Why You Should NOT Listen to Me When Choosing Skin Colors!

[@zethdarke8792]

Should we apologise for giving Scott an existential crisis?

[@vaulz_]

Nah he'll be fine

[@mommom-su5kq]

sorry Scott

[@midnightbakura]

We broke a kind gental man!

[@dandelion_16]

Probably XD ':)

[@MrMahada73]

No this to is funny

[@cyberkrack]

"Cus it looks cool as heck" is reason enough

[@NeoNovastar]

rule of cool trumps all

[@alisagarlick1584]

I could not agree more.

[@Sparklyz.roblox]

Thats what im saying

[@VirgoLunaKnight]

I agree ☝️

[@stroodledoodles]

Fun fact! Reverse colour blindness is actually a thing, it's called tetrachromacy. It's where your eyes have additional colour receptors that allow you to see more colours that aren't visible to most people. There even have been theories where it's linked to autism/neurodivergence which is pretty wild

[@squirrmine4843]

That’s pretty interesting!

[@gailasprey7787]

Think I might have that because I see the slight differences in colours other people don’t. And I’m autistic as well so maybe.

[@ZoruaLightning]

I've been thinking I might have that, and after seeing this video and noticing some of what Scott is saying, I'm thinking maybe it really is possible. I have autism and synesthesia and im able to sort of filter my vision to see certain colors more, so maybe that's part of it.

[@alisagarlick1584]

Cool wait then what the heck am I because I can see both sides lol

[@victoriabarclay3556]

Wow!!

[@NeoNovastar]

Okay so I'm trained to see colors in the skin this way, and you ARE seeing these colors in context! Adding greens to contrast the reds of the cheeks or a reddish undertone tricks our eyes into seeing greater depth in the skin. I think it helps to know as you layer colors, because the final result gives you these richer "grays" that makes the skin more lifelike. The way it clicked for me was talking about colors like "Oh, this blue has more reddish undertones (it's a vibrant and darker blue, almost ultramarine). This yellow has purpley undertones (its maybe grayer/more desaturated)" Idk why that works for me, but it does, and we can both be crazy about color LOL

[@shawnrobertson9618]

I wonder if photoshop is reading grays because it is mixing the layered complimentary colors which desaturate each other. I wonder if our eyes can decode more “data” at a higher “dpi” so that we can see separately, for example, the tiny blue spots and tiny red spots in skin, therefore seeing a blue tone in the skin. I am a graphic designer and have often sampled a color in Photoshop, swearing it was would be more saturated than PS’s reading.

[@NeoNovastar]

@@shawnrobertson9618 I think it's a little column A and a little column B! While I'm not sure if we have higher "dpi", we can definitely learn a lot about how we see color by playing with color optical illusions (like the video Scott recommends)! Colors relative to one another can really alter our perception of them.

[@CoyoteWildFlower]

Looking at sunset: Artist A: Look at the cobalt blue! Neurodiversive Artist B: And that band of thalo green! Normal Dude: What are you talking about, it's all gray. I can't see the colors that Scott can but I don't see the gray either. I'm hoping if I keep practicing I'll see them more like Scott.

[@bassafratz]

Almost like a filter

[@birdgirl2623]

@@CoyoteWildFlower Reminds me of the scene toward the end of "Up" where the boy, Russell, the old man, Mr. Frederickson, and the dog, Dug are sitting on the curb naming the colors of the cars that go by. To Dug, they are all "gray".

[@Snow-Willow]

I learned from the colourblind challenge that it really doesn't matter what colour you use for anything, so long as your values are correct (or close to).

[@tafkpehp]

I love the colors you use. I see those colors in people too! Don't stop your color riot!

[@phoebegee54]

The experiment with the traffic lights was interesting

[@vishtem33]

There are basically two things happening in the general case: 1. color doesn't matter; color _temperature_ matters, that's what you are seeing differences in, and like with words, it's literally meaningless out of context; you only have a sense of color temperature once two colors are next to each other. It's only meaningful to say that those traffic lights actually 'are' grey once you have isolated them from context. If you didn't know the context, it would be fairest to say the color/hue/saturation/value are indeterminate, whatever Photoshop might say. 2. Photoshop is exactly removing that context. The idea that the greenness is going to be in any single isolated pixel value actually makes no sense. This is the same kind of logic whereby a art newbie selects bright green to render grass because 'grass is green'. Making the grass anything other than 'green _in context_ ' is confused. Inferring color into greyscale reference is a slightly different case; I'd suggest that changing expected color temperature as forms fall back is a reasonable consequence given the reality of atmospheric haze (objects appearing more atmosphere-colored -- typically bluer -- as they become more distant.). Of course you are exaggerating that, and anybody looking at your colors should also be aware that the small-scale impressionistic work (mixing in small amounts of various hues) serves to exaggerate color contrast further. (I think people are also liable to infer a particular environment around their reference images, which gives further latitude (reflected light) for using colors that seem kind of wild once you take them out of context)

[@JoanieBC]

❤❤❤ Context is everything.

[@blackbeakwitch6013]

I do the same with my paintings. While I am more of the hyperrealism side of art and I use watercolors to paint animals, I use strong colors all the time to layer over a piece of fur or horn. I feel like it gives the piece more life, just as your vivid colors make your art so spectacular and unique

[@KarensTinyCarCamper]

Dont change! You know, all the grays are based on a color, which you can see in the top right of the photoshop color picker.

[@art_kitty_1190]

The opposite of color blindness is being a tetracromate. Color blindness is when someone’s colour receptors are not working, tetracromacy is when you have an extra type of colour receptor. Most people have 3 colour receptors, red, green, and blue. Colour blind people can have one or more of those colour receptors not working properly, or at all (hence the different types of colour blindness). While tetra chromates have an extra receptor, I believe it is always yellow. So we have functioning red, green, blue and yellow colour receptors, hence why we can see blues and greens where a computer will tell us it is just a desaturated orange or red when we use an eye dropper tool. I too as I grew my artistic eye and started looking even closer at stuff have seen purples and blues in peoples dark circles, or shades of green on their skin, colours you wouldn’t expect to be there otherwise

[@macdieter23558]

So if we gave the "color checker tool" an expanded view like a fourth color, it might see this, too!

[@art_kitty_1190]

@@macdieter23558 maybe? I’m not super knowlagable with how this sort of tech stuff works, but most technology with like screens has 3 LED lights, (RGB, like normal eyes) and digital colour pickers work in either RGB or CMY (cyan, megenta, and yellow. Atleast I think that’s what it’s called, I don’t do digital art, so this is second hand knowlage from Videos) maybe if a screen had a yellow LED added, and the colour picker was programmed to pick it up, then it would work. But also maybe not. But currently just the RGB works fine to show those colours in photos, so the only purpose would be to show tricromats (people with the typical 3 colour receptors) what we see, which can be done through art as Christian Sava shows very well in his own exaggerated colourful way, which franky is an aspect I love about his art

[@art_kitty_1190]

@@macdieter23558 I got lost in my brain when writing that comment and therefore forgot yours. So here’s a more direct answer it’s possible, I’m not super tech savvy but I’m sure someone could code a colour picking tool to use all four, cause most right now are red green blue (RGB) or megenta, cyan, yellow (CMY, I think, I don’t use digital art), so potentially adding the yellow in to RGB may work? Or it may not. I’m not sure, but now I wanna research if someone has tried to make one with yellow too that’s not the cyan megenta yellow one

[@ExistenceUniversity]

Not the opposite at all, just one more cone.

[@onnie1134]

​@macdieter23558 a story I heard from my dad one time is that he met someone with an extra cone in their eye. He asked her something that was different, and she told him the sky had always been red to her. Idk how accurate a source that is but since then I always look for reds in the sky. I mostly only see them in sunsets and sunrises but sometimes I convince myself they're there in the deep blue skys next to the horizon

[@SillyandgoofyAnim8or]

i see it too, its a color context thing, the like grayer part of the skin looks closer to green than the redder part of the skin next to it, so your brain compares them and sees green even if its a orangish gray. i think people who arent artists just see it all as the skin color but artists look at the color of spacific parts and shapes in a photo. idk if thats actually why some people dont see it but thats my guess.

[@Irmak-qr5pw]

I see it too. Probably artist see them.

[@Manic_player]

Either way regardless if the colours are there or not it still makes your art stand out and look really impressive

[@thedragonseye1210]

Colour Theory! The bane of every artist's existance. Its so weird. The perception of colour is such a facinating thing- like, I agree with you that there's definely blues and greens and purples in there! There's clearly a cooler tone to the areas like the jawline. _But_ with the overlays/lighting/surrounding colours always, _always_ affect the way the brain registers the 'main' colour. (This is the exact reason why that blue/black vs gold/white dress meme blew up- the photo, with all the layers and contexts, could be seen different ways.) And- adding another layer to this- the shade of the veins/capilaries of the skin can range from purple to green to blue, and _that_ effects how skin colour is perceived too! Mini rant aside, part of recoginizing this might be training- you train your brain to look for the differences in colour, which, for someone who's painted people for so long, would've been train _extensively_ and thus give you the set to see the little differences better than others. As well as make some amazing portraits, might I add

[@jazzycrescendo9465]

Hahaha I forgot about that dress meme but it's the perfect example of the power of perception!

[@SharowbladyeGaymerPorate]

The way u use coloura is really inspiring, I've always drawn skin as just one tone (with some shading) but you've really expanded how I want to try out new methods to create skin that truly as a soul to it. I don't care that ur references don't do what u do bc u do skin in such a cool way that it's always beautiful to see. Thank you Scott for being awesome, for seeing colors where I can't

[@Amy-fd9xp]

I love the way you use colors. I was recently coloring and used some wild colors for the skin tones because you do and you make it look so natural. The way you think about color is really unique!

[@amandajingleheimerschmidt3050]

Once, in Highschool, I did a (chalk) pastel portrait with wild colors in it like you do, Scott. Then I laid over the first color layer with a generic, out-of-the-box skin tone, and it gave the painting so much more depth! The way you do skin tones makes total sense to me ❤

[@SIlverloreguard]

As strange as it might seem while I can't see the colors I can see where you are getting the color references from the photos. Either way it makes your paintings absolutely gorgeous. If nothing else it means that you get to share what you see with all of us when you paint! we get to see them in a new light an perspective. Which is one of my favorite things about art in general.

[@hallows7568]

When you pointed out where you saw the colors and I took a second to look, it started to make more sense to me. I see those colors now, but only looking closely. It actually reminds me of an art trend where someone would see a color they used, then digitally eyedropper it and it actually look so different! I think that's why people stress color theory so much. How, like in Zach's video, if you're in different lighting like a sunset, the colors appear so different. Though, even knowing that, color theory still makes very little sense to me-. It then makes me feel like color is meaningless as what is the true color if different backgrounds and lighting can change how they look so drastically ^^". I try not to think about it too much and just do what feels right. Though, your advice on adding those other colors has still been helpful for me. I was coloring fur that was grey and brown, but I also added some purple in there and I felt like it added a lot more pop in a subtle way that you may think purple was never added at all. For being so simple, color is also so complicated

[@raghavkrishna3123]

It honestly adds a lot of recognizability in your art.

[@mizuki2264]

It could also be a bit of abstraction (in a good way!) The kind of parts that just feel warmer or cooler, you replace with reds, blues and purples instead of greys. It does give your art a unique and lively touch to it!

[@rafaelatakami8019]

I love the way you work with colors in your paintings! You work always looks so unique ✨️

[@thegrandnil764]

Relative color is a real thing, and pulling relative color out into explicit color like your doing is an art form. Don’t put yourself down.

[@taspiradee6272]

Don't worry, Scott! I see what you mean about the "extra" colours, and regularly believe I am seeing greens, pinks, purples and yellows in photo references, too! I didn't realise they actually *weren't* there and weren't just, for instance, the influence of lighting or how images are captured digitally, until your video! But we all have our own ways of seeing the world, full of colour or otherwise, and I would pick to live in a world like that in your art any day. Your pieces are always so full of life and they are a joy to see just as they are!

[@drawninthefog]

There's an artist on KZbin called Lighting Mentor who created a video on the Power Of Grays that explains how we see colours in relation to others really well. I think you're maybe taking that suggestion of purple and green and blue, and leaning into it in a way that works really beautifully

[@MrsBarnabas]

Hi, Scott. A quick look through the comments, I'm seeing that a lot of people are talking about reverse colour blindness. Ok, fair enough, BUT... Take a look at your arm and hand (or somewhere where you can see clearly *untanned* skin) without the need for a mirror.. You will see blue, green, purple, pink , white, cream, and so on. The reason is simple. Our skin is NOT all one colour. Overall, it's fairly transparent, and what we see is the underlying structure. Blood is a bright red colour when it's fully oxygenated in arteries and their offshoots and is darker red in viens. That darker red translates as blue / blue-ish purple when it is close under the skin (eg in the forearm of slim people) Quote Vivienne Marcus MD: _"If you take human blood, put it in a glass tube, and leave it undisturbed, several very specific things happen. First, the red cells sink to the bottom. Make no mistake, red cells are full of haemoglobin and are very red. Above the red cells you have a straw-coloured watery fluid, which is plasma. And between the two, lying lightly on the surface of the red cells, is the Buffy coat which is a thin layer of whitish or off-white cells, which is where the white cells and platelets are found. The buffy coat is what a large number of white cells look like when they are all pressed together. In people with pathologically large numbers of white cells, the buffy coat is a much thicker layer. This white layer gives rise to the medical name “whiteness of blood”, which translates as leukaemia in Greek."_ Blood plasma (the liquid the red and white cells are carried in): Quote from: _"Greenish discoloration of plasma: Is it really a matter of concern?"_: _"Blood plasma is the yellow liquid component of blood, in which the blood cells in whole blood are normally suspended. The color of the plasma varies considerably from one sample to another from barely yellow to dark yellow and sometimes with a brown, orange or green tinge also. In addition to the varying shades of yellow color, some plasma samples are clear and some are milky or turbid."_ My skin is very fair, and burns easily, and so looks a white-ish pink. I can see my veins, tendons - a sort of creamy white, knuckles, creamy yellow. The veins lying either side of it look green-ish, as do the veins on the top of my hands. The skin of my hands is a browny-ish light pink, because of a slight suntan. One of the veins which cross the tendon at my wrist looks a purply-blue, the other looks green-ish blue. And all of these add up to a very complex set of colours which we we interpret as 'pink' in "White" people. "Brown" people have more melanocytes than "White", which colours the skin varyoing shades of brown, which before mass migration across the world, was there to helpt to protect the skin of people living in places with very strong sunlight. BUT their skin isn't just brown, any more than our "White" skins are. They have underlying shades of the same colours, and which as artists, we should use in our work to create a realistic skin tone. The Old Masters did this all the time! This is why using the various colours as underpainting for skin is important - it brings skin tones to life - just as you are doing, in a slightly more exaggerated way in your work. BUT all of this has wider applications across ALL the colours we see. There is no true white and there is no true black (unless in total darkness in an underground cavern, whoch is a total absence of colour), any more than a fire's flames are red alone, or a spring or summer leaf is just green... So no, you are not going mad You do not have a strange way of seeing. You just see what is there, but your artist's eye has been trained to see what is really there, and not the simplified version our brain has been conditioned to give us since school knocked 'seeing what we really see' out of us. Enjoy it! Go on using it in your art, and you'll see that others will really enjoy it, too, and start looking at things differently, too!!! And that *has* to be a good thing, surely!!! Edited for typing errors.

[@donnanowland3163]

It’s your style. I love it. Watching you apply paint to faces blows my mind. I love your style. As often to artist about art pieces…you do you. 🎨🧑‍🎨

[@Miss_Myth]

You're not broken Scott!! You're a superhero!!! I was so heartbroken for you with Van Gogh, I was so sure he'd match you too! But the important thing is that you keep making what you love the way you love it, and we get the added bonus that you share that love (& tons of inspiration and encouragement) with us! Thanks Scott!! 🎉😊

[@Hello_Spaceboy]

Siiigh. Finding out these colours you're able to pull out arent secretly hidden somewhere and are actually grey hurts my heart because I want so badly to learn how to incorporate colours like you do

[@roryiscooltoo]

Ill still listen to you

[@manlymies]

same.

[@art_kitty_1190]

Same here

[@mohammadsv6102]

Well I guess I finally know what type of superpower I want, Reverse Color Blindness!!!

[@tomaskolarik6114]

To see the world more lively and vividly without substances (drugs) or severe mental illness? What a blessing!

[@lashee6573]

It was a little hard to adjust at first, but thinking more in the way that faces have lots of colors, I started to see it a lot more and it’s really cool! A change of perspective can be a powerful thing.

[@shadow_fox773]

The great thing about you being able to see the colors in the skin this way and putting them into your paintings is that you will be able to inspire other artists. Someone wants to make their skin tones vivid yet make sense? Welp. Van Gogh didn’t do it. But Scott did!! You’re the first to do this (that I know of) and that’s REALLY COOL. Keep doing it! Your work is beautiful!

[@anotherartfulwhippersnapper]

I was about to say that!

[@aff77141]

This is the beauty of color theory. This is entirely intended and how we take advantage of palettes, blues making greens look yellow - it's also why so many low tier make up artists will just paint your skin orange or yellow, because they don't notice the undertones, experienced muas can see all thee blue and green hues people have. I was actually once doing an online writing thing where I was asked to tweak a characters colors to fit the world lore, but lo and behold when I went to fix it the color was EXACTLY the one they'd given me to switch to, it's just that I had used other colors to make it look more blue, so they thought it was a totally different color.

[@artsy_dragon_creations]

I may be weird, but I totally see how you’re seeing the colors you do, or at least they make sense to me and look right in the end, even if they’re more vibrant than the reference. I think of your color style being a lot like the style of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. In that game, even though Spyro is in general a vibrant purple, the lighting effects they use in the game can make his topside a warm pink in the highlights and an almost royal blue in the shadows, so he looks really vibrant and dramatic

[@FletcherCollier]

Also video idea, can you do a video on drawing OC's I feel like it would be cool to see you process of picking a way to make a charecter, or maybe a video on you and Donna doing a collaboration art piece?

[@AlexYorim]

Color theory and relative color fascinate and confuse me at the same time.

[@Artiztisaurus]

I find the exact same thing happens to me too so it’s nice to know that this happens to other people too and it’s not just me :)

[@suzt7076]

That’s fascinating. And when you pointed the colours out in the photo of Doc, I can see a hint of them too. So maybe I’m just suggestible, lol.

[@quirkyblackenby]

I love the way you paint skin. It’s so vibrant and lively

[@RobertUnderdunkTerwilliger]

Scott, no matter how you see the world your art is beautiful. Thanks for being so forthcoming with us.

[@stormpetrel5645]

With skin tones, some spots are cooler or warmer than others. You explain the cooler tones as them being blue/purple. Even though it's not as vividly visible for us in the painting, it's still there. There's hints of it everywhere and you have a great eye for recognising them

[@OrcaStrike02]

Hi Scott! I am definitely not qualified or knowledgeable enough in color theory to explain this, but what you are seeing in the skin is definitely related to what Zach King explained about color context in his video, If you want to know more, there is a very useful video by Light Ponderings called The Power in the Grays, where he explains how if you shift the hue of a color and desaturate it, you can make it seem like a different color, I highly recommend you watch it :)

[@Derpital]

Please don't ever stop seeing so much color! This change in your art style is so cool!

[@michellepelkey51]

Simply put-You have artist eyes! It’s a beautiful gift!!!

[@rainbo777]

I see a lot of color in skin tones as well; Definitely part of what drew me in to your work. My paintings are very colorful also, and it just makes the most sense to me ! I am not adept at translating shading/values without it. I can do monochrome or rainbow lol - I am also autistic, and something about “not seeing things in context” is getting at something but not quite ; I believe we see an abundance of contextual information and our hypersensitivity can also mean over saturation. If you take a photograph of skin and crank the saturation up, you will definitely see bright colors like what you were trying to find with the color picker.

[@dhi_x]

I always liked the way you coloured skins, I thought it was unique and wanted to learn it , ❤

[@LivLark]

I really like these longer short videos! :) its great to expand upon some concepts with a little more time. Also, I see the different colours too! That traffic light illusion was mind-boggling

[@larryiscreating]

Ultimately, it's your gift and one of the many things that makes you special. 💯

[@goobinwitgoober]

I think a big part of it could be color relativity. Where if for example there's a purple background and you slightly shift a color on it to green, but the color you use is more of a very washed out blue, it still looks green relative to purple. I think you're just better at seeing that and emphasizing it. And it's so interesting to hear you explain it because it makes complete sense and it's really helpful to have my eyes opened to that as I'm trying to make more colorful art. So actually I think I will listen to you when it comes to choosing skin colors, ha!

[@figment616]

I can honestly agree with both sides. One the one hand, context makes the colors, which is why I think you and I see blues and greens. Because of the surrounding color. The grays become more colorful, and our brains go "oh that mist be blue" not gray. Or. We just prefer to see life a bit more colorful

[@jazzycrescendo9465]

The brain is a wonderful magical thing! I don't think you should view it as a negative thing, because I think it's so cool that you can see a picture and see those colors! I almost feel like it's something similar to chefs or wine connoisseurs where they develop such a complex sense of taste they taste small notes that other people don't. Maybe you aren't identifying the so called "objective" color, but I think you're perceiving what these different shades of gray are actually DOING (perception wise) in the original composition in a way that most people miss. Maybe it's technically "gray," but you're seeing how in context of a composition it's acting as a green undertone, or so on. I don't see it and wouldn't be able to think up your color palettes, but when I see your paintings they make total sense to me-they capture the feel of the colors and crank it up.

[@AlottaBoulchit]

And here I thought it was just cause you were extremely creative and artistic. It's honestly your way of adding color like this that drew me to your work/channel (next being your sweet personality and cool studio)!! To be honest... I see the colors you're talking about when you point out those spots in many of the references! They're not super vibrant to me but I see like a dull version of those colors. Like making a grey paint but adding in the color with it so the grey is tinted or something... it's... wild to see that you see things so drastically differently! It makes your work stand out though!! It's like a super power!

[@FletcherCollier]

I honestly see that as well, maybe I'm also crazy, story when painting with him gauche for the FIRST time I made the mistake of buying a cold press sketchbook, but I feel like it's a creativity thing, since the way it all goes together in your artwork it looks smoooooth. Thanks for being amazing,

[@clemdelaclem]

I wouldn't rely on the RGB values, human color perception is much more complicated. I think what you are seeing is your inane sense of how to mix a certain color, you can get to the "grey peach" in many different ways, and if your brain tells you that this one contains more green pigment to get to that shade than other area around it, you use the relative color content and exaggerate the weight by making it the main color in the painting

[@mickmash13]

I think this might be an artist thing & how you train your brain as an artist to see colors. I'm not an artist but my sister is. I was helping her sharpen her colored pencils and sort them out by color group (reds, browns, oranges, greens, blues, etc.). Some of the colors she put in certain groups surprised me because I just didn't see how they fit in that group. But it makes sense to her & she's insanely good, so I just went with it. As long as you like your art & you're okay with how it turned out, you do you!

[@cynthiaswanson498]

i see where you get the colours from, the best way i could think to explain it is if i had one starting colour to use as a skin tone, i would mix in a green, or a blue, or a pink where toure seeing those colours to give it the depth needed to actually paint the different parts of the face. no enough to make it look green or blue or pink, but enough to paint the different features, and avoid using just black and white to lighten or darken the colour, which i think would making the paintings look washed out. i think the reason your paintings work so well, is because you dont just add colour like that to certain sections of the face, but the whole face. a random spot of blue on their face with muted skin tones everywhere else would look out of place, but doing all of them across the whole face makes it look balanced, and like it matches the refrence photo.

[@_kenia]

This reminds me of white/gold black/blue dress phenomenon

[@ContagionStudios]

Never change Scott! I mean keep growing as an artist, but use the colors you feel. I could see what you meant when comparing those tones to local colors. Where you're seeing purple in the shadows, that tends to be near warm yellow areas, and the blues near orange. Your selections make sense to me! *hugs*

[@edvard-swift3645]

Whatever it is, it makes your style of art unique and awesome and at this point I can pick your art from a line up

[@sagedavid5341]

I love the way you paint skin! I wish I could see all the colors in your references that you can because the way you paint skin is so cool

[@sabrinawohlfeil__]

I see these colors too 😅 - I took a course by Jane French last year and though she doesn’t work as expressive with colors in the skin tones she sees the blues, greens and purples as well. I heard that in other portrait courses too - I think you are the only one to paint the colors exactly that expressive as you see it 👍🏻

[@rebekahg6426]

i wouldnt say this is a bad thing. honestly i love the way you see things, the way you illustrate things. it provides a new perspective! you inspire so many, it'd be a shame if you started to doubt yourself because of this.

[@SigneofHorses]

The context explanation is baffling! I see the blues and greens as well, not as vivid as you perhaps. I think photoshop shows the warmer and cooler tones but it stays in the orangey grey context. Stay vivid my friend! See all the colours❤ (I know you will😅)

[@cloudeon3468]

There's this artist I follow who does a lot of nude pieces and his work opened my eyes up to how much color people have. I kinda realized that getting the right balance in your colors adds a smoothness to the skin

[@Ceares]

I mean I'm glad you did this video because I never see the extra colors and I love artists who do and add them to their work. So now I know it's something like being able to wriggle your ears or roll your tongue and don't feel so bad about not being able to do it naturally. I just try and fake it by picking specific color palettes that minimize/eliminate "natural" skin colors and force me to use others.

[@MarcNassif-tb5ib]

Here’s skin tone tips! Use primary’s to mix a brown Color, and add white for the highlights (but do add some yellow and red in there) also the jaw has a bit of a blue tint so for the jaw add a touch of blue, the nose and cheeks have a little red tint so add a hint of red, and the forehead has a yellow/ochre tint so add yellow or ochre

[@prexytheartist]

I also see colors in a more vibrant way! I've been trying to convince my family on the colors and they don't see it at all but to be fair, 2 of them have red-green color blindness. I feel like I see colors like the way you showed here and I think you perfectly encapsulated the struggle when I told my family that this blue is redder or yellower. They just don't see it even if I compare it side-by-side.

[@tfstarrynight]

there is also logic and science to what you see!! in real life, humans DO tend to have red around their nose, lips, ears (blood flowing to these areas) or purple tones under their eyes (what we call "eyebags"). men especially have a blue tone in their jawline from facial hair growth/stubble. the classical artists you color pick from ARE indeed trying to replicate these subtle color values within the human face. even before they had the complexity of science to explain it, they were doing exactly what you did :)

[@jaikrishnanadkarni]

As an artist myself, I'd say what you have is not a disability/craziness/disease. You have a SUPERPOWER!

[@dragonfractal6361]

I think it really is like the stoplight photos, in a way. You are mentally removing the “overlay” of the average skin tone of the person and seeing the subtle differences in hue where the light hits differently or where there is more blood flow under the skin or whatever. So even though all the colors you are seeing are some shade of grayish beige or grayish brown, some parts are *more* green or *more* purple or *more* pink than the average color.

[@shdwdncng]

Because, Artistic Vision, that's why! Do you, Scott. Your art and style is incredible 😍

[@Fluffypigeonsandowls]

You aren't the only One that sees SO MANY COLORS in just so many Simple Things. I honestly thought it was a normal Thing for artists to see this. The closer we look at something, the more colors we see. I can also see greens, or soft Red shades and indeed some blue and Yellow in the Faces you showed in the video. It was honestly mindblowing how we can see so many colors in something that's actually suppost to be Grey. I recently had to make an exercise where me and my classmates had to draw a skull on red or black paper, most of us saw SO MANY colours in the skull where it was supposed to be like an almost grey-light-yellow. But no, there where blues, yellows, greens,...

[@silivrengamer]

Ok so what I’m learning here is that people who paint like you do with colors really DO see the world differently! But it’s also beautiful and totally awesome! I’m glad you see the world differently. Keep making art!

[@LeonardoHamato]

I kinda see subtle hints of the colours you're talking about. And it always confuses me when i use the eyedropper tool to colour my digital art that I'm still learning the basics of.

[@yeetles]

I can see the colours too!! I think it’s an artist thing

[@sandylopez8048]

Whatever you think you may have, I like it! Please dont stop, its what brings vibrancy to your art. 😊

[@lucyboyter6049]

I love the way you use so many colors. It makes the art very creative and vivid. I love your art style. 0:28

[@fool4spuffy]

i think it’s like an artist thing bc i’m the same way!! i tried to explain how i saw all these colors to a friend once and they looked at me like im crazy too😭

[@artemisteparle754]

For Some of the colours you point, I can see them. For Others I see another colour in the same range as you. For some I juste see flesh or skin colours, but not gray. But for the white and black reference, I only see white, black and gray. Colour perception is really personal, between the way your colours receptors reacts to light, the way the signal goes through all the nerves, the interpretation of your brain and the cerebral communication between your two hemispheres, there are thousands of possibilities. For exemple, I have visual snow, it's like seeing millions of really tiny black and white spots everywhere, like a TV static but with much tinier spots. So for me the contrast between gray shades is harder to see. But on the other hand, I can see more colours than the average person (you can easily find tests on the internet, or just notice it when speaking with other people. So it's not as weird as you think, colours perception is really complicated and really unique for everyone.

[@inali_illustrates9142]

this is actually something that I have been wanting to harness as of late, to see the hidden colors

[@thedemonfoxy2364]

This is just your perception of the surrounding colours. A mere trick of the eye. If the reference image has mostly warm tones, your greys are gonna look sort of bluish greenish. Whereas with cooler tones, the greys would look mostly warm.

[@mys_mistree]

I SAW IT. I very much saw it! And it is exactly like ZachKing was explaining, it is the context. The upper lip looks blue due to shadows casted on the skin but isolated its still the skin tone that's just subtracted by standing out. The greens of the ear are the mixing context of the skin and hair producing the consistent flesh tone into a green hue. If you consider the flesh tone as the gray, then everything is context. I don't think it's a broken thing. I think you just pay a lot more attention to colors than most people.

[@_SUNBUN]

this happens to me too!

[@sujurean]

I totally understand what you mean because my palette has been very vivid because that's how i see things, but like, so much of 2d art relies on how you see the world, my brushstrokes are tighter in smaller pieces but looser in bigger ones. I never have a crispness to my work bc my vision is blurred. i have a disorder called keratoconus, so my vision is distorted and astigmatized, so everything bright looks like spray paint splatters or shimmers of glitter. Its reflected in my work as well. With that being said though, bc of my disorder, for the most part, I've heavily used photographs & digital zoom to refine my accuracy with things like, defined facial features bc I suck at seeing them from a distance.

[@addytoons9082]

You are seeing The undertones in the skin and the colors in contrast to each others, I actually can see the colors too your not crazy you just emphasize the undertones and yes even though they are just gray in relation to each they are green and blue and purple so you are right

[@evaguess2313]

I am glad there is no cure because your usage of colors is inspiring

[@FishiusArt]

I learnt in a Marco bucci video that when you desaturate red on small parts of skin it appears blue and purple, it’s more of how your eye interacts with the other colours.

[@calcium-is-good]

as far as I can tell it's about the undertones! that's the way I can see what you're talking about ya know? like when you paint the pinks and greens on skin I see the undertones coming out :]]

[@anoriem4280]

Desaturated colors look different against saturated colors. Power in The Greys by Lighting Mentor (it's just on youtube!) goes into it a lot, could explain why you see so many colors when it's really just grey.

[@Elise_Wong8402]

I think that your pieces are amazing even if the color doesn’t make sense it turns out more lively and cool than the reference, this differences your art from others and in my opinion, it could be an art style!

[@juliefalkenstein]

Initially when I watched you paint people I was so confused. The more I watched you paint and watched the layers develop I realized the magic of what you do. Does it look like the photo reference? No…and yet it totally does as well! You are capturing something that is there even if technology and someone less practiced or creative or daring (all me) can’t see until you have finished. It fascinates me frankly. I don’t understand it and it makes perfect sense when you are done.

[@pindebraende]

Most of what you're seeing is beige and brown with different undertones. So you're simply recognizing the subtle differences in the hue even though they live in the same area on the color wheel. You could probably manipulate the colors to come out of the photo references where you see them by using a slight blue tint and pushing the saturation way up.

[@artific3r_]

ah, color theory. everyone seems baffled by it... the way i like to think about it is "color isn't actually absolute, its relative." so like, the blue overlayed stoplight had its yellow light look gray, but we see yellow and so we can think of it as yellow, just in the context of blue surroundings. when you put white on top, the brain then corrects the color from "blue context" to "white context" and sees it as gray. because we usually use color on white (paper) and our lighting situation is usually white (sunlight), we consider white to be the "correct" color context for all other colors to be relative to, which is useful for categorizing color for things like naming paint colors or assigning hexcodes, but that's not always going to be the color context we're working with. your issue with the skin tone is that skin tone is not pure white, even for the palest people. the color context is whatever the person's skin tone is, so for the purposes of overlaying colors on top, you CAN think of them as blues/greens/purples/reds. I'd like to note this only works when the color you are putting down is affected by the color beneath it, like when it's low opacity/takes multiple layers to build up pigment. If you put down a color and it completely covers up the color beneath it, then it just... replaces that first color. all this isn't, like, scientifically sound, this is just a framework to help explain why we see color the way we do that helps me.

[@Andesyte6]

Either way, the colors you choose are beautiful no matter what

[@anjanasabu187]

You should watch power in the grays by LightingMentor That video really helped me with the same problem

[@jasmine3705]

I see the colors too! For context, I’m more a digital artist so I use procreate and an iPad to draw. Last day, I was coloring a drawing and I was kinda struggling with getting the colors to look "right". So I tried - for the first time - to use the color picker to get the actual colors from the photo reference I was using. This was really confusing, because the colors looked absolutely nothing like those I previously used! It was just different versions of gray (like in your video). Very confusing.

[@ninapalomaa]

I can't see what you see. But I can understand how you see what you see. And the fact that you are able to use so many colors when painting facess just makes your art unique and special.

[@NitSoLegga__]

Where you can see these colours its just some very slight differences in the colour, for example there might be a very very slight blueish hue overlaying the red. if you look at the colour itself it will appear to be red, yet slightly less saturated. but if you look at it in contrast to the rest of the red, the blueish hue will seem more extreme. This effect happens when theres a lot of one colour around so your eye adapts to that colour and becomes less sensitive to its frequency of light, therefore kind of filtering out the red and making the in reality very slight blue colour much more pronounced. i have absolutely 0 idea if tgis is right, its just a thought i had.

[@itswindyhere]

I see them too, don't worry :)) it comes with practice. (I'm not sure if it works for everyone, but I developed the skill to see "colours" pretty quickly)