I realized that my previous tutorial made no mention of local color, which is a very important element of any colored composition.

Local color is the original color of an object before it is affected by any light or shadow. I’ll be using Rarity as an example in this tutorial, because she has a very nice local color palette.  Here it is:

Now, these are her basic colors.  But when she is put in different settings, the light and shadow of the location will make her colors seem different.  If you use lighting realistically, as I described earlier: warm light = cold shadows (and vice-versa), even someone who has never seen her standard local colors will be able to decipher what they are.  Our brains are cool that way!

So, let’s put her in some different lighting situations and see what it does to her local colors!  Here are some very subtle lighting styles.  I made these with a shadow layer (set to “multiply”) a lighting layer (set to “screen”) and an ambiance layer (also set to “multiply.”)

I find it really fun to play with the 3 variables and try to make interesting mixtures of color.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg. What if you need a very specific lighting for a location?  It’s often a good idea to get some reference material.  If you’re making a snow scene, look up some photos on google and look at the color of the lighting and shadows.

Here are some fun examples of really specific lighting situations!

Holding a match in a dark room:

Uh, oh, she dropped it.  Now Rarity’s in the middle of a massive raging fire:

Suddenly, a tsunami hits the house and now she’s 10 feet underwater:

She manages to get back to shore, only to witness a UFO landing:

etc. etc.  Have fun with it!

Apologies to Rarity, who was a very good sport through this entire ordeal.