Question - Watercolor Brush . Filling the Same color with the same Value while lifting the Brush Possible?

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molambo

molambo

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I wonder if there is a option where i can fill a area with the same color which keeps the same opacity while lifting the brush?



with real watercolors i can fill a area, take some more color on the brush and continue with that area while keeping a unified look.

can you achieve the same here somehow? as of right now it seems that the moment you take your pen of the tablet and you go in again it will darken the area which got color on before instead to mix with it.



when you have some detailed lineart where you have to change the brush size to get into some areas while others allow a bigger one you have to lift the pen and due to that cant continue with the wash as you would with normal watercolors with the basic settings so i wonder if thats somehow possible.
 
Hi @molambo,

Sure, you can select different blending modes of the Watercolor brush. To get the desired behavior, you can:

  • either select the "Opaque" or "Semi-Transparent" mode in the "Watercolors" panel
  • or check the "Pigment" blending in the "Layers" panel


 
thx for the answer, i completely forgot to look back here if someone answered. sorry for my very, very late reply. i am trying to dive in deeper again into rebelle 5 so i continue here instead to ask again.

the option only seems to work with opaque colors but lets say i want to lay a transparent wash over something. the moment i lift the pen and put it again on the canvas it darkens the already layed down transparent color which is normal when you work with transparent colors digitaly but since rebelle tries to emulate watercolors i thought there might be a option to get it working like real watercolors.
 
There is a way, yes, though it does have limitations. If you turn on "pause diffusion" (next to the wet and dry layer buttons), you can overlap watercolor painting areas and have it retain the same transparency. Once you're done with that section, you can unpause diffusion to let the physics run, so the water and paint can move and settle. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a way to come back to an area later and keep the same transparency, after the diffusion has run.

Also, placing a high amount of water (especially all at once, rather than a slow build-up) while diffusion is paused can cause some interesting effects, once you unpause and the water starts to flow, with how it pushes the pigment around. This can be fun to play with, and used to great effect when desired--but amount of water used is also something to keep in mind if you're aiming for a more smooth/controlled placement of color.
 
it doesnt seem to work this way on my end so i guess i still do something wrong.

its usually the person behind the pc who causes the issues. :)



here a simple example of what i want to do. using transparent colors like watercolors and applying colors while taking the brush off. as you can see it darkens the areas which is expected (image1 )and even with the diffusion running these dark parts dont get away, the just drip down due to the tilt (image 2)



Paused Flow



Unpaused Flow





would you do that with normal transparent watercolor you wouldnt get these dark blobs which then drip down this way.
 
Image didnt show up and i seem to not be able to edit the post? so here again.



--

 
Ah, I did a bit of testing, and now I recognize what we were doing differently to each get our respective results. When I was able to get watercolor to layer without obvious darkening, I was using the goache subcategory of watercolor brushes, set to low opacity. In Brush Settings->Paint->Rendering, they're set to "Normal" instead of "Glaze" mode. (Except Goache Flat 2, for some reason.) This mode makes it so that every time the brush tip(s) stamps the page, it applies pigment/color, and will build up as you repeatedly go over an area.

The watercolor subcategory brushes are all set to "Glaze," which (from what I can observe) seems to prevent the brush tip stamp from causing a pigment buildup, making it easier to cover a large area with a perfectly uniform transparent wash--but only within a single stroke. Once you lift the brush, it seems to count as a new brush tip stamp, causing any overlap to darken.

If you can control your pen pressure well (or adjust settings to force it to stay generally light/uniform), and use a relatively lower opacity brush set to "Normal" paint mode, you should be able to overlap separate watercolor brush strokes without creating the same kind of harsh dark overlap. You just have to be more mindful that if you go over the same area multiple times (with one or multiple brush strokes), it will slowly build up pigment/opacity, due to the brush tip stamps now layering.

However, based on a quick test, there is one more thing you can do to manually smooth out a wash, whether with Normal or Glaze mode. While still paused, you can use blend (or paint+mix/smudge/whatever you prefer) to make accidental dark areas more uniform with the surrounding area, then unpause once you're ready to let the water and pigment settle. That can give a much smoother wash--without the risk of sacrificing canvas texture, as can happen if you blend a dried area--if you can't otherwise wrangle brush settings to play nice.
 
@Melampode

thx for testing it out and the workaround. its kinda strange that one of the basic watercolor techniques dont work in a tool which is supposed to emulate said tools with the same working method. maybe a future version will let you lock in with the transparency so that you dont darken it with another stroke after you lifted the brush.
 
Hi @molambo ,

Yes, we’re aware of this. Our digital watercolors behave differently from traditional ones due to the nature of the medium. While we’ve explored solutions in the past, we currently don’t have a definitive fix. However, we’ll revisit this in the future to see if there’s a way to refine the watercolor painting experience.
 
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Veronika Escape Motions said:
Hi @molambo ,

Yes, we’re aware of this. Our digital watercolors behave differently from traditional ones due to the nature of the medium. While we’ve explored solutions in the past, we currently don’t have a definitive fix. However, we’ll revisit this in the future to see if there’s a way to refine the watercolor painting experience.
Click to expand...

its not a real watercolor issue, more a digital brushstrokes issue and how they naturally behave. you have the same problem in other programms but for example in csp there is a blending mode for brushes which allows you to continue with your strokes after you lifted the pen from the screen without to get the darkening in the overlaps. that blending mode for the brushes is called: compare density.

i know rebelle works different but you could enable a compare density button next to the pause button so that while its paused you can continue your washes

here a example. two strokes, pen is lifted. the brush blend mode on the left is set to multiply but nearly the same would happen when it would be on normal. with compare density mode its handling it more "naturaly". maybe something for your tech guys to look into.

 
Something else you could try is to paint at full opacity on a new layer and reduce the opacity of the layer, this might give the effect of smooth transparency you are looking for
 
Angela Tribbeck said:
Something else you could try is to paint at full opacity on a new layer and reduce the opacity of the layer, this might give the effect of smooth transparency you are looking for
Click to expand...
That wouldnt help in that case since it wouldnt solve the issue i described. this all is on one layer. you lift your pen and do another stroke and it behaves like on the left side. i would like it to behave then like on the right. this way it would act as if you would do a traditional watercolor grading wet in wet.
 
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