Thank you! I suggest that you look out tutorials about painting and color theory. Pay close attention to the artwork of people you admire and really analyze what is it that makes their work so appealing and colors good. And try to replicate and understand that in your own works. I study and do that all the time. One tip that is important is to realize that all colors are related to each other. A color that is very desaturated and gray on it's own might seem cold and uninteresting, but when it's surrounded by darker and contrasting warm tones, it suddenly looks like an another color more towards green rather than gray and perfectly fits the skin tones in a certain lighting scene, for example. The color that surround the color will affect how it looks.Originally Posted by Freya
So always treat you painting as 'a single unit' while choosing colors and deciding composition. Picking colors not thinking about the big picture will possibly result to ugly colors instead of color harmony. A green shade of a characters trousers isn't the bright green but much more gray green in one painting and dark brown can be a colors of gold in one painting even though you might think the gold is brighter yellow. But the colors still seems lively and beautiful as a part of the whole painting because of color contrast. Decide what is being promoted and build your image and all the aspects in it to make your main theme as strong and interesting as possible. Color is one of the hardest things to master I think. I don't think that anyone can even master that in their life time completely, as there's always something new to discover. Also, don't shade with black and white, do it only if you really understand color as sometimes, rarely, it does work. Study real life and photos as well. It's all about studying and practicing.
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