Eistibus, As Foretold - (Color Phase) (Patreon)

I moved into color more quickly than I know is safe to apply my process correctly. There is a sweat spot between murky shapes and finely painted edges where my coloring process thrives and this is definitely too close to the loose end of that spectrum. Moving forward without establishing the background clearly runs a couple of risks.

Firstly, I could get jammed up trying to figure out what stuff is supposed to go back there late in the process. But more importantly, if I start to colorize a piece that doesn't have enough dynamic value, I start getting weird muddy colors that might require substantial work to balance out later.

To push back against the weird colors I was getting, I've laid an extra thick application of 'hard light' blending on top of some elements to more clearly differentiate their local colors and value from their surroundings. Less of this is necessary when I have a very strong value phase established.