Sowwy, I haven't been posting much lately 👉👈Been busy. But also working on a more time consuming piece hehe :3c

Was studying the official 2k3 style and this Raphie turned out pretty nice.

Just wanted to draw April and Mikey being cute, ehehe.

Fearless Big Brother.

About that Donny....

(The collective "what the fuck" reaction to his size has been pretty funny.)

Based on an exchange I had in my friend's kitchen.

Fur inspectors <3

HOKAY, I'm done with work, time to gush about turtle comics.

Putting it under read more so I don't spoil anyone.

I was very taken by this moment in @punctuated-equilibrium's aka T33la's latest chapter of The Abyss Gazes Back Leo collapsing under the grief over everything that has happened, and what he almost made himself do, and Don feeling nothing but gentle concern over his well-being rather than worrying about his own fate.

Underdark 2: The Undarkening! Aka @plothooksinc blessed us all with a sequel to Underdark; Chiaroscuro which focuses on Raph and Donnie's side of the story and the rescue operation. Obviously, I enjoyed it greatly. I sketched the first doodle immediately after KJ showed me the first wip of the story. The 2nd is for celebrating her finishing the fic <3 And as an extra, here's a couple Mikey&Leos from the regular story. One of them I published with my first Underdark fanart, but I feel it might been too hidden under Read More. The other one is new ✨

I don't think I have time/energy for the whole TMayNT challenge-thingy, but I kept thinking that if I drew my "Favorite Leonardo", it would be like this.

Coloring Tutorial Part 2

Part 1

As promised, here's the 2nd part of my color ramblings. This time I'll go a bit into how I pick colors for cohesive and atmospheric looks in my illustrations. Usually, when working on a piece, I'll think about what kind of mood I'm going for and then choose one color as a base. Let's use this pic as an example:

I wanted something warm and cozy, and the feel of an old house. For the base color, I chose brown. The funny thing about colors is, that they can look veeeery different depending on which shades you put next to each other. For example, you can make a shade that's not actually red, look like it's red by putting greenish tones around it. Let's look at the shades I picked for this piece. When you look at the color spectrum, you can see that all the colors can be found somewhere within the range of red and yellow. Don and Leo look like their normal shades of green, even though there's not any real green in this picture.

For comparison, I colored this picture as if it was in a neutral light and all the objects showed up in their true colors.

Looks rather jarring, doesn't it? The colors are picked from all around the spectrum and there's no consideration of whether they match or complement each other. When you pick colors from a more condensed 'area' within the hue spectrum, it's easier to harmonize them. Also, in general, it's wise to stick to a limited palette. It doesn't have to be in the same hue range either. You could pick something like blue and orange as your base colors and then use shades that are close to those two.

Another trick is to repeat your chosen colors in different areas, instead of picking a new tone for everything. This will make the overall look more cohesive. And if you want something to stand out, pick a more unique color for it. (This same rule can apply to character design too.)

A demonstration of how almost all the colors appear in several spots within the picture. Note, how most of the BG is non-obtrusive browns and reds, while Don and Leo become a focal point with their greens and the blue duvet.

So, how do I actually pick out these colors? I'll show you. Here's Raph in neutral light aka in his true colors. And two different versions where I've used indigo and orange as the base colors.

Now, I'm not sure how comprehensible this is, but I tried to explain my method with this visual guide.

Basically, I'll try to remain close to the base color in the hue range and then fiddle around with how the different shades look together. It does take some practice and using various color adjustments or blending layers is very helpful if picking the colors manually is too hard!

I hope someone got something useful out of this, thanks for reading and sending the ask!

Don't worry, I don't think that's weird at all! The turtles have very thick legs that basically take up half of their whole body mass. They're also this big expanse of green compared to their upper body that has a wider variety of colors, so it's actually very natural that your eye is drawn to it.

Not to mention my personal style kinda puts emphasis on them. I draw the turtles' lower plastron narrower than in canon, cause I feel like it gives them more room to maneuver their legs and do acrobatics. And that ends up making their legs look ridiculously long and hips wider. It's pretty feminine look, so sometimes I have to make an effort to dial it back a bit, lol.

Thanks for the ask!