Colour / Texture tests

So after tidying up the lineart a little bit, getting rid of mistakes etc. I added in some basic shading. Now originally I was considering just sticking with the lineart and making a black and white comic, but just seeing a little shading on it is already making me question that decision.

I experimented with that shading, making it bother lighter and darker:

Making it lighter made the shading seem more realistic (the scene is set in broad daylight, so shadows wouldn't be that dark), but while the darker shading wasn't as realistic I felt it really added some much needed contrast to the image. I also experimented with colour:

The blue I felt made the scene seem quite lonely almost, and made the scene appear as if it was set at night illuminated by moonlight. The green I felt didn't work, it made the scene too... surreal I guess?

I quite liked the red though, it sort of makes me see the scene as being set around evening which I feel could work for my story.

I then added a second colour as a source of light, and played around with the colour of that for a while too:

The red I felt sort of removed the 'evening sky' quality of the image, but I felt like it added a whole new meaning to the image tonally (sort of like the work of Gabriel Bá who I'll look at in further detail). The blood red light really set the scene I think for the coming violence in my book, but I felt like it was too obvious?

The yellow light made it seem like it was set in the evening even more so, which I felt was good. Visually I found it a lot more appealing than the harsh red as well.

While the green is a good contrast the red shadows, I felt it was too harsh on the eyes and made the scene appear far too surreal.

I also tried making the light blur a bit to add to the realism, but I disliked how it bled out from the lineart (most noticeable in the trees in the first panel), which sort of made too much of a mess for only a slight improvement:

After that I experimented with textures, going with textures either in just the shadows or everywhere not shining in light:

In reterospect I should have tried just putting a texture under the light which I felt could have made the scene look more realistic. I do like the textured shadows though. Adding texture to the neutral lighting of the scene though, I felt really muddied the image up.