02-06-2013, 07:44 PM
first establish your ambient colours / lightest and darkest colours (dark usually leaning towards blue / purple, light usually leaning towards yellow) depending on your chosen style shift those colours hues and saturations (I once had the problem of using too similar colours in terms of lighting, it ended up all my sprites being sunny even when it didn't suit them)
once you've done that pick some midtones and shades transitioning into your lightest and darkest colours,
in a well lit environment your transitional colours should never fully reach the darkest colour, and visa versa with poorly lit environment (this is a key thing to keep in mind, in your case you dont want your transitional colours to reach the lightest colour)
something I've noticed recently in picking colours is you want them to transition via a strong curve, (steep coming out of the dark tone and evening on the mid-tone and steep going into the light tone, NOTE: I'm using the wording "tone" here because it should be like this for your transitional tones, independent of how close they are to your ambient colours.)
So long as you don't go overboard with colours your main concern can be the form of the sprites, and you can alter the colours as needed while you go along (providing your using a program that allows you to change a palette)
once you've done that pick some midtones and shades transitioning into your lightest and darkest colours,
in a well lit environment your transitional colours should never fully reach the darkest colour, and visa versa with poorly lit environment (this is a key thing to keep in mind, in your case you dont want your transitional colours to reach the lightest colour)
something I've noticed recently in picking colours is you want them to transition via a strong curve, (steep coming out of the dark tone and evening on the mid-tone and steep going into the light tone, NOTE: I'm using the wording "tone" here because it should be like this for your transitional tones, independent of how close they are to your ambient colours.)
So long as you don't go overboard with colours your main concern can be the form of the sprites, and you can alter the colours as needed while you go along (providing your using a program that allows you to change a palette)