wink without warning and I became a bit frustrated and tired after that. So, yeah, I hope you like it anyway. Well, this is the way I colored the Taya pledge art.

1. Lineart

Self-explanatory, I guess. At this point the lineart may be still not final. There is always room for improvement and after the addition of some color layers the shapes of some elements can still undergo a lot of changes. This is the first time I draw a detailed version of Taya's dragon head, by the way... 

2. Basis colors

I'm often using separate color layers for each asset. In some cases I use the same single layer for multiple color sections as long as they aren't located next to each other, so I can still adjust the color value from time to time. But let's safe the details about those cases for another time.

3. Hard and Soft Shades

An important and early step to determine the general mood of the overall composition. In the past I often tended to simply add a darker tonal version of the main reference color for the shading ( e.g. deep red for red). Nowadays I prefer more analogous colors, namely the ones next to the according basis color on the color wheel. It is also the most experimental intuitive step since I'm tweaking the palettes a lot during the progress. I choose and tweak the colors on the fly. Some shade layers are not that much darker in comparison to the main color as you would expect at first glance, sometimes they are even more vibrant to provide a more organic feel. 

4. Glance

For the shine and glow effects I add another layer with brighter colors and switch their layer mode into additional lights. I mostly use this mode for hairs or glossy surfaces.

5. Additions (background, borders, textures)

For single illustrations I love to add edges or negative borders to the characters. It's like a silhouette that help to contrast two overlapping characters better especially when their color palettes looks similar.   

That's it! Of course that's not the only way I color my characters but the simplest one for that kind of illustration. 

Thank you again dear patrons and readers. Please look forward to more project insights revolving the world of Erlmaiden Discordia and the upcoming events in the manga. I will also show you some storyboards of future story arcs to provide you a bigger and clearer picture of my manga project. That's an idea I came up with to get myself motivated, as well. It's been a long way and still is. I hope you will continue to accompany me during my journey! There's still so much to uncover!!