5 EASY TIPS FOR INSTANTLY IMPROVING YOUR DIGITAL ART 

On my point about copying other artists' color palettes, I believe I didn't properly explain what I meant. I stand by my point. When I meant "don't copy other artists' color palettes", what I meant was color picking from their painting. The exact shades in the highlights, shadows, nuances in the skin, clothing, hair. On the point of "you can't own a color palette", yes you can. Companies can copyright colors or color palettes as they appear on their products. The UPS brown has a copyright against any other carrier company using the same color. McDonalds has its red. Milka's color scheme is copyrighted in Europe against competitors. If you take this concept from design and apply it to paintings, I could hypothetically take out a signed copyright for the palette of a painting I've created against any duplication in another painting. This doesn't apply to a simple color palette, for example-- a lime, pink, and blue. But if you color pick the exact shades from an artist's painting, the exact limes, pinks, and blues, and use those tones similarly in your own painting, you are in fact using THEIR palette. I also don't agree with this comment being elitist. In the same way that we have plagiarism laws against taking snippets of lyrics or songwriters' melodies, artists' work should be protected. Every original artwork an artist creates immediately has a copyright in their name-- you don't have to actually pay for or legally get paperwork for your copyright. Imagine how much harder it would be for you to be consistently color picking from other artists' works, investing time into your paintings and not actually making conscious choices about your color schemes, and then trying to get a freelance or contracting job with a larger company. My advice is based on my own experiences building up my style and skills. I have been completely self-taught, and the few paintings that I had directly color picked from when I was in my early teens, I haven't ever posted since they are not my original concept. If you color pick the same shadow tones and highlight tones from another painting in your own, you are ultimately not going to be making conscious choices with your color picking, ultimately stunting your growth. Whether you agree with this advice or not, I'm speaking as someone who has worked on multiple commercial commissions and knows what clients like and don't like. A high-paying client is ultimately going to want you to create as original of a piece as possible and will be very wary of stepping over any other creator's intellectual property. The reason I don't believe that my recommendation of taking colors from photographs or media stills is also "stealing" or copying is because any live-action camera work will have millions of different pixel colors on the canvas/screen based on lighting conditions and reflections. I'm also assuming that you liked a couple of colors in the still and would be utilizing them in an original way (not directly copying both the palette and imagery). For example, you could see a still of the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel, and love the combination of purple, red, and pink. This palette isn't copyrighted when it comes to a digital or traditional painting. The movie could take out a copyright infringement against another filmmaker replicating the shot, colors, and color correction. However, if you as an artist isolate those three colors and come up with a wholly original painting idea, introducing other tones and nuances into your piece, you are just taking inspiration rather than copying. It is much harder to directly copy from another creative medium than the one you are using. This was a concept talk to me in design school when it came to taking inspiration for my design projects. Every professor would ask for a mood board but would ask for a diversity of media in that mood board so that the inspiration could be more broad and vague rather than topical. I can make a full video with examples on this topic if you're interested! Thanks for reading x

I was with you until the "don't copy color palletes" part. Colors can't be owned, and palettes can easily end up being similar just from following basic color theory. Your art is great, but maybe you should revisit what you consider art theft if you think artists in any way can "own" a palette.

If you're an artist and you get upset about someone using something as silly as your color palette, you get triggered way to easily. It's just a color palette. Me personally if someone is using my color palette I'll take it as a compliment.

I have to disagree on the color thing, it’s completely fine to take inspiration from other peoples art rather than just photos and the old masters. And it sure as hell isn’t cheating. Work smarter, not harder.

do you think you can show us how to edit our images after we finish illustrating, i feel that’d help me a lot. sometimes my images look at bit dull after post because I don’t edit them at all

I think the color palette thing is a bit extreme. It can be problematic when someone copies the color palette along side another aspect of a certain work making both pieces way too similar, but colors aren't owned by anyone. If anything, I think the reason NOT to copy a color palette is for the artists own benefit in improving their skill when picking out cohesive colors. Using colors from a photo/painting or generated online isn't bad though. That within itself can also teach the artist when studying. Just my opinion~

Been doing digital art for 13 years, freelance artist as a job for 8. I've never felt compelled to copy a colour palette from someone's art myself, nor have I done it. However, also wanted to say no one owns a colour palette. That bit sounded a bit weirdly elitist to me. If someone is creating an entirely new piece of art, who is it hurting to use colours that you don't own? Awesome video otherwise!

Sorry if this comes across too aggressive but I’ve actually seen people start fights about how this or that artist “stole” their color palette and it’s really annoying when people act like that’s a real thing People don’t own colors, if someone limits themselves to a certain palette and makes it part of their “style” to be “recognizable by the palette” that’s sorta on them, if a color palette is the only defining thing about someones art and the only thing that makes it good then Theyre not a good artist, and they still don’t own colors or palettes Again not tryna fight but I’ve seen people get extremely pressed about others color picking from their art as if their colors are the secret Krusty krabs recipe……

I have to say i disagree when it comes to not using another artists colour pallet. You're maybe the first person i've heard actually saying this? like my professors who work in the industry never advised this and if anything have told us to seek pallets we like in order to learn. Of course learning isn't just using the eye drop tool, but like tracing and heavily referencing art, it can help develop your skills (though with these i'd never advise to post online/claim as your own works) Colour is just.. colour? Nobody owns colours or colour pallets even if some artists are known specifically for them. Because those artists are not the only artists who developed their pallets on their own. I see no difference with using a pallet already created, to learning about colour theory in order to get to that point where you'd have a colour pallet that's the same as some other art work. The only thing here is that one, one person has learned and two, the other hasn't gone through that process. The end result is still the same, because it's just colour. I'm not denying that going the eye dropped route will maybe take you longer to learn, but to put some type of.. ethics to it? as if you don't respect an artist by using their pallet? It just seems like a very strange stance for someone to take (and as someone else has said.. pretty elitist) simply because the artwork you're using the pallet from, 100% has another piece somewhere else on the internet with the same pallet.

1. Begin with a sketch that you love. → Use flowy lines rather than hard lines. 2. Use as many layers as you want. 3. Use a colour pallete from a photo that inspires you. 4. Stop when you're feeling frustrated or have been focusing on one detail/area. → If you've been overworking an area, erase that area or make a new layer on top and colour block then add details. → Take a look at your sketch to see if your proportions are correct. → Step back and analyze what's going wrong. 5. Don't be afraid to blur out/cover out details that you've worked hard on.

Was enjoying the video until you mentioned ''copying'' a color palette. I'm sorry, but nobody owns color palettes: the fact that some colors go better together than others is universal color theory and nobody should claim ownership over that lol.

Love ur art! But as the others talking about the color pallets, I have to agree… no one really owns a color..

I disagree with the color palette thing, is not like humans created colors or anything, it is just silly... It feels like people who complain about getting their poses 'stolen' despite the fact that the human body can only move in a limited amount of ways.... The same applies with colors tbh. Nothing's original, not even the most tryhard professionals 'created' a color palette from scratch, they copied and got inspired, learned from different sources and combined all of that to make something different, for that reason I disagree in that aspect of the video, other than that, good video!

I really love that people like you give their tips for their drawings, it helps us improve, thank you☺️🥞

this is so helpful as i'm starting to seriously take up digital arts as a hobby

I think you made a good point originally then in your comment. It makes sense. I wouldn’t call it copying but more so, not receiving a relationship with color nor learning how to create values with said color palette. I don’t think it’s inherently bad for artists to do that because in a traditional setting, most artists do masters studies and copy the heck out of particular artists at the beginning of their career yet halfway through, they start really developing their studies and aesthetics to really learn how to do their own art. I think what you’re talking about is no different. As well, a piece of work is not the same as a company like McDonald’s or Amazon. Restricting historically known palettes like Zorn palette or the primary palette would be completely useless and actual hinder a lot of artist’s art because those palettes help students of art develop their own ideas of color mixing and color choice and seeing what works. It’s inherently problematic. Again, I can understand not wanting people to copy you or other artists but in mean time they won’t.

I disagree about the color palette. There are plenty of art challenges out there, like "Draw this in your style," which encourage palette copying. We all copy each other subconsciously, and all art is derivative... so.. eh? Copying a palette from a movie is the same thing as copying a palette from someone else's art. It doesn't matter tbh.

I'm sure no one owns a color palette. Colors are natural and for sure no one owns any color. I hate it when people think someone else is "stealing colors" just because that person's palette is similar to another palette. You could've known that many people make their own color palette and others suddenly take inspiration to that palette. Hence, maybe some people can search it up and use that instead. Now, that's not stealing.

Super solid advice and beautiful painting as well! I love the way you contrast the warm and cool tones and how the saturation of the warm tones draws you to the face right away

Girl no one can claim a color palette

This is one of my favorite paintings of yours 🥰 thanks for the tips! I also like to use multiple layers for my sketch/line art phase so I can easily edit different areas without affecting the others!

Thank you for posting, this painting is beautiful!

i didn't know people could own colours

Sweet video and wonderful tips! I started to chuckle at your layers tip! I remember my computer freezing after adding to many layers in Photoshop! I believe my limit was just 6 with my first Mac it only had 16 MB of Ram and I had to save constantly but even then if it detected to many layers it just froze. I was so excited to purchase an 8600 tower and I was a bit of a braggart to my computer club as I had dug down and got 448MB of Ram to allow me to go crazy and used over 15 layers in Photoshop 4.0.1! You are truly inspirational and such a delightful young lady. Thank you for sharing your art journey with us.

AMAZING WORK!! and awesome tips, will definitely be using

This is one of my favourite pieces you've done.

It’s cool that you want artists who worked hard to have their own palette be respected, but i think anyone is allowed to use whatever color palette they want to as long as it suits their tastes. There isn’t really a law about copyrights on color palettes unless it’s on big companies with very specific products that might get copied by other companies. So to anyone who’s reading this, GO HAM! If you like one artist’s specific color palette then use it! Whatever’s the result of your work is *your* own and not whoever’s palette whom inspired you :)) Side note: no one can ever really copy and paste someone’s work just through their color palette, there’s always gonna be some kind of variations that makes your art YOURS, unless you copy and paste the entire art itself and call it yours which you can be sued for.

thank you, this was really helpful and inspiring!!

Beautiful, thank you so much for the tips

Thank you for this!! Very helpful & good advice I haven’t heard before - I’ll definitely be implementing some of these into my digital work! Thank you, thank you!!

Very pretty painting. I like the colors as well. Thank you for these helpful tips.

Really useful tips!! Thanks for sharing

omg this is very helpful! Thank you!

Hi! I love your video so much! As a beginner digital artist, I was looking for a helpful tutorial on how to fix my work and improve my artistic skills. After watching your video and hearing your opinions, I found it very helpful and it gave me a clear idea of what I should do. I really appreciate your help and the knowledge you shared with me.

This is such a great video I love your style

thanks for the tips !!! gonna try asap also loveeeee the thumbnail that looks phenomenal ♡

gah this is such a good video!! i had been struggling on all of my pieces lately and your tips gave me exactly what i needed to know how to improve them!! thank u so muchh 🙏💞💞

Juuuust what I need!!!!

Really like this one !

So pretty 😍 and great tips!

if you have time (and if you feel like it, of course), could you please make a video talking about photoshop and digital art in general? like tips on how to use it to your favor, tools that can help you, how to use them to blend colors, and etc... that would be really helpful for us that are just beggining! 😊

Your art style is so detailed and beautiful. Watching your videos makes me wish I wasn't so lazy. 😆

As an artist who has been doing art for quite some time, I’ve seen a lot of discourse on the copying palettes. While I will say that the whole “copying is a form of flattery” is extremely stupid to say the least when it comes to art. However I don’t believe that beginner artists studying the composition of other artist’s works and learning color theory should be considered plagiarism. Not to mention the fact that a-lot of artists I know share extremely similar palettes. However this is just because they have learned what works well for their own art and what colors go well together. It’s like using a pose reference, it’s hard to do a complicated pose with no image to reference it from. I do think that beginner artists should eventually grow and be able to develop their own palette and what works best for them but in order to do that they need experience. I saw someone else mention that they should try to use color palettes from real life, however there are so many things wrong with this statement. Not all artists use realistic color palettes or do realistic art. It’s wrong to assume that every artist does extreme realism. Another thing is that a person’s environment and experience could be very limited compared to the diversity of references to use online. Ik this was kind of long but oh well

Really gonna have to try blocking with an airbrush. I struggle so much with blending colours especially with skin, but have been avoiding any blurry brushes.

Sorry, but I don't get what you said about color palettes belonging to a certain artist... For me, it's just a color association and nothing more... Maybe I just don't get what you understand by "color palettes"

But so many digital artists take colour palettes from colour palette makers online so, who is stealing who?

Thank you for the video ^^

Thank you for the video!! notes on the video(the 5 tips): 1. Use the brush you want during the sketch layer. Using a softer/defused will help you blend the sketch into the final piece. Use loose flowy lines, use your entire arm pivoted from the elbow and not the wrist. 2. Use as many layers as you want for your sketch. You can use a smaller brush size on another layer with the lower layer's opacity turned down to refine your sketch to your liking. 3. Use a colour pallet from a photo that inspires you. Pinterest, Unsplash, movies. You shouldn't use the colour palette from another artist because it is more like copying. (As in colour picking specific shades from another artist work, not general clours.) Unless it is from the old masters or if you got permission. 4. Stop if you aren't satisfied with your render (if you are overworking one area). Why it's not working: You are hyper-focusing on the details of one area and not colour blocking anymore. Option 1: If you just can't draw this area you can erase that area and restart. Start by colour blocking shapes then add details. Option 2: Take a look at your sketch and see if the proportions are wrong to begin with. Use a reference! Doesn't have to be pretty pictures, it can be pictures of yourself. 5. Don't be afraid to blur out or cover details. If they don't tell the story or take the attention away from the focal point blur them. Add motion blurs, gaussian blurs, prism blurs. Even with the blurs in, you can still kind of tell there was a lot of details there.

Thank you so much for this. When I draw it always seems like there's something wrong with my art. This really helped me a lot.

i dont think Sara's talking about only copying the color pallette generally speaking, with choosing colors like blue, orange, red and green, etc), but when for example someone copies literally every shade of colors of your artwork, the same atmosphere, even maybe using the color picker, after you spent hours of studying and practicing to fully understand how colors work and over time achieving the skill of picking colors that go well together, it could be frustrating i think you can get inspiration from an artwork, that's really different from copying or stealing

Gosto muito dos seus trabalhos,uma pena eu não compreender a língua já que sou brasileiro... parabéns ao seus trabalhos são magníficos!

I am now perplexed due to the color palette tips, I love to paint my digital painting where the palette are arranged and neat. What happened if I use several color palettes that are downloadable from Clip Studio Paint Assets & Lospec? Does it count as "copying" other artist's (the creator) palette? It is rather silly if in further events those color palettes have copyright as a signature piece for each artists...

I know it's been said already, but the tip about "copying" color palettes is incredibly misleading. I'm concerned that newbie artists will hear that, become misinformed, and feel limited in what they can create in fear that they've "copied" another artist. Obviously if you have the exact same composition and color pick the exact colors of an artwork and pass that off as your own work, it's not going to go well for you. However, artists cannot own colors or color palettes, and different people can come to the same conclusion that the same colors can look good together. It's literally color theory, of course many people are going to use the same groups of colors in their artworks. Same thing goes for poses, we can only bend our bodies in so many ways, and there are a handful of poses that are really popular to draw. If I draw a person's face in 3/4 view, am I going to accuse *every other artist* who drew someone in 3/4 of copying me?

Thank you! :)

Beautiful artwork! However, I hear someone for the first time speaking about owning a color palette. But then again, I never go into things so deep, so I won't jump in conclusions I have no knowledge about. Wish ya all happy upcoming holidays!

Hi! Maybe this sounds silly, but I'd love to see a tutorial on how you get that light blue/orange prismatic glow effect! I could only ever find Clip Studio Paint autoactions for a red/blue but have no idea how to get the one you apply in this program OTL

¿What brushes do you use? cause the blending in your drawing is beautiful

How do you do portraits without color picking from the reference? I need to do color picking to get a more accurate representation of the person I'm drawing. Or what about the "draw this in your style" challenges that encourage you to use colors matching the original work?

This really helps!! Tyy Also could i tell me what do u use for drawing is it a pen or ? :)

On your color palette point: Some people do put a lot of time into their color palettes, but others don't. It really depends on who made the art. Some people put a lot of work into their sketches while others don't. Some people put more time into the sketch and colorpick colors- whether from other art or from various photos- so they don't spend even more time on one piece. No one owns a color palette, you can't steal a color palette. If that were the case, then there would be a lot of legal cases on color palettes, even if it was on accident that someone has an incredibly similar color palette. That's ridiculous. I would understand if we were talking about characters, but even things like that in legal terms can be difficult to distinguish.

Love this! Quick question: are you using a drawing tablet or using the computer mouse?

Omg first comment 👀💖..... Ur vids. Help me a lot...thx💖🙌

man this was the best bday gift (uploaded on my bday but I only saw it now)

What program are you using to do your paintings

Your art is >>> but the talk about that color part is damn strange ngl

wish i watched that video when the dislike button was still a thing, im a new artist, im still learning, if i wanna copy someone's colours to help me learn and understand how colours work together i will, what am i gonna do with it? sell it to one of my 70 followers??? it shitty art thats going nowhere because I only draw for fun, why assume everyone getting into art wants to make a living out of it

I only wanted to get some tips for my digital Art. But instead I was instructed not to use color palettes other people made.

Beautifully Done ❣ Love from Signature Mash ✍🏼

Just curious, did you do this all by skill or did you use a reference when drawing this piece.

I'm sorry, but the idea of "owning" a color palette is absolutely ridiculous. No one has a claim to color. If that was the case, everyone who ever did art is a thief. Here's a secret: there is nothing new that you could possibly do with color combinations. It has all been done. You're not stealing anything. If an artist you like uses rust reds, navy blues, and teals; I -PROMISE- a countless number of artists/photographers/designers/f***ing DOLPHINS, have used it before. Don't let someone else insinuate that they own color combinations, or shame you for using a color palette you saw somewhere else. That's some art elitism at its finest. As long as you're not re-doing an artist's work and calling it your own, you're fine.

NEED MORE PROCRETE PROCESS VIDEOS PLEASE

I’m glad i’m not the only one that felt the color palette thing was a bit extreme. You missed the mark on that one.

so beautiful... i love ur artstyle:) lol fourth comment

How long did this take?

I can't get my workflow going... I always sketch and sketch but I never start coloring/painting and it's really killing my flow :( I get stuck in tutorials because I want to get better at drawing dynamic photos...

idk what to comment but I heard this helps with the algorithm

Dear Sarah, I absolutely adore your work, but as a photographer, I would love to comment on using a colour palette from an inspiring photo. Personally, I edit images so much that I am setting a completely different mood than in the original and the colours I normally pick have a lot of thought behind them. Often I re-colour a photo completely, and there is a lot of work behind every photoshoot as well. When I don't, I spend a lot of time choosing the right accessoires so they would colour match. I'm very happy when people use my stuff as inspiration, but it would sort of hurt if someone would just copy my colour palette for their art. Sure, there are photos on Unsplash that can be used in that way, as you mention, that's totally fair! But I see myself and my fellow photographers as artists as well and even though our creative process might be different from drawing, we also invest a lot of time thinking about our choices and editing. So, in my eyes - taking inspiration, yes, absolutely! But copying a palette when it's not from a source like Unsplash, please don't! I'm not saying that everyone should agree with me, but I hope I can get my point across as a food for thought

do u use krita because im thinking of getting it??

saying u can steal someoen else’s color pallets is like when you’re at the playground and you “claim” one of the fun things there like the slide or the monkey bars bsffr 💀💀💀💀

yep, i need to stop focusing on the details, its a big problem i have with digital and traditional art

Ничего не понимаю , но мне очень нравится атмосфера в видео 😅🤙

I miss your watercolours :(

I do agree with not copying artist, but don’t forget a lot of people just getting into art do art studies of other artist to try to study their techniques and so forth to aid them in their art journey. Of course if said artist doesn’t mention it’s a study then it’s an issue.

5 tips and you start out with ''Use soft brush'' ? Really? Literally the biggest mistake you can do is render stuff with soft brush

yeah, no, fam, the color palette tip was bad. say you drew something and there is a specific way you want the coloring to be, but you are bad in color theory and cant get the art to be what you want. if you find an art that has the colors that feel what you wanted to have on your art i think colorpicking is fine. besides, not everything will be a copy, because in the end, youll have to look for the colors that you need, but are not present on the image you are colorpicking from and see how they match with what you already have. id say colorpicking and trying to match stuff to that on its own is some sort of learning.

Imagine thinking using a color pallet is theft LOL

I think that in the end any artist never copy all the color palette of someone else but even if, It Is too extreme and I dont think professionals working for big clients bother about that.. Makes me think a lot of Wlop because you can see the artist Nixeu that has clearly "taken" a lot from Wlop, or all people clearly taking from Sakimi Chan. Tho i never heard of lawsuit against those people because in the end i dont think pro care.

I strongly disagree with the color part, sorry no. No one owns a color *legally* and from my experience my art improved with color picking until I learned how to pick colors myself, this ain't twitter this is RU-vid the rest of the tips are cool but the color part is bs

People don't own colors lmao

Lol … but colors are everywhere.

as someone that pays a lot of attention to color right now and did purposefully take one illustration to imitate the pallete as an exercise, i 100% agree that it counts as copying, it's the very essence lol the reason it would feel kinda off to make characters a different color if it's like the twin stars or something emblematic like that. not many people have studied graphic design yet as teenagers watching this, i didn't' study it either but i understand this point that comes from that industry

You’re such an amazing artist. Sawing you speed painting like that please my eyes so much. You are so good L love your shading method...This is so gorgeous... You’re one of my main inspiration. Thank you for your advices and for your yt chanel...thank you !

??

Took it seriously until the color pallet thing. No one owns a pallet. That sounds so stupid lmao.

i think the reason it’s bad to steal a direct color palette is bc that can change a piece completely. if you are going to use a color pallete form existing art try to slightly change the hue or saturation rather then directly take as directly edit: i think this also pertains to things like character where if you take a well know characters color pallet and use it for your own oc that’s more stealing and less originality then true creativity.

No one holds any copyright on color pallets, you don't need anyone permission to use it

I can kinda see where you’re coming from. Personally, I think if you’re going to draw inspiration from a color palette, the best thing to do is just try to replicate the color palette by eye if anything. Using the eye dropper may be a bit too much in my opinion. On the other hand, it’s kind of silly to get upset at someone copying your palette. From a purely graphic design perspective, like say you are working for a new fast food company and you pick yellow and red as your two base colors for advertising- THAT is when you get yourself into a pickle. Now if I were to create a painting with a pink, blue, and orange color palette and I by an off chance find out someone color picked it without stealing the composition of my piece, I simply would not care. Now if I KNOW and can prove that they’ve been doing that with multiple pieces- that’s when we are running into a problem. All in all, it’s really not that big of a deal. I think the real reason people are so pressed about this is the context of it all. I think it would’ve been best brought up on a different video where you could have further explained it. I know the amount of comments over this is probably overwhelming, but just itch past it. If you want, just go further in depth on an Instagram reel or something. Just don’t stress that’s all lol because if I were you I just KNOW my anxiety would be through the roof and so I feel bad.

help i thought something crazy was said about the color palettes but yea if youre doing a similar scene or in general picking for your art it makes sense that you dont want to just mindlessly pick or take colors because like she said you have to think of why and work on picking colors and what mood youre going for etc. you can absolutely reference colors but make sure youre putting thought into it she literally just talked about referencing some of yall are getting a little too offended over nothing especially the comments saying shes elitist for saying that

thats pretty arrogant to suggest that you never copied anyone´s art. yet your work is the same cookie cut instracam art we see everyone make. get over your self. we all copy thats how we improve.

The comments are giving me.. “Blood Orange, she’s so pretentious” vibes an I can’t 😂😂😂