Colours, colours, colours.

[AmberDust 1,118]

Hey everypony, it's me again.

 

It's been a while since the last time I asked for colour help, eh? Welp...Well, here's my predicament:

 

 

After lots of doodling, thinking, and messing about on the colour wheel, I've figured out a fine colour scheme for my OC, Amber Dust (in my opinion). However, it needs a little refining now that I've started drawing her digitally and experimenting with vectors.

 

After making countless nearly-identical colour palettes, I've decided to come back here for help. Now, don't worry, I'm not asking for you to draw or recolour anything for me (unless you want to), I just want the colours, whether it be in form of suggestion ("you should make the coat a lighter green!") or, if you're really nice, in the form of a colour palette, perhaps made with colourlovers' tools or something similar.

 

Thanks as always. ^^ I'm not sure where I'd be without you guys!

Edited April 10, 2015 by AmberDust

[Chip Circuit 1,842]

She's cute I like her

 

If I were to make a suggestion perhaps darken the green ever so slightly and make it a tad pale (sorry i'm terrible with color alteration terms )

 

As to her mane I think it would still work fine 

[Blue Moon 6,341]

Well, here's my suggestion in the form of a crude recolor of the image you provided. I think that your colors contrast a bit harshly, particularly the orange, so I toned down the orange and made the green a bit bluer. I also darkened the hair a bit. I'd also suggest getting rid of the white splatter thing around the cutie mark; it looks really out of place. I also changed the color of the bead in the hair; gray isn't a part of Amber's color scheme, while orange is. Hope my suggestions help!

Edited April 10, 2015 by Blue Moon

[Probably Lee 197]

Maybe make the green pale or washed out, or the hair darker. I think it looks fine as it is though

Edited April 10, 2015 by Lee

[AmberDust 1,118]

The main suggestion I'm getting is to tone down the green, it seems?

 

Sounds good. I'm still trying to make a decision between blue-green and yellow-green. Like, whether to go with a Granny Smith, Lightning Dust, or Lyra Heartstrings tone of green.

 

(Just gonna put this here so it's all organized in one place.)

Design:

Love iiiit!!

Really not much t say about the design, hits me in all the right places.

Minor suggestions:

-Maybe put in a small gap into the upper part of the mane (see Twilight's mane)

-the cuffs look a tiny bit distracting, maybe make them a bit smaller or break them up into a few rings/an industrial

As for colours, Option 1 all the way.

Going off your avatar, maybe brighten up the mane colours juust a bit and shift the hue slightly towards the colouredd pencil pic. Also make the small swirly bit on her cutiemark a bit brighter (the hue of the medium highlight in her iris would be perfect).

9/10

 

Well, here's my suggestion in the form of a crude recolor of the image you provided. I think that your colors contrast a bit harshly, particularly the orange, so I toned down the orange and made the green a bit bluer. I also darkened the hair a bit. I'd also suggest getting rid of the white splatter thing around the cutie mark; it looks really out of place. I also changed the color of the bead in the hair; gray isn't a part of Amber's color scheme, while orange is. Hope my suggestions help!

 

Thanks for the lovely recolour. Amber's looking better already, although I'm probably gonna tweak it a bit.

The glow around the cutie mark is kind of important, so I think I'm gonna keep it...but maybe I'll remove the blur affect to make it more consistent with other ponies' cutie marks.

Regarding the hair tie, I just made it silver to match her earring. Although I feel like I should change that, too. Maybe both ought to be orange?

Edited April 11, 2015 by AmberDust

[Blue Moon 6,341]

The main suggestion I'm getting is to tone down the green, it seems?

Sounds good. I'm still trying to make a decision between blue-green and yellow-green. Like, whether to go with a Granny Smith, Lightning Dust, or Lyra Heartstrings tone of green.

(Just gonna put this here so it's all organized in one place.)

 

 

 

Thanks for the lovely recolour. Amber's looking better already, although I'm probably gonna tweak it a bit.

The glow around the cutie mark is kind of important, so I think I'm gonna keep it...but maybe I'll remove the blur affect to make it more consistent with other ponies' cutie marks.

Regarding the hair tie, I just made it silver to match her earring. Although I feel like I should change that, too. Maybe both ought to be orange?

I personally would just get rid of the earring. It clutters up the facial area a bit, and doesn't add much.

[PonyPal123 47]

i like how you changed the minty green coat to a more bluer color and i personally love the mane but think that the grey hair tie 

work well with her coloring and i liked how it matched her earing.

BTW this might sound weird but how did you make an animated picture of your OC?

 

Up till now i have been hand drawing my ponies and i would really like to know how you did it?

[Kay Dreamer 884]

Hey @@AmberDust!

 

Colours are an extremely tricky thing to master, and a classic mistake of artists who are still learning is over-saturating them; making them too bright. This is mostly what Amber is suffering from, though the blues and greens don't really relate well to each other either, which makes the issue a little more prominent. I do think @@Blue Moon is very much on the right track with his recolour, though there are a couple of things that can be improved. I've built on it a little bit, and tweaked a few things.

 

 

What I did:

• Desaturated the teal colour of her body even more, and lightened it slightly.
• Brightened the light blue streaks in her mane to a colour closer to the teal body colour. What this does is unify the colour scheme of her mane and body, whereas before they looked like they belonged on separate ponies. I also darkened the base blue of her mane slightly. (I tried doing the same to her cutie mark, but the paint bucket wouldn't work there and I can't be bothered firing up the cintiq tonight.)
• Brightened her eyes. If there's one part of a pony which can afford to be bright and saturated, it's the eyes.
• Changed the orange colours to a rustier yellow, closer to actual amber. The yellow also works much better with the greens and blues. Orange is a very temperamental colour to work with.

Keep in mind, many artists (including myself) will use the painting process to unify colours throughout a composition. We can get away with using colours which shouldn't, strictly speaking, 'work' with each other because we smear them all over the canvas. (I used a similar trick by adding the greenish-blue streak to her mane.) When your image is in block colours though, like this one, it's extremely important to make the colours themselves work together without that, and to use elements of each colour in various spots to trick the eye into seeing that same unity you'd get with a painting.

[AmberDust 1,118]

i like how you changed the minty green coat to a more bluer color and i personally love the mane but think that the grey hair tie

work well with her coloring and i liked how it matched her earing.

 

BTW this might sound weird but how did you make an animated picture of your OC?

 

Up till now i have been hand drawing my ponies and i would really like to know how you did it?

I'm going to assume you meant "digital" and not "animated". It's a vector I made using a free program called Inkscape.

I personally would just get rid of the earring. It clutters up the facial area a bit, and doesn't add much.

Personally, I like the earring. I think it adds a little interest that the mane's shape lacks.

 

Hey @@AmberDust!

 

Colours are an extremely tricky thing to master, and a classic mistake of artists who are still learning is over-saturating them; making them too bright. This is mostly what Amber is suffering from, though the blues and greens don't really relate well to each other either, which makes the issue a little more prominent. I do think @@Blue Moon is very much on the right track with his recolour, though there are a couple of things that can be improved. I've built on it a little bit, and tweaked a few things.

 

 

What I did:

• Desaturated the teal colour of her body even more, and lightened it slightly.
• Brightened the light blue streaks in her mane to a colour closer to the teal body colour. What this does is unify the colour scheme of her mane and body, whereas before they looked like they belonged on separate ponies. I also darkened the base blue of her mane slightly. (I tried doing the same to her cutie mark, but the paint bucket wouldn't work there and I can't be bothered firing up the cintiq tonight.)
• Brightened her eyes. If there's one part of a pony which can afford to be bright and saturated, it's the eyes.
• Changed the orange colours to a rustier yellow, closer to actual amber. The yellow also works much better with the greens and blues. Orange is a very temperamental colour to work with.

Keep in mind, many artists (including myself) will use the painting process to unify colours throughout a composition. We can get away with using colours which shouldn't, strictly speaking, 'work' with each other because we smear them all over the canvas. (I used a similar trick by adding the greenish-blue streak to her mane.) When your image is in block colours though, like this one, it's extremely important to make the colours themselves work together without that, and to use elements of each colour in various spots to trick the eye into seeing that same unity you'd get with a painting.

 

I love what you did with the mane! Thank you. I'll keep that tip in mind for future projects, too...

I think the mane is a little too grey though. :/ I understand that it shouldn't be too saturated, but this seems not quite bright enough. I'll tinker with it a bit.

[Plume 922]

To throw in my two cents, I really do like where Kay Dreamer is going with your design I like her orange and body colour, but I think I'd make the mane just a little bit brighter. Not by much, but just make it a tiny bit less gray. Then the dustiness of her coat would balance out with her mane and also draw up against the eyes nicely. Maybe make the eyes also a little more... Yellow? Then they'd match the green of the body a little bit better and you could also go for a gold for the earring. I have to say, I agree with what Blue Moon is saying though: it makes your design a little bit cluttered. I was thinking a little more like this Ignore the circles, those were just me scribbling around. I didn't want to change the earring too much though, just because I couldn't seem to edit the colour quite right.

 

 

 

 

 

[AmberDust 1,118]

Ideally I'd want the eyes to resemble Lyra Heartstrings's eyes...I just was t certain of how to replicate that brightness and gradation.

[Kay Dreamer 884]

Ideally I'd want the eyes to resemble Lyra Heartstrings's eyes...I just was t certain of how to replicate that brightness and gradation.

 

@@MiniKirby123s eyes are fairly close to what Lyra's look like. Just brighten the yellow down the bottom, and make the darker parts at the top a more orange-ish red. Never be afraid to load an existing image into your art program of choice and use the eyedropper tool to pick up colours. I certainly wouldn't suggest becoming dependent on it, but it can teach you a whole lot about how colours relate to one another.

[AmberDust 1,118]

 

@@MiniKirby123s eyes are fairly close to what Lyra's look like. Just brighten the yellow down the bottom, and make the darker parts at the top a more orange-ish red. Never be afraid to load an existing image into your art program of choice and use the eyedropper tool to pick up colours. I certainly wouldn't suggest becoming dependent on it, but it can teach you a whole lot about how colours relate to one another.

Haha yeah, I'm definitely not afraid of testing out colours that way, but my program is. It crashes whenever I use the "paste" function. (Inkscape)

[Midnight Gaze 131]

Hmmm...honestly, I can't see anything you'd want to change. Maybe lighten the blue of her mane ever-so-slightly? Your OC sticks out a lot, in a good way. It's one of the best OC's I've ever seen, with all the colors harmonizing perfectly. But that's just me.

 

I really like what other people did with her design, too. I like the original a bit more, though.

 

If you change her colors, can I steal that color palette?

Edited April 26, 2015 by Midnight Gaze

[AmberDust 1,118]

If you change her colors, can I steal that color palette?

I'm inclined to say "no", seeing as I put a lot of time and effort into making this decision, but I'm very flattered.

I could help you with a colour scheme if you need it for one of your characters.

[aoEAF2FBvC0MIo2Q 3,673]

I'll go on tell you a bit about how I do things and you can decide for yourself if there's anything you'd take from this. Keep in mind that I'm only explaining how I do things. Please take this as a mere suggestion.

 

First thing I'd like to ask you if you believe the colors contrast one another just right? Here's Amber Dust in Grayscale:

 

 

 

 

This is a very important question to ask yourself: do you believe from the grayscale version that the colors contrast one another just right? If the answer is "yes," then good. If you're doubtful, you might want to start revising at this level.

 

What I do first is tinker with the colors in grayscale first. If I feel that the grayscale color scheme looks good, I write down the values (with perfect gray, Red = Green = Blue). The common values of RGB in grayscale is defined as the Luminosity. The Luminosity value is a number in between 0 and 255 according to the way I do it.

 

I work mostly with pony maker for designing OCs so figuring out the colors tend to be the bulk of the work. I tend to rely on requests to get colored drawings and may offer the person the line art and the color scheme and only ask for its coloration. Moving on...

 

Certain combinations of values tend to give you a certain luminosity which is how bright they look. Something I learned when I toyed with this concept is that bright red (R255, G0, B0) appears darker than bright green (R0, G255, B0) but brighter than neon blue (R0, G0, B255). Well, I dug into this and found an interesting source. Luminosity accounts for human perception and that is key. 

 

The next step is deciding on the hue, recorded in degrees. These can be arbitrarily decided or through trial and error.

 

When you have your hue and luminosity decided, all that would be left is to choose the appropriate saturation for the colors. Depending on the program that you use, the Luminosity may end up being changed from altering the saturation. You can use this formula (from the source) to check for this:

Luminosity = 0.21*R + 0.72*G + 0.07*B

Since RGB are discreet values, it's not going to be dead-on but it should be close enough.

 

These two ponies resulted from me using this technique:

 

 

 

Hope this helps.

Edited April 27, 2015 by SunBurn

[AmberDust 1,118]

I'll go on tell you a bit about how I do things and you can decide for yourself if there's anything you'd take from this. Keep in mind that I'm only explaining how I do things. Please take this as a mere suggestion.

 

First thing I'd like to ask you if you believe the colors contrast one another just right? Here's Amber Dust in Grayscale:

 

 

Amber Dust Gray.png

 

 

This is a very important question to ask yourself: do you believe from the grayscale version that the colors contrast one another just right? If the answer is "yes," then good. If you're doubtful, you might want to start revising at this level.

 

I think her colours contrast rather well in greyscale, actually. ^^' I think the hue is the problem.

 

When I draw her with pencil crayons, the colours usually look nice and harmonious, but I'm having trouble replicating the scheme digitally. :/ hmmm.

[Faerie Marzia 0]

I really, really like her! It's really good and pretty. 

Do you mind drawing my OC?

[AmberDust 1,118]

I really, really like her! It's really good and pretty.

Do you mind drawing my OC?

I might draw your OC, but I owe sketches to a whole bunch of people. ^^'

[Treelestia 36]

Just using an automated Pallete generator, here's what I got based off of the main blue color:
http://paletton.com/#uid=73G2n0kugL4iFPRoqMNJkDtHKqh

[LordSwinton 759]

Haha yeah, I'm definitely not afraid of testing out colours that way, but my program is. It crashes whenever I use the "paste" function. (Inkscape)

You could try to import it. That's what I usually do like when I did Amber's gala dress

 

I could tinker with the colours with that existing picture if you'd like.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Swinton

[AmberDust 1,118]

Just using an automated Pallete generator, here's what I got based off of the main blue color:

http://paletton.com/#uid=73G2n0kugL4iFPRoqMNJkDtHKqh

I kind of like that! The teal coat instead of green...hmm...

[Bright Ink 49]

Do you have an example of a traditionally drawn image? I tend to find traditionally drawn artwork is either less saturated, or more tinted - especially with pencil crayons, where they won't be as dark.

 

In the following image I lightened her overall colors, then re-saturated her eyes and mane. Personally I feel this "softens" the contrast between her palette - specifically the mane and coat, which feels like the thing that stands out the most to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PonyPal123 47]

Firstly i'd liked to say that if you wanted to change anything about Amber's colour scheme maybe you could tone down her coat just a tad 

but seriously i think she looks great just the way she is. I can see that you have put a lot of effort into her because she is one of the best OC's i have ever seen

Also i was just wondering if you could help me out with something, i have some hand drawn pictures of my OC's and i have inkscape as well but what i really 

want is to make pictures of my OC's like the one you have of Amber Dust, so maybe if you could give me some advice on how you made her i would really appreciate it 

[Gold3 36]

I don't think you should change her only if your really eager to but I think she's totally cute with those colours & that mane style & I also like the idea of giving her ear rings & an eye style that unique but I honestly think you should give her the colours that suit her best

Edited October 25, 2015 by Gold3