Hard Bargain
Oh hey here’s a commission I took last year at Anthrocon.
After drawing that fake crack screen, I still had the kinds of palettes I used back on the Amiga on my mind. Which were pretty similar to the color schemes the Nosepilot guy used. I did a card for Furoticon today in that sort of space, then decided to knock off another thing that was Not Rita by doing this as well.
Basically the method is this:
1. Pick 3-4 colors. They should have different values.
2. Blend between them. Three spaces in between is about right.
3. Eyedropper those middle colors into new global swatches.
4. Draw lots of shapes under my rough, in the same way I draw stuff for Rita. Try to keep each object pretty much in one color ramp, aside from the occasional accent.
No gradients, no blend modes, just solid shapes in a thoughtful palette. Pretty simple, and a nice place between “really colorful” and “takes forever to draw”. I may have to try doing some more stuff like this for a while; I feel like I’ve been bouncing between the super-abstracted colors of Rita and a way-too-modeled place for too long.
Ultimately, I’m just coming back to a way of coloring I was seeing all the time when I watched demos on the Amiga. I’m back where I began, except a few levels higher; progress is as much a spiral as a straight climb.