Creating a Color Palette

A color palette is the range of colors used in visual art. Choosing a palette before you start coloring helps hold the narrative together by making your characters and places look like they all share the same tones, shadows and lighting.

PRACTICE BY USING PHOTOS

If you look closely at this desert image, you’ll see that it isn’t just brown. It has shades of orange, tan and chocolate. The shadows are a very dark purple, and the sky is bright blue.

CHOOSE YOUR MAIN COLORS

Choose a few main colors from your reference photo to create a color palette. Try to include a light color, midtones and a darker shadow tone.

Now you can work from this palette to color your own desert setting and the characters within it.

LIMITED PALETTE

The white snow in this scene isn’t just white. There are different shades of blue and gray. Note that even though the trees are green, their shadows have a blue-gray cast to them.

SNOW AND SKY PALETTE

Here, the palette is based on only the snow and sky. It focuses on a variety of cooler hues so you can use it to create a winter landscape.