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Grayscale or color
So I've been watching some videos this morning from Artgerm and Boostbrush (formerly cubebrush) on grayscaling and transfering colors to a grayscale piece. I can see many benefits to the greyscale technique. It really helps the artist view the values and understand light and dark then they can easily use the gradient map. So I can understand why Artgerm and Boostbrush do it for every single illustration they have. But then I see Sakimichan who just directly adds color to her pieces. I might get this wrong but from what I've seen in short clips she directly adds color and doesn't use a gradient map?
I understand all of these artists have a good understanding of shading and color but in the long run isn't it better to just start out with a grayscale piece and then add in color?




Overall, one of the reason as of to why people start with greyscale is so that they can lay down the values they want so that the piece works in terms of contrast and a few other variants.
Other artists start with the color and one of the reason is that they already have an idea of how the which to color the piece. If they started in greyscale it would be more troublesome to add the correct values for the colors they want cuz for example lets say you lay down a saturated yellow and a bleu with the same saturation. Will their values be the same? If not, which is darker and which is lighter? In this case the blue is darker in value than the yellow even tho they have the same saturation.
Starting a piece with color or greyscale has their own advantages and disadvantages. In the end is up to the artist how they wish to do the piece. As time passes by you get the hang of doing both and it just becomes a matter of preference.
That makes sense, I know some artists have an idea of the colors and lighting for a piece so they skip to the coloring. But I do think that has to be very well planned at least. I guess in the end it is a preference like you've mentioned but I've also seen the argument for the productivity. It might be quicker to start with coloring first than gray scaling for some artists.
If you're in the industry, yea it probably is better to do grey scale in case your client wants a change of color, but if you're doing personal painting and you know what you want, then direct color may be better, but it all comes down to your own preference.
Thanks for making it clear to me ColoBeans!
I like to do a combination. I like to work in colors, but periodically, I will check the values by making it greyscale and correct as needed.
I'm starting to do that more often since I need to work on values more the colors I use are too light lol. The grayscale layer is a life saver in my opinion.
It's really dependent on the artist and how they go about creating work. @ColoBeans mentioned that its a good idea to do it when working with clients, but I see it also for when an artist has an idea of what the forms and lighting and materials look like for a piece, but not necessarily the colors of the piece's parts. It's similar to how Oil painters that prefer to create a Grisaille and then glaze the Grisaille afterwards with transparent oils to add the color in later.
Yeah I know now lol. I think in general it's more helpful for me right now until I get down lighting and shading. I'm not ready to go to just working with straight color for now. lol
To be clear, Artgerm doesn't do grayscale to color ever time...about half the time he does line art, flat colors, and then paints with light.
There are a LOT of ways to go about it. I used to do almost all the rendering grayscale, then use a layer set to "color" and then once satisfied with basic colors I'd flatten it all out and do some overpainting (My mermaid anglerfish piece, for example).. Some people start rendering in grayscale and introduce color gradually as they go. And some people like Sakimichan are able to differentiate values from colors so they can essentially skip a step, but you have to be careful with that. Unpopular opinion, but I feel like the hue and saturation of Sakimi's pieces isn't always great in all areas of her pieces, and I have a feeling it's due to throwing really saturated strokes around too quickly.
I still think Artgerm is a strong advocator for gray scaling as he mentions in his livestreams even though he might not use it very often. He still does point out a couple of his own pieces in which he uses gray scaling during a live stream on grayscaling. I guess it's probably for the same reasons as cubebrush mentions easier to change the colors.
I do feel like it is very risky when the step is skipped but I mean if someone understands colors and values I mean I guess they can skip it because they have the knowledge. As for sakimichan, I wouldn't find it surprising ever since she did make that switch to a more rough style of painting. But doesn't Ross Tran do a similar thing? He uses a lot of color dodge in his works but I guess it's a very strategical use of it.
Yes, Artgerm is an advocate for it as far as it is useful, but he doesn't put all of his eggs in that bucket, so to speak. Out of all the videos I've seen from Marc Brunet, though, I don't recall any of them going from grayscale to color. Ross definitely uses a wide range of bright, saturated colors from the start.
Like a lot of things in art, there really is no right or wrong answer. A pro of grayscale first is that your values will be solid, but a downfall is that some colors cannot be easily achieved building up from grayscale, and some colors visually "change value" without actually changing value just because our brains process all hues differently, which means you might need hefty OP layers at the end anyway.
I've used a few different ways to color grayscale, and I've also painted with color from the start; I still find value in both, depending on the project.
Cubebrush has a couple of videos on painting in gray scale mainly this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-sOO0sMZ68 . I do think your right in the end it is just opinion and what you're comfortable with. I do see how helpful grayscaling can be in the industry but with own work maybe it's better to start off with color.
This is just how Sakimichan has learned to do it. She is cappable of pretty much redoing major parts of an image within minutes, if it doesn't fit. I remember seeing a timelapse of her drawing Hinata from Naruto, jumping around in the image and completely redoing the eyes like 5 times or so. Not only does she just add colors, she is drawing pretty much an entire image on one layer.
In the long run, it depends on a lot of things. Like, what you are drawing and for who. One problem I can see with gradient-maps could be different-colored light sources. Another might be the lack of outlines - without those it might be harder apllying the gradien-map only to the correct areas.
I mean I guess it's just how she works she knows where she's messing up but I think every other professional knows how to fix their mistakes quickly as well. It's impressive she does paint everything on one layer but it also she's taking a huge risk painting like that unable to easily fix her mistakes or play around with other ideas.
I can see the benefit for gray scaling in certain situations and for clients. I don't think the different colored light sources is a problem. As artgerm and cubebrush mention it's used a lot for that purpose. If the employer doesn't like the color you can easily change it though gradient map. I don't understand what you mean by the lack of outlines could you clarify?
With the outlines is just an assumption. But as you have to select the different colored areas to apply a gradient map, having no outlines might be troublesome. I mean, if there is skin and clothing, you want to apply one GM to the skin, another to the clothing. With outlines, both areas are easy to select without accidentally select parts of the other as well. At least that is my assumtion, thanks to the lack of PS, I can't use GM and therefore have no actual experience >.<
I'm trying my best to understand you. Do you mean that the lines of your painting are affecting the gradient map? That can be easily fixed actually with character masks and clipping layers. You can separate the lines from the coloring layers and then use the gradient mask on that layer only. I think that's one way to fix the problem. If you can't get photoshop I'm sure if you search around there are some free painting tools that have gradient maps. I could recommend some to you.
I do have clip-studio-paint. I discovered a kind of GM, but it is really awkward to use. Only has shadow, mid-tone and light and instead of choosing a color, it has 3 sliders for CMY...
What I mean is, I assume GM is easier while using outlines. If I am hard to understand, don't bother. It's not important I guess ^^
I've used clip studio paint for several years. It's pretty much like a gradient map in photoshop in my opinion. You can choose a color and you can select points in the gradient map to add in more color. You can also choose which colors you want on the map as well. Are you on the newest version of clip studio paint or an older one?
Either I didn't find the correct feature or my version is quite very old.
Because it should be under Layer-> new correction layer -> gradient map. If you are using the gradient that is on hot bar that not the correct one.
So my version is super old, I guess. Because there is no gradient-map correction layer >.<
Oh lol I think maybe you should update it. It's totally worth it! They've added a lot of new features along with animation and a download library.
Sounds good ^^ Guess I should consider buying it the next time they have some kind of discount on it. Becouse I currently lack the money and skill to spend like 200$ on it... yeah, that means my current version is not legal <.<
Oh if you're a student you can get PRO for $30 on amazon or something otherwise full price was around $50. Are you aiming to get EX?
Well, was thinking about EX... though this was due the prices during discount, didn't look into the actual features ^^° 30$ on amazon sounds actually quite nice. I will look into it in the next days.
The thing is PRO and EX don't differ that much except EX has more of a feel for cartoonists or manga artists. EX has a multiple page selection feature and a book export feature. EX does have a 3-D to 2-D conversion but I don't do much 3-D stuff to use it. So I'd just go with PRO and see how you like it because it technically have all of the basic illustration and comic making features. I hope this helps :)
Definitely helpfull ^^ Though I just registered as student on amazon. There is no special offer for CSP. Propably a special offer for the US or whatever, as german this wouldn't apply to me, unfortunately.
So guess I will wait for another discount and try other methods of coloring <.<
I know my friend got it for that price I didn't know if it still stood. However it looks like if you just have the PC version there is another deal for $25.27 https://www.amazon.com/CLIP-STUDIO-PAINT-PRO-Download/dp/B01ESKIDZ6/ref%3Dpd_sbs_366_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AWJGTHN5WQYBG8ZRK25T . I'm not sure if this is available in Germany. :/
No, it has geographical restrictions... but doesn't matter, until next week CSP has a discount action on the official site ^^ Although this brings back the questions of EX and PRO... considering the upgrade with discount costs more than EX alone, if I would want EX ever, I should buy it on the spot...