2025-08-21 11:37:46 ¶ ●

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I love how you color, any tips on how to achieve this sort of muted but vibrant look? 🥰

So sorry for the late reply, anon! Doing this anyway just in case anyone else would like the answer too :)

Basically, I keep the “whites” of my drawing/my lightest values much darker than you’d think. If you color-pick my Mira drawing as an example (which is what I imagine you’re talking about), you can see that my whites are more of a greyish-greenish color than white. This is so that it won’t compete with the bright colors I want to use, in this case, pink and blue. Use this as a guide to choosing the rest of the colors in your piece, like darker colors to prop up the white, and also allow you to go even lighter for areas you want focus on. Like the small, white highlights of her jewelry are actually whiter compared to her sclera and the envelopes.

Aso note that some bright colors are inherently darker than others. For example, the most saturated/brightest blue is darker than the most saturated/brightest yellow. Keep it in mind depending on how muted you want your colors to be!

And lastly, control the amount of colors you use in the first place. It may look like I used a lot of colors for my Mira drawing, but really, they’re all within the families of blue, pink and green. Her golden jewelry is actually green, the yellow highlights in her hair are actually orangey, etc., and decide on which ones occupy the most space, vs which occupies the least.

It’s all value and composition fun, if you already know your way around choosing default or neutral colors. I hope this answers your question!

2025-08-27 20:02:23 ¶ ●

2x5