Value, Color, And Composition; Or, A Photo Is A Treasure Chest Of Color

Value or DARKENESS CONTROL, is in deed a thing,
especially once you start creating multi-character scenes.

You will have to make sure that all shadows,
match up, that hings are not too light here, and too washed out there.

Color, is a similarly sized problem,
so both are formidable.

Some artists build their scenes out of of three values,
dark medium and light, and they stick with it like crazy.

A warrior that is close to you will have dark value,
the hero in the middle will have medium value, and dragon in the background is light.

Some will not insert anything between the three,
no beast, tree, or hero, it is a dead zone.

I would call it, a dead zone,
of artistic wisdom and excellence - quite brilliant.

Others may paint out some rough sketch that is value-stable,
and then almost smudge out characters and features out of that, upwards.

As if they are rising from the ground,
also an amazing thing.

Whether you use to those values in conjunction with a Color-mode layer,
where all your colors are stripped of their own value and inherit the values from beneath.

Or repeat the process with very strict color selection,
you will end up with a simple, clear, and stable value system throughout your masterpiece.

But there is something else,
a thing practiced by concept artists who are pushed to work at maximum speeds.

They will start with a blurry photo,
as a seed, a landscape of value and sometimes color.

They will still head towards establishing a strict system of light medium dark,
or smudge out, or pick out colors from a particular distance within the painting.

But there is going to be something really organic here,
a harmony of color that comes from reality, from the uni9verse it self.

And starting with some blurry scrap of a photo,
also helps you visualize composition, you get a sturdy head start.

This may not be the technique you end up using,
but it is a wonderful seed for your earliest works.

Just grab a corner of a photo, that has a pronounced light medium and dark value area,
adjust the color temperature, and build on top of it, whilst protecting value integrity.

Here your mid shadows, and light and dark shade,
will be on point, and sturdy as heck.

Bring in colors that are in harmony with those values,
and you will build out a strong color theme.

And composition, is not a question at all,
by starting with a blurry photo, you can map everything out from the start.

Get yourself a small inexpensive dedicated camera,
and begin collecting, colors, values, and compositions.