Blending colours

[colour-monkey]

Do you mean blend 2 or more colours? yup you're being a bit vague, and it's all down to your definition of 'blend' ;)

I usually paint as I would with oils - stick the colours down in broad flat patches as an underpainting, using a default round brush with little or no pressure sensitivity, and then work over detail with a smaller brush. For blending colours together I use a bristley brush with the smudge tool (one of the default ones will work) much as I would use a dry brush to blend wet oil paint. Blending this way works better the more colours you have in the mix, certain colours don't blend well if you're only using 2. Beware banding with high contrasting colours.

If you want I can give u a simple step by step.

[KingHarold]

Yeah, basically I'm blocking in the sort of base colours, then highlights etc. What I mean by blend, is essentially mixing the colours until there's a nice transition instead of just the clearly defined blocks of colour I've got down.

[colour-monkey]

Sorry about the size of this - wanted to get the settings in there so u could see them...
Anyway, this is a quick tutorial on how I blend.
If you're lazy you can just apply a gaussian blur to colours to blend them but you end up with a sterile look to it and the colour bands horribly. Stick to good old painting techniques and you can't go wrong ;)

http://cr0m.homestead.com/files/blends1.gif

^ Step 1 - block in flat colours with a standard round brush onto a base colour.


http://cr0m.homestead.com/files/blends2.jpg

^ Step 2 - use a large, standard 'dry bristle' type brush and assign it to the smudge tool. Set smudge strength to around 80% and scribble over the colour edges to get a rough blend.


http://cr0m.homestead.com/files/blends3.jpg

^ Step 3 - Smudge all colour edges into each other.


http://cr0m.homestead.com/files/blends4.jpg

^ Step 4 - Set the smudge pressure to 50% and go over and over the previous smudges as many times as you want to refine the blends, using the direction of your brush strokes to start to form your image.


http://cr0m.homestead.com/files/blends5.jpg

^ Step 5 - Work in your detail, use the same blending technique but on a smaller scale. Don't bother to oversmooth the big background stuff, missed patches and visible brushstrokes all add to the character of the image.

Hope it helps :)

[KingHarold]

Thanks, looks very impressive. The only thing that's bugging me is that I see a lot of people advise against using the smudge tool for blending colours, I'm not too sure why, though. I'll do some more experimenting.

[colour-monkey]

I guess because smudging with a soft edged brush and low pressure causes colour banding and blurring, so is not a good idea. There will also probably be the argument that you can't achieve the effects of translucency in this way. Remember kiddies, layers are your friend ;)

My technique using hard edged bristles effectively 'hatches' colours together, rather than 'smudgeing'. It is no different to laying down wet colours on a canvas and dry brushing them together into a smooth blend. It is just one technique to try, there are always more ways than one to achieve the same effect in digital art.

Keep experimenting :thumbsup:

[architectus]

Here is a free video step by step on how I blend.



http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=380563 also check my sig for another video

[michael-olszak]

Cool tut colour-monkey. Helped a lot. And thanks for the vids architectus, they also were super usefull.

[Kencho]

@KingHarold: I'm not an enemy of blending tools (smudge/blur), though I understand why they shouldn't be used in digital painting. The first and main reason is that it loses completely the painting texture. "Too soft" means "not natural". The other I heard sometimes was that blending that way makes your colours lose their identity. You can get much neater and artistic results blending using brushes...
My suggestion: Blend with brushes, with "Other dynamics" enabled (and better if not full opacity is used), and pick frequently intermediate (blended) colours with the Alt key ;)

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