More Notes on Limited Palettes

So, last post was about creating a palette and using it to create the graphics for your game. Apparently when I said "That's all I have to say about the issue" I was lying :P

This time, I'll be looking at how to take the palette we've already created and work with it to create a few characters that, whilst sharing a common colour scheme, look unique.

One big problem with using a fixed palette is that, if you tend to draw your characters with a similar style each time, they can start to look a little similar. There are a few ways around having a bunch of clones in your game - try and use different skin tones, body shapes, hairstyles and poses to give each character a unique look. You can dress up your character with so many extras - ties, hats, scarves, gloves, stockings, belts, jackets, vests - there are a ton of possibilities, so if you are worried that your characters look 'samey', dress them up!

Here's 6 characters I've drawn up with the palette from last time:



I've drawn three different characters in both male and female form, bringing us to six in all. As you can see, even though our palette is very small, we can use different hair colours, different clothing colours and different skin tones with a little bit of experimentation. This allows us to get some real variety in character types, which is definitely a bonus.

Combined with less human characters, like our chess piece from before, we really have an almost unlimited range of characters we can create. If you're running out of ideas, try going a bit silly with body shapes and see what you can come up with - I did this in Annie Android and the result seemed to work well. If you've got a set skin tone and a set clothing tone, try switching them around - blue skin and pink hair makes for a great alien.

I hope these few extra little notes and examples give you some more to think about!