Notes
Affect the mood: Blue makes the painting look cold. Warm colors like red or orange make it look inviting or pleasant.
Monochromatic: One color
Analogous: Adjacent colors
Triadic: Equally distant colors
Complimentary: Opposing colors
Desaturation (making colors look less vibrant) can make colors look more pleasing.
Foreground/Background: use of four colors that compliment each other (complimentary colors).
Use Saturation sparingly. Don’t overdo it. Best for highlighting areas of interest, or telling story.
Value: Use values of high contrast to draw attention.
00:00
using colors is probably one of the
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biggest hurdles that artists face
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knowing how to use colors effectively to
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adjust the mood or the atmosphere or to
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even pick colors that actually go well
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together it’s really hard for a lot of
00:13
people to to make it work so that’s what
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this video is all about understanding
00:18
color by the end of this video you’ll
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discover how to use colors effectively
00:23
to alter the story or to create pleasing
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color schemes so I’m gonna break it down
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into three core concepts
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starting with why color is so important
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then saturation and value and finally
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color harmonies so starting with the why
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colors when used correctly can guide the
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viewers eyes to what’s important like in
00:45
this scene your eyes are immediately
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drawn to these nice green cylinder in
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the center of the screen it could also
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be used to tell the story or completely
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change the mood of the scene entirely
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however when used incorrectly like in my
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terrible scene here from 2007 it can
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make the viewer feel lost nauseous or
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even irritated basically colors can make
01:10
or break your scene very very important
01:13
to get it nailed down even worse in
terms of photorealism color is one of
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the biggest giveaways that your image is
01:21
fake if you don’t believe me take out
01:23
your latest work convert it to grayscale
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and notice how it immediately looks a
01:29
lot more photorealistic getting colors
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right is just hard throughout the day
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our eyes soak in millions of hues
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saturations and shades but we rarely
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ever stop to study them so when it comes
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time to actually work we have a hard
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time drawing from our memory what color
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is used for one could argue that it goes
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back to our childhood as kid we learned
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about colors in their most simplified
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raw formats red blue yellow etc but when
we tried using these raw colors in our
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art we probably quickly noticed that the
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results came out really ugly but why is
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that saturation of value that’s why
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saturation is the intensity or purity of
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the color and it’s one of the biggest
02:18
culprits when it comes to ugly color
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work the second is value which refers to
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the brightness or the darkness of the
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color so let’s have a look at these on
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the left here 100% saturation really
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hard to look at but tone it down to 20%
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and it becomes almost a pink fleshy
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color again I haven’t adjusted the color
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at all by just changing the saturation
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gives you very different results let’s
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try it again with value 100% on the Left
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20% on the right you can almost barely
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see it
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so that’s adjusting the brightness of
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the color basically so you can see that
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it now looks more like a muddy brown
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than a red now if you had to tweak both
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of these the saturation and the value
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you can see that you can create a whole
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plethora of different shades all from
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just one raw color at the start as is
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demonstrated in this painting I’m fairly
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certain that the only color used in this
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painting is red so just mixing it with
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white and black you know changing the
03:19
saturation and the value able to create
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an entire image from just one color very
interesting now in the CG world
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saturation is probably one of the
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biggest offenders a lot of artists
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choose highly saturated colors because
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they think it will make the results look
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much better but really it couldn’t be
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further from the truth
03:41
highly saturated colors not only look
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incredibly fake but using saturated
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colors everywhere gives your eyes know
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where to rest which is really important
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in an image so having a look at this you
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can see staring at it for too long it
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becomes a little bit irritating so d
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saturated areas of your scene are very
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very important but that’s not to say
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that bright saturated colors are all bad
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in this example you can see that your
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eyes are automatically drawn to the red
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bright mountains in the background there
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that was deliberate that can be used as
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a compositional element so your eyes are
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following back and forth along the same
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path as the camels are traveling very
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cool
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and in this image it’s pretty clear that
04:27
the artist wanted you to notice those
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flowers it’s also called wild poppies
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which is kind of a giveaway but the red
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highly fluorescent color of them it
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almost jumps off the screen edges so
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really startling and probably the one
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element that you remember this image for
and it could also be used for
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storytelling
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throughout history if you have a look at
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a lot of paintings Jesus is always
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wearing red and that’s basically to
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focus the attention on him and also to
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make him look powerful and mighty and in
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terms of cartoons highly saturated or
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bright colors can actually work in your
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favor because it can immediately note to
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the viewer that they’re looking at
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something which is fake and it really
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plays to it’s surreal unrealistic
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qualities brightness and saturation can
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even adjust your mood if you remember at
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the start of up the colors were very
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vibrant there was a lot of oranges there
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was pinks fluorescent grass and really
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really vibrant colors this was to
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signify the joyous happy moment in their
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lives
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but then it laded turn to sadness and
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the colors immediately changed to very d
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saturated tones a lot of Gray’s a lot of
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Browns
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and if you have a look at that image on
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the right there I mean there’s almost
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really no color at all I mean it’s just
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a little bit of blue kind of some brown
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in there but nearly all d saturated so
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that helps you to feel the coldness and
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the the loneliness that the characters
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are experiencing this same effect was
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used at the start of the Incredibles and
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as well as the matrix color is a really
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powerful mood changer and it’s used a
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lot in Hollywood as well as video games
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which is why Call of Duty is completely
desaturated almost it can also be used
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for composition so having a look at this
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image your eyes are probably
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automatically drawn into the background
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there where there is some dudes wearing
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some gnarly red pants so it’s really
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it’s guiding your eyes from the
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foreground to the background just by
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having something highly saturated so
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very important a similar effect can be
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seen right here
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if
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one for that highly saturated parrot
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there in the foreground it’s unlikely
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that this image would be as successful
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as it is the parrot really gives you
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something to anchor yourself to so
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you’ll then free to explore the rest of
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the scene so to speak so just to
summarize what I’ve already spoken about
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saturation and value in a nutshell don’t
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overdo it don’t saturate and use high
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values all throughout your scene it will
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always come out horrible use saturation
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and value to guide the viewer to tell a
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story who is powerful you know what are
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you drawing attention to you could use
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it to change the mood use vibrant colors
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in an animation and desaturate it you
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know when you want to change it to be
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sad or you can just use it to draw
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attention to something that otherwise
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wouldn’t be getting attention so that’s
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the why saturated value which leads us
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to point number three color harmonies
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sorry for blinding you there so I love
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this topic color harmonies basically
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pertains to the fact that some colors
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look better together than others it’s
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also known as color schemes or
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complementary harmonies you know it has
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a number of different words so what I’m
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going to be talking about is six popular
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and common color harmonies that work
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well they’re based on concrete ideas and
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you can start using them in your work
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straight away so the first one is
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monochromatic probably the easiest one
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to start with because it involves only
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one color the entire image uses just one
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color this is best for single subjects
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because it forces the viewer to focus on
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the details of the image the changes in
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the value of the saturation and it could
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also be used to create a very striking
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atmospheric effect as will be
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demonstrated right now so you can see
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here your eyes are drawn to the
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silhouette of the rocks and the figures
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and you’re focusing on the story as
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opposed to the colors very cool and this
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image here a slide from that yellow moon
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at the top there is entirely painted
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with red giving a very striking
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atmospheric effect and this next one I
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absolutely love creepy chilling and it’s
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all using one color
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yellow very very cool effect and yeah
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use very well all right number two is
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analogous this one is cool
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it’s about colors that are adjacent to
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each other on the wheel so generally you
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know about the distance you can see
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right there the cool thing about this
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one is that it’s easy on the eyes
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it generally creates a peaceful and
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comfortable mood mainly because it is
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seen a lot in nature with you know green
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trees blue skies things like that the
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colors are very related so to give you
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some examples this image here at the
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stylet might almost look monochromatic
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since there’s a lot of that that purple
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in the background there but you can see
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over here if I put my mouse here you can
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see there is a blue sort of shore
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resting on that that chair there and
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then of course you’ve got this striking
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pink flower they’re really great use of
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that color scheme and then here as the
09:44
example with nature you’ve got some some
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you know dark green grass here you’ve
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got some light green up here in this
09:51
tree here and then of course the sky
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with a nice blue there and in this image
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really awesome example totally striking
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so you got this lovely red dress of
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course and then the use of purple and
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Pink’s throughout the rest of the scene
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and this image here aside from a couple
10:09
of areas where there’s the blue the rest
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of it is all really using yellow orange
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and red so if you look in the background
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there yellow taxis you’ve got some
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orange signs red car etc so really nice
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effect which brings us to number three
the triatic
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color harmony scheme so this one is
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probably one of the hardest to pull off
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it involves colors which are equally
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distant to each other on the wheel as I
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said and hardest to pull off it’s really
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best for cartoons or surreal scenes
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because it can really come across as
10:44
being quite playful it’s probably not
10:47
the best example to put right after that
10:49
but you can see here again Jesus is
10:52
wearing that striking red and then using
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blue and yellow to highlight other
10:56
elements and it’s created a very
10:58
pleasing looking result and here really
11:01
great example it doesn’t have to be just
11:03
the primary
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by the way the the triadic can be as I
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said equally distant to each other on
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the color wheel so this one is using
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mainly orange green and blues and you
11:14
can see it’s a really great effect it
11:17
comes across really cheerfully and yeah
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just really nice alright number four
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complimentary this one is probably one
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I’m sure you’ve all heard of before
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it’s basically colors that are opposing
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each other on the wheel so it’s very
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very popular a lot of artwork not only
11:35
today but throughout history use
11:37
complementary color schemes
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it’s just naturally pleasing to the eye
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colors that are opposite to each other
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on the wheel just look better I mean
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they just looked nice next to each other
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but something that a lot of people don’t
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mention is that you shouldn’t use both
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colors equally like you shouldn’t use
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50% grain and 50% red you should be
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using one color predominantly generally
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the weaker color so in this case if
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you’re using green and red you’d be
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using the green the most so you’d be
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using that for like most of the scene
12:06
and then using some splashes of red so
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you know like some really desaturated
12:10
greens and then some you know saturated
12:13
areas of red have a look at some
12:15
examples here we go very similar to the
12:17
movie brave I think you could see a lot
12:21
of green she’s wearing a nice green
12:23
dress there a lot of green along the
12:24
grass there and then of course this red
12:26
shawl her red hair and the sunset and
12:29
everything else they’re creating a
12:30
really nice scheme here this one is a
12:33
lot harder to notice since it looks
12:35
almost monochromatic a lot of yellow
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throughout everything but if you look
12:40
way in the background there you could
12:41
see some violet color so yeah that is a
complementary color scheme and here I
12:48
love this one it’s a great example of
12:50
using cool and warm colors which are
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naturally complementary and that can
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also be used to affect the mood of the
12:58
of the scene as well if you want a
13:00
certain part of the of the scene to look
13:03
sort of cold then using blue cool aqua
13:07
type colors can have that effect and
13:09
then using warm colors such as red and
13:11
orange can make it look inviting or
13:13
Pleasant and this one really popular one
13:16
that was on CD Society for a long time
13:18
by Tony Brett in civic sorry for
13:21
protests your name wrong using the red
13:24
and green color scheme coming across
13:26
really really nicely and very powerful
13:29
looking effect and this one here very
13:32
obvious red and green seems to be a very
13:35
popular complementary scheme and in this
13:38
example here as I showed you before
13:41
we’ve got aqua for most of the elements
13:44
and then in the background there you’ve
13:45
got some highlights of some warm orange
13:48
lights and especially on the screens
13:49
there but there’s virtually almost no
13:51
other color in the scene which is kind
13:53
of interesting and in this one here I
13:55
love this one Drogo from Game of Thrones
13:57
it’s mostly yellow mostly has this
14:00
yellow orange tinge to it and you might
14:02
be thinking where is the blue well it’s
14:04
here it’s from the rim light and I would
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say without that blue this image would
14:10
not look as striking or as good as it
14:12
does that blue even though it’s really
14:14
subtle and it’s only a small amount it
14:16
really does help to balance out the
14:18
heavy use of this yellow color alright
so now let’s talk about split
14:24
complementary split complementary color
14:26
schemes are very similar to the one we
14:28
just talked about using opposites but
14:31
basically you take one end of it and
14:33
then you split it so doing that allows
14:35
you more creative freedom so instead of
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just being locked to two colors it
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allows you to use three colors generally
14:44
this type of color scheme feels more
14:46
lively and joyous so I’ll give you an
14:48
example here love this painting really
14:52
nice use of some Purple’s there of
14:54
course all through the flowers and then
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you’ve got some yellow flowers here the
14:59
the green plants of course and then you
15:00
know yellow in the background so
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basically just three colors all
15:04
throughout the whole thing and it’s a
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really striking very pleasing looking
15:08
result and this one I love this image
15:11
we’ve got some really nice orange trees
15:13
there this striking green lawn here
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sorry and then of course the nice cool
15:21
blue calming sky so those three colors
15:24
going together they work out really well
15:26
and even though they’re really highly
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saturated there are elements of
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low value and desaturation like you can
15:33
see these trees in the background here
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they’ve been D saturated it’s really
15:38
this main foreground we’ve got this
15:40
orange against this blue which are
15:43
naturally complementary as well they go
15:46
really well together and then you’ve got
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some dark areas in the grass etc and
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then this one here this one’s a little
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bit harder to notice but you can see
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obviously you’ve got some yellow on the
15:56
robot itself and then of course the blue
15:59
sky and you might be looking where is
16:00
the orange and it’s in the sunset in the
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background there so very subtle but
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again it does give you a little bit more
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freedom using three colors as opposed to
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two and this one here love this one by
16:12
Carlos it’s uh it’s a great use it looks
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like two colors but really it’s it’s
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three so we’ve got this this blue color
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which is of course going through a hair
16:21
on the dress but then the plant itself
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you’ve got some especially on those
16:25
those stamens if I say pronounce it of
16:28
the flowers there they sort of come out
16:31
as this aqua color almost a greenish
16:33
sort of color in the background even a
16:35
little bit of purple there I didn’t
16:36
notice that before but yeah really nice
16:38
use of us but complimentary scheme there
16:40
this one again you might think this is
16:42
just a complementary scheme thinking
16:45
that it’s just blue and orange there on
16:47
the book but if you have a look at a
16:49
hair you can see that it’s red it’s got
16:52
a nice red tint to it especially on this
16:54
curtain over here as well there’s a
16:56
little bit of red so a nice use of three
16:58
colors they’re coming out really nicely
17:00
and of course this one here really love
17:03
this image great use of colors
17:05
especially for a cartoon scene highly
17:07
saturated lively joyous look to it
17:10
you’ve got of course the yellow bananas
17:13
the pink flower very vibrant in her hair
17:16
and then the green trees and this dress
17:20
here as well you could argue that
17:22
there’s some blue like there’s a little
17:23
blue sky and the sea but I would say
17:26
there’s a lot of green in that like it’s
17:28
not it’s more of a greenish aqua sort of
17:32
color and as you can see I mean the
17:35
results speak for themselves
17:36
lovely just dazzling looking image great
17:40
use of the split complementary scheme
all right finally let’s talk about that
17:45
tetra Tech or let’s just call it the
17:47
double complementary at its other name I
17:49
prefer to call it double complementary
17:51
so this is basically the complementary
17:54
color scheme doubled so it’s just
17:57
choosing two pairs of opposites really
18:00
it doesn’t really matter where they are
18:02
on the wheel just choose two different
18:04
pairs so it’s best used for four grounds
18:08
and backgrounds like I would wouldn’t
18:10
really recommend using it for like
18:12
mixing everything in the same sort of
18:14
area I’m sort of hard to describe I’ll
18:16
show you some examples in a sec but like
18:19
for example using the foreground you
18:20
might want to have you know one pair and
18:22
then way in the background maybe balance
18:23
another pair never ever use 25% of
18:28
eights like what I said before about
18:29
using complimentary colors don’t use
18:31
5050 same with this if you use 25% of
18:35
each it would just look horrible just
18:38
chaos so you want to have you know some
18:42
like the weak colors use them primarily
18:44
and then use the splashes of the
18:46
brighter colors hard to pull off but it
18:49
can produce some pretty pleasing looking
18:51
results having a look at this one for
18:53
example this is an example of the
18:56
foreground background the foreground is
18:58
using the green and red parent and then
19:01
way in the background sort of hard to
19:02
see but you’ve got some violets and some
19:05
yellows coming through there so that’s
19:07
an example and this one here this one
19:11
you might not think is a double
19:12
complementary but you have a look at it
19:14
more and you’ll notice it
19:15
you’ve ofcourse got this reddish orange
19:18
building there so that makes up the red
19:19
then you’ve got the yellow coming
19:21
through on this light here as well as in
19:23
these buildings here the blue coming
19:25
through on the sky which just leaves the
19:27
green left and that is in the water very
19:31
very D saturated really nice use of it
19:34
but the it’s this nice green sort of
19:36
murkiness and as well as that you’ve got
19:38
some splashes of green in the plant here
19:40
and the vine as well so a really nice
19:43
use of using four colors together and
19:45
this one I love it’s an excellent use of
19:48
course the the the main color for this
19:51
image which your eyes are most drawn to
19:52
is the Red Hat
19:54
and then opposite to that is this jacket
19:57
or hoodie that is wearing which is this
19:59
green color so looking at this color
20:01
wheel you can see they’re paired the red
20:03
and the green so where’s the other two
20:05
colors in the background you can see the
20:07
background mostly blue with some little
20:10
yellow bouquet effect lights in the
20:15
background there so again that’s
20:17
foreground background just pairing the
20:19
two foregrounds paired and the
20:20
background is paired creating a really
20:22
nice pleasing result and then finally to
20:25
leave on this one this one you probably
20:27
wouldn’t think is using four colors but
20:29
again it is there so you there is a lot
20:33
of blue but you could see that there’s a
20:35
difference you’ve got this aqua greenish
20:38
bright blue and then you’ve got this
20:39
deep sort of murky blue so those are the
20:43
two different blues there and then
20:45
you’ve got this nice blonde yellowy hair
20:47
here and that goes in really well with
20:49
that deep blue so those are nice
20:51
complementary colors and then the skin
20:53
is this more warmer oranges color and
20:56
you’ve got some even some red lips there
20:58
as well and and that goes balancing the
21:02
this aqua color which is in going into
21:05
her mermaid tail they’re really nice use
21:08
of it those nice vibrant funky colors
21:10
again really plays to the surreal
21:12
qualities of a cartoon render so that’s
it to summarize this whole video
21:18
saturation use it sparingly not over the
21:22
whole thing use it to highlight the
21:23
areas of interest and to help tell a
21:25
story think about the overall image
21:28
values use values of high content of
21:31
high contrast to draw attention to
21:33
things and that’s basically brightness
21:34
versus darkness and then talking about
21:37
the color harmonies these are the six
21:39
again first monochromatic which is one
21:41
color – analogous using adjacent colors
21:44
triadic using equally distant colors
21:48
three of them complimentary opposing
21:51
colors on the wheel split complementary
21:53
one complimentary end extended and then
21:57
finally the double complimentary just
21:59
the two pairs of opposing colors so
22:01
that’s pretty much it guys I’d leave on
22:03
one final note and that he’s don’t
22:06
stress colors can be really fun it can
22:10
be stressful when you’re trying to
22:11
you’re experimenting and you’re trying
22:13
to play with it and try to make
22:14
something that works it sometimes does
22:17
just take a lot of practice to come up
22:19
and have a like develop an eye for
22:22
seeing a combination that will actually
22:24
work with your scene especially with 3d
22:27
scenes where you’ve got a lot of
22:28
different shading as well as bounce
22:30
lighting and stuff like that and that
22:32
can kind of mess up your scheme
22:33
sometimes so just basically have fun
22:36
with it it can be fun provided you don’t
22:38
stress and just enjoy the process of
22:40
learning the colors and yeah yeah if you
22:45
wanted the notes for this presentation
22:46
as well they’re up on Blender guru and
22:48
as well as that I provided some
22:49
resources so to some sites where you can
22:52
read up more on some color schemes as
22:54
well as some programs will help which
22:56
will help you develop some color schemes
22:58
and finally special thanks to all of
23:01
these artists who were nice enough to
23:03
let me use it in this presentation big
23:06
thanks to all of you that’s it for me
23:08
guys I hope you enjoyed this video have
23:10
fun with colors and I’ll see you next
23:12
time bye
