Colortests

[Rodney]

I was messin around with some lighting and decided to play with a few color tests.

 

Have you given much thought to assigning each character a color?

 

While it might be a big stereotypical for a villian I think Cleopatra would look really good in reds.

 

Here are some quick color tests for consideration regarding the view outward from the graveyard

(It seems to me that your story would work very well in grey tones throughout layered over with the colors that emphasize each character. The blending of different character colors could make for some colorful scenes). For instance, one of Edgar's primary colors might be brown (color of wood, cover of a book, comfort of a warm fire in the Raven) Death might be mostly white and black with an emphasis on the white at the beginning of the story and an emphasis on black at the end. Franky... hard to see anything else but grays and greens but the story would allow the character to break away from that (a sponge and a mishmash... collecting colors from everything). Latimer I see is already blue. Perhaps Nora wear light browns and blues to better mix with him.

 

Moving on but had been thinking about colors so was experimenting...

[Ilidrake]

Yes I had considered this as well. Franky will be the oddman out I guess. The gender mish mash will allow us to play with it considerably.

[Rodney]

I ran across this site and couldn't help but take the survey:

 

 

I don't mean to skew the results for anyone that wants to take the suvey but here is what they say regarding global views on color:

 

http://www.colormatters.com/color-symbolism/global-color-survey

 

Remember what you select because you won't get the chance to see it again.

 

 

 

Don't read the following if you plan to take the survey!

 

Over 130,000 people from all points on the globe took the survey. Here are the results:

 

Happy - Yellow

Pure - White

Good Luck - Green

Good-tasting - Red (tomato)

Dignity - Dark Blue

High Technology - Silver

Sexiness - Red (tomato)

Mourning - Black

Expensive - Gold

Inexpensive - Brown

Powerful - Red (tomato)

Dependable - Blue

High Quality - Gold

Nausea - Muted Yellow

Deity - White

Bad Luck - Black

Favorite Color - Blue

Least Favorite Color - Dark Yellow

 

 

No real surprises there. Although I didn't answer a lot of them the same.

 

I post this as a furtherance to assigning colors but not as a suggestion that they have to adhere to anything preconceived ideas.

[robcat2075]

It's very dark in here.

[Rodney]

I was developing an idea for quickly manipulating color scripts and am posting this mainly to remind myself of that...

I kind of messed up the colorscript by adding a bunch of colors to see how they fit as I was finishing up.

 

The idea is pretty basic:

- Assign a color to each character.

- Create color strip with gradient for each character.

- Place on timeline where character is active.

- Duplicate each strip as appropriate to place at other significant events.

- Move as necessary to optimum location in time/space.

- Save the colorscript.

 

The attached image is not to scale in time (i.e. not in sync with the script) but the general colors are there.

On the left the story begins and at the right it ends.

There is definitely some LatimerBlue missing just after the climax toward the right end.

[Rodney]

Here's a quick update to effect some changes. Particularly:

 

Enhanced EdgarBrown near the beginning.

Adjusted CleoRed in several places.

Added LatimerBlue at the end.

[Rodney]

Here's an example of that last colorscript driving the underlying mood/lighting in a scene (actually... the whole movie condensed into a few seconds):

[Rodney]

More messing with color... this being a quick doodle based on Latimer's response to meeting Death:

 

"I always pictured you as being different."

 

I know that Death and Latimer aren't in proper scale but... hey... that is what came out of my finger.

Perhaps we need a little more LatimerBlues and DeathBlacks in there.

 

Edit: Made a slight adjustment of colors and then generated a sphere based on the base colors in the scene.

[Ilidrake]

That is really cool. I do like the second scheme better. The colors pop and it really draws the eyes to it.

[Rodney]

Random thoughts follow... so beware...

 

In thinking about environments and color schemes I had a thought related to something I posted before but didn't get your feedback on yet.

The original thought was to have a lot of the backgrounds washed out, faded, weathered, grayscale more than anything else.

The characters then would contrast even more against this harsher background

 

...and...

 

Render times should drop considerably.

 

But this isn't the only reason I'm thinking along these lines. The thought is also to really push the constrast between the various environs:

 

Land of the Living (Latimer's Parents House and the living-side cemetery)

Land of the Dead Cemetery

Just outside the LotD Cemetery (hilly terrain with road... mountains in the distance)

Town

The Raven

Cleo's Castle

The Depths (Hellcat caverns)

Cleo's Throne Room

King Mida's Mines (throne room)

Catecombs

Widow's House

Latimer's Parents House in tLotD

Cleo's Ballroom

Etc.

 

My thought goes back to the idea that everything in the Land of the Dead is dead.

But this would be true only up to the point of exception which is where all of these dead people have created artificial constructs of some kind in order to recall their former lives here in tLotD. In Cleo's castle for instance there might be a lot of colorful greenery that suggests living plants but... it's all fake. None of it alive. Cleo has the power to put folks to work creating artificial worlds just for her. Similarly, King Midas has a lot of slaves ready at his beck and call.

 

A bit too tired to continue this at the moment...

[Ilidrake]

I've been considering the color schemes for each character as I finish them up. Needless to say nothing I do is to my taste. The general schemes for each color is beyond me at this point. I know what I want them to look like but I don't if that makes any sense. If you have any ideas on how we should advance I'm open to suggestions. I'd like to keep the colors and textures simple. Maybe even to the point of using simple materials or surface attributes. As it is a cartoon per-say I think realism is something we can not worry too much about.

[Rodney]

Lloyd,

Watch this movie with an eye not toward character design (which is considerable) but toward color:

(Note: Most of what you want to see regarding color is near the end of the movie)

 

[vimeo]56892177[/vimeo]

 

We should be able to create the entire movie in grey tones (these tones will then in turn facilitate better color).

The grayscale is important primarily for contrast.

 

I have a technique (several actually) I'd like to share but we'll hold off on that for now.

At this point in development the important thing is to think primarily in terms of black and white, concepts of On/Off, and of exploiting exaggeration and contrast.

 

Note that I'm not suggesting no color be used in the early stages of making the movie. It's important to experiment with that.

I'm more suggesting to create a workflow where FINAL color (and lighting) is a completely separate workflow track.

[Rodney]

Because I haven't had much time to do anything else I've been thinking of color again.

Here are some random color cards to evoke lighting/mood/focus:

 

The reds in the upper left made me think that setting the 'real world' scenes at the beginning of the movie in the fall might be appropriate.*

This would also provide a counter to the end of the movie which is more of a springtime/renewal.

The majority of the movie itself taking place in a very long season of (snowless) winter.

 

*I haven't compared this thought to the actual script... it's more of an emotional exploration.

[Rodney]

Adjusted for bluer (Land of the Dead) hues...

 

and then adjusted yet again with (Land of Dead) gray and for some known story points...

[Ilidrake]

I can assume each square would represent and period in the story?

[Rodney]

I can assume each square would represent and period in the story?

 

Yes, an example of the first two might be the basic lighting, furniture and or walls in Latimer's house...

If this were the case then the sky outside might be a dull or light blue to offset the warm color.

This combined with the lighting of the characters themselves then would push toward the emotional state of the sequence... which you've previously stated as isolation for Latimer.

 

I'm extrapolating a little in thinking that fall colors might be nice because usually when someone is in the depth of depression the world around them is not dreery but in fact is the opposite. Latimer has the whole world ahead of him (from the vantage point of his Father and Mother)... but he can't see this.

 

or... if set in the fall the leaves outside might be turning and warm... the season of harvest and opportunity just before the onset of a prolonged winter where nothing prospers and everything dies off... beckoning Latimer to go out into the world where there is more excitment but on the inside of the house it might be cooler shades of color that suggest his life isn't like that outside his window.

 

Similarly, the last two images on the lower right indicate a brightness of light as the characters depart from the Land of the Dead into something better beyond.

Of note: the third rectangle to the lower left should be probably be entirely black but that's easy enough to modify.

 

The next stage in colorscripting would be to actually use these general color to depict the actual scenes of the movie.

One method is to draw/render out a scene in black and white or grayscale and then paint/color over the top of it.

Not looking for detail but for emotion.

 

Right now these images aren't fully set (because they are only in your head)

That's why they are (for me) still blurry.

[Rodney]

For comparison... here's a basic color profile for PIXAR's 'Bugs Life':

(Turned verticle for no particular reason)