How to make a color palet
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: The Lounge
Forum Name: Resources and Support
Forum Discription: Help your fellow pixel artists out with links to good tutorials, other forums, software, fonts, etc. Bugs and support issues should go here as well.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25104
Printed Date: 13 September 2025 at 3:48am
Topic: How to make a color palet
Posted By: Lytschi
Subject: How to make a color palet
Date Posted: 01 May 2016 at 2:21am
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Actually it's just my : Color Palett Process Hey, I think some of you maybe will find this interesting or even helpful, that's why I'm posting it here. Maybe you can learn something or somebody can point out what I'm wrong about. So here is the process of me making a color palett (with 16 colors but I think it doesn't matter how many) So first of all you shouldn't be thinking: "I need a good palett before I start with pixel art." First you have to know about pixels and also have some pieces of pixelart you like a lot for their colors in your gallery. Let's just start now. SO I had this here as my "me likey"- pieces: 
and 
Then I just picked out the basic colors like one of the reds one of the blues ec. 
//click pictures to zoom Because there were no greens in the color pallet I used to make these pictures above I took this here: 
It's a tile from yet another pixel piece I did before (you can find the set in my gallery) I really loved the greens in that plant. So I picked out the green I thought is the most fitting for me... (I just took what felt right). So here my colors: 
Also whenever a color looked a lot like anotherone zoomed out I tried if one could replace the other making 2 into 1. Here an example of me trying to get rid of the light blue that looked a lot like that green. You often have to draw something with the colors to get a good feel for it ( nothing big ) 
SOOO now I have some basic colors with no extremely similar ones. 
But can I make a drawing with these that will look good enough to compete with one that can use as many colors as it wants. I tested it! I made a copy of my plant that has like 4 greens in it and tried switching colors like: This dark green looks a lot like my dark blue (not shown in previous pics sry), lets replace this with that and so on. 
I switched around and if it didn't work I just let the before color be and added it to my palett. Like that one dark green. Now another step that was a big help. Because I don't know how to test my colors like this: 
I used a color wheel. I googled one 
and made my own one just with the colors i had (really sloppy but it works) 
If I had the feeling one color is really missing I just added that one. (Zooming in and out should be like breathing to you btw very important). 
Ok and now I added grey colors because these are not shown in the color wheel. So to know what grey I want I just drew something that's grey. A stone ! 
I chose a grey and tried making a decent stone with the help of my other colors as soon as I was pleased with the out come The grey was in. At this point I really just thought about what color I could also add and drew a lot of stuff to realize if some color was missing. 
I had another spot for a free color at the end so I just made another green that was missing when I tried out making some Grass. I think a color palett is never finished it learns from the things you draw it forgets unimportant colors and remembers new useful colors. So teach it by drawing as much as you can. I hope I could maybe give someone a better Idea on how to make a color palett. Here is my palett: 
Keep in mind there is no perfect pallet nor way to make one especially with a 16 color pallet I had a Island feel about my color palett but I think this palett wouldn't work well with a space ship feeling or another metallic environment. It all depends on what you draw. If anyone has more tips or something to add join in and tell us about your tactics on how to make a color palett. Also if I'm wrong about all I sayed. Sorry. |
Replies:
Posted By: Lytschi
Date Posted: 02 May 2016 at 3:28am
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Some of the colors looked VERY different on my work PC so I changed themaround again.
Updated Palett: 
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