One harsh critique on my color theory totally flipped my approach

A dude in a digital art discord looked at my piece and said 'your shadows are all the same hue, it looks flat like a coloring book.' I spent 3 days reworking my shading to mix in purples and blues instead of just making things darker. Has anyone else had a random stranger's blunt feedback actually improve their whole style?

3 comments

3 Comments

park.iris1mo ago

That purple in shadows trick is a game changer. Had a similar thing where someone told me my lighting was all one temperature, warmed up the highlights and suddenly everything popped.

ellis.victor4d ago

Wait @park.iris really thinks purple in shadows is a universal fix? Totally floored me reading that.

lee.diana1mo ago

I mean, I saw a whole thread on this last week in a painting group I'm in and half the people were like 'this changed everything for me' and the other half were like 'I tried it and my shadows looked like bruises.' I spent a weekend trying that purple shadow thing and honestly it made my skin tones look like a zombie half the time until I figured out it only works with certain light sources. Not saying it's bad advice, but maybe it's not the universal cheat code everyone acts like it is. Sometimes a piece just needs darker value shadows, not a whole moody color shift.