Color 3 (Color Schemes)

Guide info#

Short: 8-10 minutes

TLDR - What this guide covers#

• Understanding high and low contrast is crucial for managing the energy in your work.
• Gamut mapping tools like Kgamut help organize colors for harmonious compositions.
• Color schemes are an easy method for finding good color combinations.

1: Color Contrast

Here’s a quick recap of contrast in case you’ve forgotten: Contrast is basically how much something stands out from its surroundings. High contrast means that elements are very different from each other, while low contrast means that they’re similar to each other. The most important things in your decoration should stand out the most, while less important things should have lower contrast.

Colour-wise, you should recall that value contrast is an important part of lighting as Light 3 discusses. Here, we’ll discuss how contrast relates to hue instead. Hue-wise, colors can contrast in both relative temperature and hue.

Low Contrast#

Having low contrast in your colors can lower the overall energy in your decoration. This lower energy is neither positive nor negative. It depends on the usage. Analogous colors have the lowest contrast because they’re right next to each other on the color wheel.

Here are some low contrast color schemes:

An example of a low contrasting color work is Early Morning by Alexandre. This painting has lots of warm colours and all of them have a generally low saturation. This gives the piece a very calming and relaxed mood.

High Contrast#

Higher contrast in your colors means higher energy. The most contrasting hues are complimentary colors, as they’re opposite to each other on the color wheel. The most contrasting values are black and white.

Here are some high-contrasting color schemes:

Consider the second half of Tamatoa’s song in Moana, where the dominant colors are vibrant pink and cyan. The gradual shift of these colors makes it much more dramatic. Near the end, the two colors rapidly flash in Tamatoa’s eyes which brings more energy and franticness to it.

2: Color Temperature

Let’s split the color wheel into two halves, separating the colors from red to yellow and from green to violet.

On one half, you have the Warm Colors - your reds, oranges, yellow-greens, and so on.

On the other half, you have the Cool Colors - which are your purples, blue greens, indigos, and other combinations.

While you can’t physically measure a color’s temperature, these are named as such because we associate these colors with objects found in nature, such as fire typically being red and orange, and ice being related to blue.

Warm Colors#

The introduction of warmth to colors significantly influences the overall mood of a scene. In contrast to the typically flat and white lighting in our surroundings, substituting this light source with one that imparts a warmer tone introduces dynamic lighting, enhancing the vibrancy of the entire work.

This effect is particularly evident when rendering elements such as plants, where a strategic hue shift towards warmer colors, such as yellow-green for brighter portions, results in a more lively appearance.

This example in Ori and the Will of the Wisps uses lots of warm colors and as such, it has a much brighter mood.

Cool Colors#

Cooler color palettes often evoke a more dull mood. This is shown in this example of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, where the use of cool colors contributes to a feeling of lifelessness. Notably, the game uses value contrast effectively, adding dynamism to the and instilling a sense of danger, thereby enhancing the player’s engagement with the environment.

Note that while temperature is an integral part of how we see color, it’s not the full story when it comes to mood; shapes and context are also really important. The warm colors in the first image could easily become too hot for comfort if the forest was replaced with a volcano, for example.

Similarly, the more menacing cool colors in the second image could become much calmer if the image depicted something like the sky.

3: Color Schemes

A color scheme is a collection of colors used to organize hue contrast in neat, easy-to-use ways.

Monochromatic#

A Monochromatic color scheme is one where the hues of the colors don’t change. Hue and color are often interchanged but hue is fundamentally different in that it does not involve how dark or how dull something is. Thus, these color schemes involve different values and saturation.

Monochromatic is tricky to use because it requires a good grasp and understanding of values. After all, you no longer have different colors to distinguish forms and shapes.

Analogous#

Analogous color schemes involve colors that are right next to each other on the color wheel. An example of this is red, magenta, and purple.

They’re considered the easiest color schemes to work with as you don’t have to think about conflict and contrast, and are naturally pleasing the look at. However, analogous color schemes can become mundane after a lot of use.

Complementary#

Complementary colors are colors that are opposite to each other on the color wheel. Blue and orange is one good example. Complementary colors are harder to use compared to analogous ones, as you need to balance the contrast so that it creates interest and isn’t an eyesore.

Split Complementary#

Split Complementary color schemes are the same as complementary colors, except you split off one end and move to the 2 other colors on either side. This is considered a more “mature” version of the complementary color scheme. Two examples are yellow-orange and blue-purple.

These schemes are my personal favorite as you have the complementary color for contrast and creating interest, and you have extra colours to break up any eye strain.

Triadic#

Triadic colors are any 3 colors that are equidistant from each other in the color wheel. In other words, they have the same number of colors in between each of them. Drawing lines to connect them forms an equilateral triangle. An example of Triadic colors would be orange, purple, and green.

Triadic colors, while still being decently contrasting, can normally be left at full value and saturation since they have another color that breaks up any eye strain. You normally see these colours in more positive settings due to them not overloading your eyes, while still being vibrant.

Tetradic#

Tetradic colors are a set of 4 colors that form a rectangle and can also be thought of as 2 sets of complementary colors.

Tetradic colors are similar to triadic colors except the colors are a bit more contrasting, requiring a better understanding of balance. This color scheme can still usually be left relatively bright because they have other colors that break up the clashes.

Polychromatic#

Polychromatic colors are simply put, all the colors in the the color wheel.

This set of colors is quite difficult to work with since it can get messy very quickly. You need to choose the most important colors and balance them properly.

Colour Accents#

One thing you’ll notice about contrast is that in large amounts it can feel very overbearing. If you use complimentary colors like red and blue in equal amounts it can make your work feel like everything’s fighting for attention, which is never really a good sign.

Color accents are a nice and easy way to give your work good contrast while not being overbearing. Accents are normally used in parts that otherwise have little hue contrast, but they can be used anywhere as long as they stand out enough. These work similarly to accents in hair where most of it is the base color, while a different color is added in a small portion for some contrast.

A simple way to choose an accent is to take the complementary color, shown in this example by Nine which uses greens as a base, adding magenta afterward.

This example by Majacko also has a nice usage of accents; very greyish blues are the main color while red is an accent.

4: Gamut Mapping

Gamut Maps are useful tools that can help organize your colors and make them more harmonious. They’re represented by a color wheel which includes the different saturation levels of each color and a shape that is placed on top of the wheel. The objective you want with gamut maps is to have a fairly digestible and easily understood shape.

Kgamut#

Kgamut is a software that allows you to see the gamut mapping of whatever image you choose. It can also show you the gamut map with the different values as well as showing the value range. Much like any other gamut map, the goal is to have some kind of organized shape without colors looking like dust in the wind. Here’s the download link for the Kgamut tool; unfortunately it only works for Windows currently.

Here’s an example of an explosion by skytrizz:

You can see that the shape it makes is not very chaotic as well as showing the map with the values in it.

Here are 2 examples of Ori and the Will of the Wisps:

You can see that the shapes they make are quite clean with lots of hard edges and no arm-like projections sticking out, which is exactly what you want a gamut map to look like.

Here is an example of Ghostrunner 2 where the gamut map goes across the color wheel from blue to red, making a neat line:

This is an example of what you don’t want your gamut maps to look like. There are a lot of random areas of color that can be seen in the gamut by all the arms sticking out of the main shape.

Sources#

• James Gurney: Color and Light, Pages 109-129

Changed the channel name: Color 3: Color Schemes

**Video: **https://youtu.be/P2r4Z5kbx7M?si=CkCcKoJSW36e0Ro_&t=404

Credits#

Created by @etherail and @sku