Grayscale Coloring
Techniques BLOG
TIPS, TECHNIQUES & TUTORIALS
Colorist: Christine Kowbuz Coloring Book: Beautiful Creatures This is the second instalment in my "Advice From A Grayscale Colorist" blog series. This time I interviewed a very talented and self-taught colorist and artist, Christine Kowbuz. Over the past several months she has shared many of her colorings from Beautiful Creatures with me and I became very intrigued by her coloring style and techniques. I was thrilled when she agreed to be interviewed!
The questions I asked:
First, let's start by taking a look at some of the gorgeous pieces Christine has colored (the horse above is hers as well!). Then, we will dive into finding out how she achieves these incredible results!
Colorist: Jones Flores
Coloring Book: Beautiful Creatures
There are so many amazing colorists with all kinds of incredible coloring ideas and techniques to share. I thought it would be fun and helpful to start an "Advice From a Colorist" series of blog posts where I find a colorist that impresses us with their incredible talent and ask them to share some of their most unique coloring techniques. These are techniques that work wonderfully for grayscale coloring but can be applied to any kind of coloring.
Lucky for us, the very talented colorist Jones Flores is going to share some of her coloring techniques with us! Jones is a self-taught artist who believes art is an unspoken language that touches not only the mind but the heart as well. Specifically, you will learn:
Let's get started... Although grayscale coloring is becoming quite popular, it's still very new to a lot of people and somewhat unapproachable to many. A common response when someone first sees a colored grayscale image is to think "I couldn't do that!". The extremely realistic result one can achieve with grayscale coloring can look unattainable when in actuality it's much easier than giving depth and dimension to a coloring of a regular line drawing. I thought it would be worthwhile to interview a whole range of colorists regarding their grayscale coloring experience in order to give those considering it some insight into the experience & process, hopefully encouraging them to give it a try! For those that are already coloring grayscale, I think you'll find the grayscale coloring tips from these colorists quite helpful. I asked 14 colorists (including myself) to provide a grayscale picture they've colored and answer these 4 questions:
I've also included two practice grayscale pages for you to download and try. You will find those at the end of the post. I hope that after you've read everyone's grayscale coloring tips you will print out the practice sheets and give grayscale coloring a try, if you haven't already! "Grayscale coloring acts as a guide so it's almost impossible to mess up! You can be as realistic or as abstract as you like...I colored blue flamingos with a purple sky!" Colorist: Ann Reid Coloring Book: Beautiful Creatures Today I will be providing you with a step-by-step grayscale coloring tutorial done by a very talented colorist, Ann Reid.
There is a wonderful Facebook coloring group that is focused on coloring pages from the Beautiful Creatures coloring book. It is full of amazing colorists from around the world (join us!) that range from novice to expert colorists. We all share our work and provide each other with tips, tricks and encouragement. Ann is part of this group. She inspires all of us because of (among many other wonderful qualities) her incredible talent. Every person in the group looks forward to seeing her next creation. She is able to capture every single detail with such amazing precision. She achieves that hyper realistic result that so many of us are striving for when coloring grayscale. The dog above and the four stages below were all completed by Ann. As you can see, she truly brings the image to life! Amazing! One of the wonderful things about coloring over grayscale is that you can be very creative with your colors and still get a really realistic result. As long as you follow the guidance of the grays when determining where and how dark or light to color, you'll be able to get a realistic result. Here are a few examples: Coloring Book: Beautiful Creatures Colorist: Jones Flores Coloring Book: Beautiful Creatures Colorist: Nicole Stocker |