Welcome to a new mini series im going to start to help out uprising artists, animators, and character designers. This will basically help people learn how to make a good OC, improve old ones, and fix up "bad" ocs.

In this first part we will be focusing on color usage.

There will be future parts explaining in depth how to build backstories, further design details such as markings or clothing, personality relating to design, and much more.

But today we will mostly be focusing on colors, color theory, color combinations, and especially how to use and control saturation.

Ill tell ya, i had to plan how many drawings i used here, cuz i almost completely used up wattpad's 20 image limit so i could show you guys lots of examples.

All art and examples shown are created by me, yes you may make ocs based on the designs or colors, no you may not directly claim the characters here or art as your own.

For this color theory part I used a base lineart i made of a Dutch Angel Dragon specifically for this. I used a Dutchie since i feel like they are a furry species that you can get especially diverse with.

This was the basic lineart i used for all pictures shown, although it was edited for some of them.

Side note, no this dutchie is not a character of mine, i only doodled it to make this little art lesson.

So part one and a huge focus of mine in this chapter will be mainly about color saturation, how to and not to use it, and how to pair highly saturated colors with other colors.

Keep in mind I'm not trying to attack you or call your art bad. But I am giving you advice to edit and improve, and be more easily accepted and respected among the art community.

But without further ado lets get this show on the road!

Tip #1: greyscale colors

One of the easiest ways to make  good oc is to ignore colors, use black, white, and greys!

While greyscale OCs might seem dull, repetitive, lazy, or have negative connotation they can actually look super nice and there's a surprising amount of diversity and variation you can come up with. After all, everything on the greyscale palette looks good with everything else.

Here are two examples that are very different from each other but also still show their own characters and individuality.

Tip #2: color desaturation

For starters here i am going to show an example of a poor color palette on our little dutch angel dragon here.

So the main reason why these colors would be considered bad is because the colors are so highly saturated and clashy. There is way too much going on, and it can cause eyestrain to look at.

But, this color palette can be edited to look nice. How? By desaturating. That's the only thing that needs to be done without completely changing the entire design.

But for me desaturation doesnt have to come in the form of "greying down the colors", instead my method of changing an eye-straining color combination is to lighten the colors up to pastel shades.

Here is the same dragon but with pastel colors.

See? This is much easier to look at and already the character has so much more personality.

Now, you don't need to change ALL the colors. Only changing a few colors in the palette will make the OC look better.

The best way i can think of to choose colors to alter would be to identify which colors are the most offensive, which ones dont match. In this case it would be the red and green, since the two colors dont fit in and contrast with each other so much. So, desaturating only the red and green but leaving the rest of it mostly alone would look like this.

Doesnt this look nice?

In my opinion this color choice has a benefit that the all-pastel one didnt have, it has a light-dark contrast whereas the first was only light colors.

Tip #3: pairing black and white with saturated colors

This one is a big focus, so hold on cuz there's a lot on it and i will divide it into 2 smaller parts.

Section 1: Half and Half idea

This idea applies to using equal parts black/white and a saturated color, which is an extremely simple color palette of only a few colors total.

Examples:

White with saturated red

White with saturated blue

Black with saturated red

Black with saturated blue

Section #2: 90%/10% idea

This idea applies to using mainly black or white and having saturated colors make up small details. I find that using black or white as the 90% looks better than using the saturated color, but everyone has their preferences.

Examples:

(I actually really love this one)
White with saturated pink and purple

White with saturated orange and greenish

Black with saturated green and yellow

Black with saturated cyan and blue

Tip #4: pairing saturated colors with natural colors

This is one of my favorite color techniques, i just love the way it looks. Iy applies to using a color palette made up of natural colors like browns, greys, tans, creamy colors, and using a saturated unrealistic color as a detail. For the art examples shown i used a dark brown color and some saturated colors i personally think pair well with the brown.

Examples:

Brown/blue

Brown/purple

Brown/yellow

Brown/green

And of course with all of this information, mix and match! You dont have to listen to what i say, and you certainly dont need to follow these tips exactly! Play around, experiment, find what you like and figure out how to make it look nice.

What was your guys favorite example image on this chapter? Im curious to know what you guys like.

That is all for today, i hope this little visual color usage guide helps you guys out in the future!

~Crystel