X-men : Gambit color practice (Line by Harveytolibao)

Hei... The other day I found this EPIC line art of Gambit (from the X-Men) done by Harveytolibao on his deviantart gallery. I thought to myself maybe I can use it for coloring practice since I know I am very bad with colors.

 The line is too epic to be left blank. I tried contacting Harveytolibao on his DA for permission to use his art. He has yet to reply my note so I guess I'd just go ahead and start with this project. And if he deny my request, maybe I'll scrape it off wherever I have posted it on (mostly on my FB so far). That is before SOPA or PIPA gets to me first.

On the first night I only did the skin, hair, eyes n headpiece.
The skin was only difficult in choosing the base skin color (I'm lacking experience of coloring hence do not know what color that people use for skins). Then the shadow of the skin was basically a few tones darker and I think I did quite well for a starter.

After the skin coloring, the hair was quite tedious since, again, I had to refer to a few reference on the net to know what Gambits hair color is and still I don't think I got it spot on. Basically there are three layers of colors for the hair. Though I am still a bit unhappy with how it turned out to be but I'm scared that if I continue to focus on it, it would turn out worst.

The headpiece was very easy. Its just grey and I used burn and dodge tool to create the tone.

The eyes is a bit hard. The dark part is  just dark purple (I'm scared that if I use black it would be too dark). the pupil on the other hand, is pink. I wanted to make it brighter at first but found out that both pupil is not focused and it would look weird so I decided to make it less striking so that the eyes wont be the main focus of the picture. Maybe I will edit around the eyes as a finishing touch.

The following night is just a little continuation from when I started. I posted the first work on my FB wall as a cover image so that I can gather comments and suggestions to work on before moving on. Some said that the face is too messy with all the lines (though I like it but maybe they are right). turns out it looks better with less line.

There was also mention on the face looking too pale.So I added another layer of color to make it more lively and at the same time give it more shape. Basically I am quite satisfied with it but I still think there are room for improvement.

But my major focus for this stage is to color the muscle shirt. Three main color groups was used, blue, red and yellow. Even though most of the reference on the net show that the lines on his shirt is made out of silver or bluish grey, I think it looks better lined with yellow. For the yellow, I shadowed it with slightly orange tone of yellow for parts where I think deserves to be darkened. I don't know if it shows but still think it is worth it.

Blue was easily done. The base blue color was went over with dodge tool and burn tool to create the lighter tone on the mid of the chest and darker blue as it reaches his trench coat and also the inner of his collar. In my personal opinion I think it looks nice.

The red is just as simple. red base color was went over with the dodge tool to create the light red on his chest and burn tool where I thought needs to be darkened. Then another layer of darker red was put on so that the shape of his muscle would be more emphasized. Again, I do think it looks nice as a piece of shirt. I dont mind getting one myself.

That is the furthest I have worked on the piece.

So far, I do think it looks nice but the hair needs more work done.

ps: pray that Harveytolibao would permit me using his work.