'Catering' colour keys

Some of the colour keys for the next Sublo and Tangy Mustard episode - this part is always really fun, it feels like digital finger painting. There's no expectation of making "a good drawing." In general that's something I love about indie production, compared to working in the industry and having to pitch each step of the process to higher-ups. I never have to sell an exec on any idea, or reassure them it will come together by making each step 'presentable'. I always feel like so much time is wasted on shows making every part of production pretty, even if the viewer is never going to see it. But here my storyboards can just be scribbles, the colour keys can be blobs. I know what's needed and I can trust the process.

A few things I think about when working on colour keys:

-What's the mood of the scene/environment, what's the weather? In this case it's cold, rainy and dreary.

-I'm pretty bad with colour. My autopilot instincts are often to go desaturated and low contrast. I don't like it, but that's where I drift if I'm not thinking about it. That actually fits the intended vibe of these dreary environments, but in general I have to consciously push myself to go bolder. I like to deliberately pick an intense colour or inappropriate hue and then gradually pull back from it, as a way of shaking myself up. Or sometimes it just works as is, to my surprise!

-I keep the character lineup on a guide layer on top so I can quickly check how they'll fit into the palette.

-What should stand out, and what should fit naturally into the rest of the scene? For example in the office environment above, the Subpar team will stand out a bit with their more saturated colours (along with the blue table where they set up the catering, in the middle of the image) while the environment and regular employees will be more muted and blend together.

-As with every creative step, a blank canvas can be daunting. I do a first pass where I have no real expectation of it being 'right' and then come back after a break to look again with fresh eyes. Sometimes it looks fine to me, sometimes there are obvious improvements to be made or options to try.

General update on the episode: Backgrounds are fully drawn (although obviously not fully coloured yet), animation is underway and I'm making steady progress. Also people keep telling me I should do a little BG process video... Maybe I'll get around to it but the episode is the main priority right now!