In depth Cohesive colours

Clip Studio Paint & Photoshop

Illustrator Lim Wei Lun shares his expert advice on how to make gorgeous character art with a cohesive colour palette

When we talk about striking colours in our art, it’s not always about being bold and bright, but can come from using a palette that sits together as a cohesive whole and enables greater storytelling.

That was vital when creating this piece. I was aiming to portray the sadness of the character, which is why I decided to work with a mostly monochrome colour scheme, and yet still keen to maintain a vibrant and united palette.

For this tutorial, I’ll be sharing my process and tips on my workflow, including an explanation of how I choose and blend colours to achieve a cohesive and lively final artwork. To accentuate this point, the piece features a largely neutral set of base colours to show that you can still achieve a striking palette even when you’re working with a predominantly monochromatic scheme.

In addition, I’ll also make use of mood lighting to help convey that feeling of sadness in the illustration, as changing up the way we light the character can create vastly different feelings in the viewer. Finally, I also want to talk you through some of the cinematographic techniques that I personally like to use, such as effects like chromatic aberration, blur and bloom, plus some noise textures to bring my illustration to a more polished final look.