Color 10

  COLOR WEEK 10

Any of a set of colors can be used to mix a wide range of hues.  There are three commonly used primary color models: RGB (red, green, blue), CMY: (cyan, magenta, yellow), and 

RYB: (red, yellow, blue).  The color variations between the models are due to the differences between additive and subtractive color mixing.  This RYB (red, yellow, and blue) is widely taught as main primary colors possibly because it has been around since ancient times, even though the CMY color model produces a larger range of color mixtures.

Additive Color Mixing

Additive color mixing occurs when two or more colors are created through light mixtures.  For instance in this additive process yellow is a mixture of green and red light projected, which makes it a secondary color.  This is apparent in the model below.

The scientific basis of additive color mixing comes from Isaac Newton's 1665 experiments with light-specifically, the test in which he separated white light with a glass prism published in his book OPTICS (1704).  Concept illustrated below

RGB Color Model

The RGB color model was initially demonstrated in 1861 by Scottish mathematician and physicist James Clerk Maxwell in his projection of what is often called the first color photograph.  This RGB model also aligned with Helmholtz's wavelength theory, with red, green, and blue as primaries of light, when mixed together in various amounts can produce many colors, and when mixed equally they produce white light.  The RGB color model is used in digital devices such as TV's and Computers.

                                                                                                                      Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

SUBTRACTIVE COLOR

All painters colors are pigmentary, or corporeal.  They absorb colors, and their mixtures are governed by the rule of subtraction.  When complementary colors, or combinations containing the three primaries red, yellow, blue are mixed in certain proportions the subtractive resultant is black.  Where as similar mixtures in the additive process yields white as an additive resultant.  In both cases the result is achromatic.          

                                                                                                                        Itten: The Elements of Color

The TECHNICOLOR film process is based of splitting the image into three negatives.  In order to produce primaries in the projected light the negative had to represent the lack of the desired color.  This meant the primaries in this process were (minus blue)=YELLOW, (minus red)=CYAN, and (minus green)=MAGENTA.  The resulting effect of this subtractive color process produces a projection which has additive characteristics.

7 BASIC CONTRASTS OF COLOR

1. Contrast of Value: Light-Dark contrast

2. Contrast of Saturation: Saturation-Neutral contrast

3. Contrast of Hue: Contrast between colors with Greatest Luminosity

4. Complementary Contrast: contrast of Opposite Colors

5. Contrast of Color Temperature: Contrast between the close, relative variants of any one            hue that shift about the color wheel. 

6. Simultaneous Color Contrast: This contrast occurs in the eye of the viewer and is based on      the requirement for the presence of the compliment of any color.  This effect cannot be              photographed and has the effect of shifting the appearance of an adjacent or a surrounding      color.

7. Contrast of Extension: Contrast between the luminous quality and quantity of colors.

1 Contrast of Value

2 Contrast of Saturation

3 CONTRAST OF HUE

In the painting below there is a large range of luminous hue, warm and cool yellow, cyan, blue, orange, green, and violet.

4 Complimentary Color Contrast

5 Color Temperature Contrast

COLOR AND MOOD

Below are a couple of images from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  Saturation and value play a large part in determining the tone of the story moments.

Contrast of Hue and Temperature

The image below has a strong Major Key of Green.  It also displays a Contrasts of temperature, and Hue, though there are only a couple warm and cool reds, and one blue to stand out uniquely.

All these images below are monochrome, one color white and black, less expensive to print.

In this painting Mead Schaefer established distinctly different zones

based on the greatest tonal contrast on the right side of the image, the dark silhouetted characters with less tonal contrast, reducing the amount of blue in the skin tones gives them a warmer quality, and surrounding them with the background house that has the most saturation. 

Interesting to note the background outside the alcove is more saturated than anything within the alcove.  Blues tend to recede, but saturated colors tend to advance.  In this image the characters are hiding from something or someone following them, the more saturated blue in the background could also be the artists way to bring the background forward (story wise bringing the threat closer).

The focal point below is established by the broad range of saturated hues surrounded my the monochrome scene.  So we would say that the concentration of saturated hues and different tonal contrast is what keeps the small focal point separate.  

                    TONE: Major Key low and Minor Key High

                   COLOR: Major Key of brown and a high Minor Key (broad range of hues)

In both of these images below the effect of night is created because of the overall middle value, and dominant cool scheme.  the warm tones are less than saturated.  In the top image the yellow artificial light delivers the most contrast.

        TONE: Major Key medium/low and medium Minor Key

       COLOR: Major Key of Cyan and a high Minor Key yellow-red, (broad range of contrast)

This Major Key is blue, 

The Minor Key is low due to the fact that other hue are very low saturated yellows through orange with an accent of desaturated red.

Limited Palette

Limited Palette

Red/Green/Raw Sienna/B&W

Limited Palette

Yellow/Red/ B&W

Color of light and creating color relationships

The digital image of the apple below is a photoshop experiment where local colors were selected and the image was painted flat local color without shadows and highlights.  Then added light and shadow color influence.

Limited Palette and Color Restraint

More often then not, color application in animation suffers from too much applied color that is either the result of multiple hues within shots.  Having multiple hues in any scene can make color balancing  difficult in the final process of production.  More analogous schemes are much easier to resolve, or images with more restraint in variety of hue.  The broad use of color themes can also become a factor that detracting from potency of color meaning to a story.  Restraint in design and execution can most often bring greater clarity to the impact color may have on story telling or narrative film.

Below are some great color studies and paintings by Robert Lemler with limited palettes and various demonstrations of color.

Saturation/Limited Palette

Red/Yellow/B&W

Cool Light Warm Shadows

Saturation Warm/Cool temperature

Cool light warm shadows

Very Limited Palette

STILL LIFE

Near Complementary

Complementary Color

Complementary Color

PLEIN-AIR LANDSCAPE 

COLOR SCHEMES

Color Balance

COLOR SCHEME

The copy of the Klimt below is created from a limited palette on the left.  This process requires you select a few specific hues and a gray scale.  1, First create a gray scale from white at the top and black at the bottom.  2, create a value scale with each hue, even to the value (gray) scale.  3, Blend the gray scale with each color value scale.  4, Two of the three colors can also blend, color to color.  Then determine the value groups and remove in-between areas of the value/color scales together.  Value grouping will maintain clarity so get rid of the in-between value areas.

Color Design Picker online

COLOR SCRIPTS

101 Dalmatians Keys

Visual Development

Frozen

In this image it was a conscious decision to create different value contrast ranges between the foreground, mid-ground, and background layers for clarity.  The foreground is low major and low minor key, the mid-ground is medium major key and high minor key, and the background is medium light major key and low minor key.