Character design question: Greyscale or some lame color?

miguelnarayan

Hey guys,
I've been working on a character portrait for a post apocalyptic illustration set.
I started with black and white and I think that was my big mistake, I wanted to add some color but I'm struggling a bit with the capacity of analyzing whether or not it's a worthless process... for this



I'm following the tutorial from ArtGerm youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB9Jui9wQNg to color a black and white image with gradient maps, however I feel that my loose strokes dont work that well with that sort of technique... Im wondering which would be better for a presentation, black and white or the one on the right... but also if you agree that the end result will never be the same as in starting with color from the start?

MagicSugar

You can colorize elements further.  Split into individual layers and/or use mask layers.  Then use use color adjustment clip layer(s) of your choice.

Couple of themes from me:

miguelnarayan

Thanks for the help, I think I'll end up with a soft gradient map only to do a sort of instagram filter like color, just so it's not black and white. I think it'd end up with me doing triple work to colorize this right as I'd be very limited with blending modes, next time I'll start in full color.
Also I apologize because after a search in the forum, I found this same question and conclusion.

beccatherose

Keep messing around with soft gradient maps to find colors that you really love! They're a great way to throw some interesting colors over a grayscale painting in Photoshop. Sometimes they take a little bit of tweaking with in order to be appealing, but I think they're worth messing with. 
If I want something to end in full color, then I'll usually start in full color. It feels like I can always tell when something was originally grayscale. If you want fuller colors, though, try looking into underpaintings!