Talked to a concept artist at PAX last weekend and it flipped my whole view on color theory

I always thought you had to stick strictly to a color wheel and complementary pairs until this guy from Insomniac showed me his process. He said, "Just pick three ugly colors you hate and make them work together." He demoed it with a desaturated purple, muddy green, and puke yellow and the piece came out gorgeous. Has anyone else had a pro drop a tip that made you totally ditch what you learned in school?

2 comments

2 Comments

olivia_white937d ago

Oh man that's such a solid tip. I had a similar thing happen when I was stuck on a personal project. A senior artist I know told me to stop trying to make colors "perfect" and just use whatever felt right even if it looked gross at first. She said trust your gut and adjust later. That desaturated purple and puke yellow combo sounds nasty on paper but I bet the contrast is wild. I started doing this thing where I pick a random base hue and then just add weird complements like a gross green with a hint of red. It forces you to actually think about value and saturation instead of just relying on a preset scheme. Honestly the whole "rules are just guidelines" thing is the biggest lesson I ever got. Once you ditch that strict color wheel mindset you end up with way more expressive pieces.

leor866d ago

Nah I gotta push back on this one hard. Rules exist for a reason. I tried the "trust your gut" thing with a portrait once. Ended up with muddy brown skin tones and a green shadow that looked like mold. Wasted hours. Color theory isn't a cage it's a map. If you don't know why warm light makes cool shadows you're just guessing and hoping.