Alright so today I want to talk about limited palette.
And to give you an example,
I want to talk about Anders Zorn's limited palette.
Anders Zorn was a painter from Sweden and he was renowned to use only a limited palette of four colors.
Here I got some examples of his paintings, and you can see that the skin tones were pretty realistic.
So I love the idea to do my own palette of color, and base it on Anders Zorn's palette.
So basically I tried to get the four colors he was using.
So here I got a white, a black, a red that is pretty bright, and a sort of a yellow--a little bit kind of dirty yellow.
And with those four colors, the theory here will be that
I would be able to do every skin tone that I want to.
And obviously those four colors will create a lot more different variants of
those colors, so a lot of different tones from it.
So if you go from black to white, and this side you mix them together, it's gonna give
you a lot more. And basically what I did is I created myself some sort of
ultimate palette here, where I mix them all together. And from there, I'm able to
use this if I want to paint. And basically what I did is I created an
exercise, and this is the exercise I want to show you. I want to show you how to
use a limited palette to create every kind of skin tone.
So here's the exercise that I prepared for you guys.
Basically, it's a document where I have 5 photos of different skin tones. And I
have five simple circles where I can try to replicate the skin tones. And I obviously
have a reminder of my palette here, I got my four colors which is my limited
palette, and I got my ultimate palette, which is a mix of all the colors
together from white to black, and the colors together,
and with these colors, I am going to try to replicate those colors of skin tones.
So basically what I'm going to do here is I'm going to first, go on the first circle,
and you'll see when you open the document that I already locked
the transparency of the pixels which basically means that when
this is clicked on, you see that is already locked, and means that now, wherever I paint,
it's only going to paint on this circle.
So you simply have to click on the layer that you want. If you click on No. 2, it's
going to be on No. 2... If I click on No. 5, it's gonna be on No. 5.
So with that being said, I'm going to try to replicate this color of the skin here.
And I am going to pick only the colors that I have here in my limited palette, or the
one that I created in my ultimate palette. So I'm going to start with a
little bit of yellow, which I'm going to paint here, and I'm going to pick up the
red and mix them together. And I'm going to take that
new tone here that I just created, in the mix of the two, and I'm just going to
paint the whole thing.
So as you can see now, it's already skin-beige color.
So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to try to add a little bit more
tones to it. So I see that there are lighter parts and darker parts. I'm going
to try to replicate that.
So I'm going to take some white here, and i'll paint a little white, and just paint
a little bit of it. And then a little bit of black, pick up that new color, and just
paint it like this.
And I feel like here, over the eye,
it's a little bit more red. So I'm just going to pick up some red, and just paint it
a little bit. Pick that new color, and just like that, I'll be able to create
a skin tone that's pretty close to this.
Now I feel like the whole skin tone should be a little bit more light, so I'm
just going to pick up some white here, and put my opacity to 20%,
and I'm just going to paint all over it.
Now I think that's a little bit closer to what it's supposed to be. I just feel like
it's still missing a little bit of red here, so I'm going to paint a little
bit more, and maybe even a little bit more black,
Okay, I think that's pretty close!
I'll try another one here. So I'll just click on the No. 2 here, and like I
said, everything that I paint is going to stay in it. And what I'll do is I'm going to
start by taking a different color here. And I'll just fill up my circle by doing a shortcut ALT + DEL.
And it's going to fill it up. Now I think this is a little bit too
greenish-yellow, so I am going to add a little bit of red, and take some red here.
And actually what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick up a red
that's more like mixed with white already, so something that's more pink.
Paint it here, take that new color, and paint it all over. More like a better base, but it
still seems a little bit too dark, so I'm going to take some white and fill it up.
And I think that's a much better base for it.
So now I'm going to try to replicate the orange color of the beauty marks that she has all over her face.
So I'm going to pick up some red, and pick up some yellow, and mix them together.
And try to get a color that I need for this. It seems to get better slowly, just
a little bit more red, and yellow a little bit and more... I think that's really good
So from there, I'm just gonna keep that smaller here, and I'll use this...
I'll use this to just paint some patches to replicate skin tone that I see here.
The thing with skin tones is that there are a lot more small variations.
So it's important to mix colors and having a few colors like the limited palette that I have here,
just gives me the opportunity to actually play with those colors.
So I'm just going to add a little bit more black here. And a little bit more white at the top just to get a feel of it.
My goal is not to be exactly exactly like this, but just to find a way to get close a little bit.
I could have a lot of fun and take a lot of time to just add details, but at this stage,
the only thing that I want is just to have a feel of it.
I think it's getting pretty close...
And I'm going to just add I think a little bit more yellow...
Just one of those things that get a perfectionist...
Even though this is just practice, you want to get as close as possible.
Alright, I think I got a good feel of it now.
Obviously what I could do is add a little bit more texture to it.
I could just add an extra brush here and try to pick up something in the
middle here, and go down with my opacity, and just add a little bit more texture
to it, and then go by... Just add a few more big [spots]...
Alright! So I think so far it's working, that limited palette,
So I'm just going to go real quick and finish the three other ones.
And that's it for this tutorial, guys! I hope you liked it.
If you want to give it a try, you can download the PSD below this video.
And as always... Happy Painting!