Originally posted by innocenttazlet
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Thanks for the comments! Yup. I paint with a mouse. And yes, highlights are a general problem. For one there is a toss up of two schools of thought or possibility for me. One, you have a real sense of highlight on the specific metal. Metal usually has a high sheen, such as on steel or chrome even, but with dyed metals the stain usual bleeds the lighting to a muted color at best. Therefore on chainmail, which is pounded metal,the sheen or any highlights would be muted for the color at best if at all. Especially dyed. Next, there is the stylistic approach of most anime, which adds color, shading, and highlight, no matter what. Even on human skin you see white lines for highlights, when humans rarely have this glowing affect unless sweating. So a balance between the two, as you can see, my form andd line were semi realistic, yet my coloring is strictly cartoonish. I employ bright colors, especially for the background. I have had experience with muted tones, more grim/gritty/realism what have you, but if I am going to color something of mine, it's usually going to be as cheerful and bright as possible. Speaks to the enjoyment of color purity in me I suppose. But none the less.
When you mix and match styles as such you often find yourself at logical impasses. Finding the best of both worlds sometimes just doesn't work. As I said I was working on a new armor sheen technique for the golden parts, and it only made sense to try and... mirror or at least attempt a duplication for the sake of consistency throughout the piece. So in my mind the logic of allowing the anime sheen on plate steel colored bright gold is more apparent than would be realistically allowed on hammered rings dyed/stained blue.
But you are right, I have thought a while on it and find myself thinking that such a piece would fare better artistically if it was a decision one way or the other. A realistic sketch with cartoon coloring can be, hmm, confusing to a viewer. In future I may endeavor to make the realistic sketch cartoon colors a choice rather than an experiment. But that is the joy of art and learning! As bob ross would say "A happy accident!"
I've included the color layer for the work separate from the line work below in case you're interested in taking a gander. Thanks again, and enjoy!
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