Color Palettes

Coloring a Design
Choosing appealing colors is difficult. There are so many different colors that the human eye can see - and even more that we can't! Did you know that the Mantis Shrimp has TWELVE different color receptors in it's eyes? Imagine if we had that many colors at our disposal to design palettes!

Start with ideas
As always, before jumping right into your art program and dumping buckets of paint on your character, you need an idea, a concept. There are a few different ways we have to brainstorm for palettes.

Primary Colors
You can't go wrong with a simple red, yellow, or blue design! Limiting your character's colors to one simple primary color is a great start. Of course, don't just make your OC's entire body neon yellow! Expand upon the primary color you chose. Depending on the character, you might even like to change their skin tone or body shape to better suit the palette.

Jobs and Occupations
What your character does most days can really define their palette. Are they a fisher? Blue might help reflect that, with maybe some yellow rainboots and brown trousers. If they're old and wise, choose a more muted palette with greyed out colors to reflect their age. Try neons or pinks for a party-goer!

Go for a walk
I'm not joking. Go outside. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and you can use buildings, banners, plants, moths, lights, insects, anything you see along the way has color! Try using some natural inspiration from the world itself.

Aesthetics
Try something a little more eccentric if you're still struggling. Listen to music and browse Pinterest - it'll really help you get a feel for who your character is, what their aesthetic is. Maybe you can even take inspiration from the album cover of the song that relates to your character the most!

The work's done for you!
If you're still struggling with getting the right shades of color for that OC, don't fret! We have more options for you to use!

Already There
Nothing wrong with finding preexisting palettes. Thousands of free color swatches exist out there, and they're especially useful for animals and creature designs. If you need a fresh aquatic palette, try googling "coral and blue color palette." For woodland, forested animals, a "tree color palette" could do nicely.

Make your own!
There are lots of different color palette makers that take an image and convert it to a palette. Using images from your Pinterest browsing, you can generate new palettes that you can use as a base(or just take the hex codes from entirely) for your OC!

Biology
If you're still stuck for palettes, you can always just... steal one from an animal you like. Patterns too! It's not like foxes and tigers are copyrighted - use that nice orange and white. Butterfly wings have some unique patterns and colors on them too, and flowers and plants have some of the loveliest colors around.

Color Theory
Do some research! No way we're explaining all of color theory here, but it's a great tool to know. Learn when to use warm and cool colors, use analogous and complementary palettes on the color wheel, and look up what primary colors convey. For a very quick example, red is generally associated with passion, strong feelings or emotion, perhaps anger. Yellow is sunny, warm and friendly, a bright color. Blue is the favorite color of many people, including ours! The sky and oceans are both blue. It's mysterious, intelligent, and versatile.