01-19-2015, 02:50 PM
Hi Chris,
Approaching grey scale digitally can be challenging and very rewarding. The trick is to make it look as natural as possible and not look like you used a bunch of overlay layers, which can leave a piece flat and boring. Your best bet is to experiment and find a technique that works best for you.
My personal approach is to use grey scale to work out my composition and over all lighting scenario. At this stage I will roughly render out the main shapes, establishing shadows and forms, I DO NOT render everything out, I don't even worry if all the forms read Pefectly. I am going to place a multiply layer over the complete image anyhow, which will darken the whole piece up. The multiply layer is like wash, I tend to use a gradient so I get a little more color. I then place another layer over that and change the blending mode to softlight and paint in some loose color, a little red on the nose and ear, some green and blue, have fun with this and be sure to move your colors around. Now the fun part, I add another layer over the top, i use my color picker to pick my base color and mix lighter tones and start rendering the forms out.
Hope this helps some:)
I did a quick paint over for some reference.

Approaching grey scale digitally can be challenging and very rewarding. The trick is to make it look as natural as possible and not look like you used a bunch of overlay layers, which can leave a piece flat and boring. Your best bet is to experiment and find a technique that works best for you.
My personal approach is to use grey scale to work out my composition and over all lighting scenario. At this stage I will roughly render out the main shapes, establishing shadows and forms, I DO NOT render everything out, I don't even worry if all the forms read Pefectly. I am going to place a multiply layer over the complete image anyhow, which will darken the whole piece up. The multiply layer is like wash, I tend to use a gradient so I get a little more color. I then place another layer over that and change the blending mode to softlight and paint in some loose color, a little red on the nose and ear, some green and blue, have fun with this and be sure to move your colors around. Now the fun part, I add another layer over the top, i use my color picker to pick my base color and mix lighter tones and start rendering the forms out.
Hope this helps some:)
I did a quick paint over for some reference.

Eric
Elmstreetart.com
Elmstreetart.com