Help Coloring/Shading Hair

[noeinan]

I have been trying for a super long time to figure out a coloring style that works with my lineart. The issue is, it seems no mater how hard I try I can't figure out how to make it work. I've seen a lot of good tutorials, but when I follow them it just doesn't seem to work with my art. I don't know if I'm just not offering enough detail in the hair for me to work off of? I don't feel like I have any problems with my lineart except when it comes to coloring.

I was hoping to get some feedback on these styles I've been trying out-- both to see which styles match my lineart best (or if you know of any styles not shown here that you feel would work) and to see if there is something the reference picture is doing that I am not replicating well. I really appreciate it!

1. Here is the sprite I'm working on with only flat colors (my normal method of coloring which I am trying to improve)



2. A slightly complicated style I found on deviantart (art by bonkiru) which I attempted to replicate without a lot of success



3. A much more simple style which I have tried before, but am unsure about the results. First reference image I found on deviantart (art by m23black) but which appears to no longer be there and the second also on deviantart (art by deniszalexandra)

[MaiMai]

The immediate thing I notice is that your lineart for your hair at least is too thick to work with the coloring examples you showed. The coloring itself isn't bad, but since it bothers you, I would point out that the line width of those example images are finer than your style. It looks like you're using a 5-7px size brush for lines compared to the 1-3.5px brush from the samples.

Another thing to take note is that you're using black lines which will always stick out. If you don't want to change your line width, another thing you can do is change the color of the line. In the pictures that you referenced, notice that none of the lineart for the hair is straight up black. It's either a darker color of hair or something secondary to give it a softer look.

I think example number 2 works best with your style since you're not drawing overly detailed hair.

[noeinan]

Thanks for the feedback! I've been using 9px lineart, but with a pressure sensitive tablet so it is thinner (probably 5px) some places and thicker in others. I picked that thickness because it roughly matches what I get from my scanned sketches but maybe I should experiment with thinner lines. (Seems like thicker ones are more forgiving, and that I will be able to shrink the image much more without losing detail-- the final images will be less than a third of their current size in game.)

I have experimented a bit with colored lineart in the past, especially since black lines have made it hard for me to have characters with very dark skin in the past, but I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it. Here's an example of one of my lineart tests:



I feel like the black lineart allows character features to stand out more, but it might be that I'm not using colors that contrast enough, or because of my thicker lines, or the fact that I am very minimalist in the shading department... (Since I think shading allows more of the form to be defined by colors rather than relying on lineart.)

Mostly I guess I'm worried that my minimalist coloring/shading makes my art look unprofessional or unpolished. :/

[MaiMai]

If you stick with black lines, you could just varying the widths. For that example you posted, the black lines aren't drawn with the polish that you may be trying to achieve, so it could be just a matter of smoothing that out to begin with.

[noeinan]

Hm, I'll try that and see how it turns out, thanks. Maybe I should also try to draw with a thinner mechanical pencil so it's easier to trace for lineart, or just start drawing my lineart much bigger so that the lines are thinner by comparison.