Choosing Colors for Coloring Sprites

[dstarsboy]

Hey guys,

I'm new to working on a VN and have been practicing coloring miscellaneous inked images and I'm running into two problems...

1) My colors look either too bright or too soft or too dark. If I want to color something pink, I am having a hell of a time finding the right pink to use.
2) My colors don't compliment one another. For example, a brown vest and a purple shirt, stuff like that that seems to be annoyingly out of place.

I guess my question is... is there's an online pastel pallet that I can quickly and easily choose complimentary colors from, as well as a good choice of colors suitable for character creation?

How do you guys go about choosing what colors to use and when?

[papillon]

There are lots of websites that will generate sets of colors which are meant to look good together; one is
http://kuler.adobe.com/

[dstarsboy]

I bookmarked that link, but it looks like that website is based on user submissions of what they think makes a good combination... which, if they're anything like me... could be completely wrong, LOL. However, I can see that these do look very good so I'm going to hang onto this. Thanks!

[Mirena (lazy mode)]

Well, in certain programs you can adjust colors or easily change the colors of one layer (if you use them). I usually end up doing that a lot. It really helps for trying out different combinations~

By the way, what program are you using? Depending on that I might be able to give some more concrete advice.

[dstarsboy]

I'm using Photoshop CS3. The pallet that pap posted seemed to help my recent work. Do you guys take hair and skin tones into consideration when choosing clothes colors or do you treat them as separately?

[Mirena]

Ooh, that definitely makes things easier. Photoshop is nice~

Okay, here I go. Sorry if I sound too basic and you already knew all this! :p

For coloring I suggest (you might do it already) having each color on their own layer, shadows for them on a layer above that.
If you do that you can lock transparency on a single layer - that means you can just go over the whole thing with a brush (either set to color or normal mode) in order to easily recolor it.

Another way to cheat with colors is to use the levels/brightness and contrast/hue and saturation to adjust them until you're pleased.

As for how I pick colors myself.. mostly I have a color scheme in my head and most of the time it seems to turn out okay. Other times I think about what colors I've hardly used recently and try to combine those. I think that a very important aspect of coloring is the saturation and lightness of your colors. Colors that clash horribly at full saturation can do well together in less bright colors.

[rioka]

Do you guys take hair and skin tones into consideration when choosing clothes colors or do you treat them as separately?

Yes, I take the hair and skin color into consideration. Take these for example from an old game of mine:



I tried to balance out the dark and light aspects so a character doesn't become too washed out or too dark overall. Those with dark hair usually got a light top and a dark or medium bottom while those with lighter hair got darker clothes. When using color, it's pretty much the same though I also try to use colors that match the characters personality. Below, Elena was colored in pink because she's a sweet type of girl and some may even say shy. With color, there is also the added challenge of color coordinating which I think is kind of fun.



Of course, if you have characters in universally dark or light uniforms, then hair and skin color gets thrown out the window kind of like Bleach with all the Shinigami's wearing dark hakama's.

[Aleema]

How do you guys go about choosing what colors to use and when?

Yay! A coloring topic! I just delved into the world of coloring with the sprites for my upcoming game ... it's so fun I want to do it all over. :3

I have a pretty weird way of choosing colors for my sprites -- weird in that it's a bit unnatural. I kinda give each character a color theme. Like, one guy is red, the other blue, someone else is yellow, etc. I don't make their entire outfits that color, but a primary element might be -- like a blue jacket or yellow hair (aka blonde =P). And then maybe a smaller element with another shade of the theme ... I guess it kinda helps me color scheme. I figure it also helps the player of the game to distinguish the chars from each other. Also, since my sprites were medieval time period, I gave them a lot of brown and that typically meshed well with everything.

I bookmarked that link, but it looks like that website is based on user submissions of what they think makes a good combination... which, if they're anything like me... could be completely wrong, LOL.

That's how you know their right! There's no science to art to say what's right and wrong. It's what's pleasing to look at that determines what's good -- and the only way to find that out is from the opinion of a person.

Do you guys take hair and skin tones into consideration when choosing clothes colors or do you treat them as separately?

Personally, I absolutely take skin tone and hair color into consideration. I have a bit of a hair fetish, so hair color is WAY more important to me than normal. But for instance, I have a character with white hair ... but having him with too light skin makes him albino. And any light color clothing makes him look flat. With darker colors on his body, his face stands out.

In the real world, tailors and such can tell you that skin has certain colors that it "likes" and meshes well with. Like, someone told me I look really good in green, but not blue, because of my skin. Not sure how much of that could apply to drawings, though ...

Anyway, my method of testing my color schemes is to step away from the computer screen and squint my eyes a little. I also make sure to revisit the colored sprite the next day to see if I feel the same.

[dstarsboy]

Thanks for the feeback guys. More than helpful! I think I have a good idea on how to handle my coloring now and I'll mess around with it tonight!

Mirena, I did know about the layering but I didn't know about locking transparency on the layer and brushing another color over it to try different colors.. I usually ended up re-drawing the colors, lol! So with that tip, I can easily mess around with colors until I finally find something that looks good to the eye.

Rioka, Aleema; thanks for the tips on how to balance skin/hair colors with clothing colors and giving characters "personalities" via color. I didn't know any of that but I can see how it would subtly help the reader identify and understand the characters better.

Thanks again!

[Toki-the-Baker]

Well to start, you could always look for color theory tutorials. I know deviantart has a few good ones that have helped me in my digital painting color schemes, they even have swatches you can download for photoshop for skin tones if that's a factor. What I usually do is take into consideration the mood of the scene as well as day time or night time and play with a background color until it feels right, from there I pick a character's hair and eye color, as I feel it reflects a lot of their personality the best IMO, then skin and clothing that is complimentary to everything over all. If all else is too much to deal with, look at artwork or other people's portraits that really speak to you and pick out the color elements from that.

Also it may sound odd, but if you go to some cosmetics sites and look at their eye shadow palettes, they usually put complimentary colors, or colors to make others stand out more, right next to each other. That's basically where I learned how to use color lol. From there, it should be easy to pick a mood or even matching clothing etc. Most of all practice Good luck with your color journey.

[Deji]

just found this:
http://www.worqx.com/color/index.htm
It might be helpful :3

A couple of nice color scheme sites I look at sometimes:
http://www.colourlovers.com
http://www.colorcombos.com

If you're making "normal" average random people, just look at photos on clothing stores' catalogs and websites. If you're going for a more fantastic or edgy look (unnatural hair/eye colors, colorful/fantastic outfits), then you need to play around with the color schemes.
About skin tones, just make sure there is some contrast, but not too much. If the skin tone goes well with silver, then cold colors will look good, and if the skin tone goes well with gold, then warm colors will look good.

[dstarsboy]

Toki and Deji, thanks for the ideas. I did some work last night using an existing image as a reference (a real life photograph!) and it came out pretty good, between that and the pallets people have posted, I think I'm in good shape.

Do you guys typically use different Sprites based on whether it's night or day in the background or do you simply use the same sprites all around and shade them cleverly enough so that no one notices a difference?

Deji, btw, your paper doll layer PSD is amazing. Much better work than anything I've purchased from Amazon's CDs. You should consider making a bunch of those and even selling them on your website for a small fee. From what I can tell, no one is serving this PSD paper-doll market at all in any meaningful way and I think there are a lot of people like me who would even pay for good work/flexibility like yours. Just a thought.

[rioka]

A pretty neat thread in Indiegamer was posted today on how to rip color palettes. It's pretty interesting particularly if you see an artwork you like and just love the colors used and want to use it in your artwork as well.

[Aleema]

Do you guys typically use different Sprites based on whether it's night or day in the background or do you simply use the same sprites all around and shade them cleverly enough so that no one notices a difference?

Never thought about it, but I guess I do use the same sprites for all versions of light. I never really noticed a difference, but now I guess I will! ^^

The good thing about Ren'Py, though, is that it will be able to tint your entire screen, including the sprites, for a type of light.