The Tannenburg Fusiliers series progresses... on to Episode 2, and the next phase in completing the unit. This involves a lot of intensive work in those middle tones, where most of the interest can be generated for the viewer.
This is more than just making things lighter. At this point, you are also trying to work in some color twists, where things are tinted slightly different from the "main" color. As an example, in the dark blue of the coats, some shadow areas might be a little more green, or even a shade of purple.
When the person looks at it from a distance, it will appear as dark blue. But when they look closer, that is when they might see those extra tones that were included.
It is very surprising how little it takes to tint one color in a different direction along that color wheel! Blues have a huge range... from nearly green to almost purple. Most focus is on how light or dark a color is, but that range of warm to cool, saturated to less saturated plays a huge part in how it is perceived.
Even in this example, the coats are not just darker than the pants... there is a lot more green involved, and there is some brown tossed in as well to make it more muted. In contrast, the pants have a bit more red in them, and the color is much more saturated.
These are all concepts that are discussed in every episode that I film. I am nearly finished with Series 6 on the Patreon page, which really dives into this notion of saturated vs unsaturated colors, and how warm or cool a color might be. Here's a link to the page, where you can check it out: https://www.patreon.com/JamesWappel
Here's a link to Episode 2, where I tackle that "middle phase" of working in the mid tones:
