Good day to you Luna!
Ive always enjoyed how you deaign your characters from the use of shape language to the use of color.
I noticed that many of your designs have around 6-8 (and more on your latest) colors in use at a time. I was always told that you should work with a limited pallete when designing characters, but you somehow designs lovely characters "breaking" that rule.
How do you do it? I always get overwhelmed if i have more than 5 colors in a designs but usually it lacks the contrast and "pop" that your designs have.
Also when you design characters, do you start with a theme, their personality or their role in a story?
COLOR THEORY
This is a great question! So when it comes to color in designs; character/backgrounds/props, generally less is more. You pick 3 colors : 2 right next to each other ( analogous colors ) : 1 on the the otherside of the color wheel ( complementary colors ). From there you want to vary the value/saturation. So there's a dark color - mid tone - highlight (usually the complementary color).
So It might seem like I have a lot of colors, but in actuality it's only 2-3 colors with varied saturation/values to create contrast.
You want a 2/3 ratio split of the analogous colors with the remaining 1/3 being the brighter complementary color to make little details POP. Now sometimes I will use 4 colors in a design, it still works because it's all about balance. I made a little crud pie chart for a general idea. Faye's main color scheme is blue -> green highlighted with red/purple/yellow. Her vibe is poisonous, and poisonous creatures tend to be colorful.
With the right balance you can make any color scheme work, you have to give each color their place, some are more dominate then others. If you make a design with every color 25/25/25/25 equal split, the design will come off as bland and nothing will stand out. But if you make it 40/40/20 suddenly that 20% stands out.
Thinking of palettes in terms of pie-charts will help out seeing the color balance in your design. Give it a shot if you're struggling with making your design pop!















