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12 Definitions and theorems about color theory for logical non-artsy people.
Color palette: # Introduction So, you want to be the worlds best pixel artist, but don’t know enough about color theory? Is you line art looking good, but then your actual coloring looking incoherent and lacking that JE NE SAIS QUOIS? I’m here to make that Je ne sais quois into the sweet science of color theory. [basically making undescribable quality more describable] Color theory is important in any art that uses color. And the lines between art and science is often blurred. There are usually methods for getting started with color, and this can be finalised to make things look good. The visual appeal is king. Let’s jump into the infinite sea that is learning color theory.
Note in my previous video I spoke about isometric art slightly wrong, please see this video by saultoons for the right version of iso art.
Definitions and their uses. # Color values. HSL is Hue saturation lightness, and RGB is Red Blue and Green. HSL works like this, You have the color wheel, and the rotation of the color is the the Hue value. 0 is 0 degrees, and 255 is 360 degrees. Saturation is basically how much vibrant the color is. Consider pure red on the hue spectrum 0 saturation is a type of grey only with no visible sign of red, and 255 is pure red. Lightness is how much white light is in the color. 0 is black, 255 is white. Rgb is pretty self explanatory, but remember we are dealing with light, not paint, so all colors combined give white not black. It is helpful to use both types of color, as at times the color needs to be saturated, brighter, or complemented, and at other times it needs to be neutralised, or hue shifted.
Yellow+Blue makes White additively, Yellow+Blue makes Green subtractively. I find it hard to switch between the 2, and pigment color theory makes more sense than light color theory. It’s called additive and subtractive, because with light you are adding wavelengths together, adding light to the color to make it more of it. But with Subtractive color, the reflective surface absorbs all colors but the colors it reflects, and therefore combining 2 colors is combining the colors that are absorbed, so less color can be reflected, hence subtractive.
This is 1 hue, with only the saturation and lightness changing. This is helpful when you start filling in your line art with shading but not adding color just yet.
A lot of these concepts have a parallel in [[circle_of_fifths___20240322_103317|circle_of_fifths]] # Analogous colors Analogous colors are colors that are within 90 degrees of each other in the color wheel. When you create a “ramp” or a bunch of colors you want to shade with, hue shifting to an analogous color might make the image more vibrant.
Complementry colors are two colors 180 degrees away from each other on the color wheel. Complementry colors are good colors to start for neutralsing a color.
tria := a set of 3 colors equally spaced apart in the
color wheel. Pick a color, go 85 points up or down in hue (remember that
hue is a circle so you may have to wrap around)
= Secondary colors. These are two primary colors that are combined, usually via paint.
Intermediate color := are like secondary colors but
instead of adding equal parts primary, you add 2 parts of one primary
and 1 part of another. For example a reddish orange.
Warm colors are Yellow Red or Orange, and Cool colors are Blue.
Values that are close together, cooler or less detailed bring less attention to the piece, and values that are high saturation, detailed or warm, bring more attention to them.
Concluding remarks. Study great pixel artists on pixeljoint.