My art teacher said 'color theory is math for artists' and it clicked

I was watching a tutorial on making neon signs in Procreate and the artist kept talking about hue shifting. She said she always adds a tiny bit of blue to her shadows, even in warm pieces. Has anyone else found a small trick that made their digital art look way more real?

3 comments

3 Comments

carter.casey1d ago

Yeah, that hue shift thing is key. I read a breakdown once about how light in the real world is never a pure color, so shifting your shadows and highlights away from your base color adds so much depth. It's why just making a shadow darker gray looks flat and wrong. That tiny bit of blue mimics how the atmosphere and light sources actually work. It tricks your brain into seeing it as real light, not just a darker color.

gavinb971d ago

Totally get that. I started adding a super subtle noise texture on a top layer set to overlay, like 5% opacity. It kills that weird plastic look digital art sometimes gets and makes everything feel more tactile. What's your favorite texture trick?

leodavis1d ago

Honestly, I just use the default brushes that come with the program. All this talk of overlay layers and hue shifting feels like overkill for just making a picture.