Question about "vibrant" skin colours

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: Chadramar.8156

Chadramar.8156

I’m dusting off my elementalist at the moment after leaving her on the backburner for quite a while. Since I never really liked her looks, I also think she also finally deserves a makeover to change that. The problem? So many choices! And I’m not very good at colour coordination.

I’m thinking about using some flamboyant colours on her, as a nod to the elements and as a contrast to my guardian, who looks more “plain” (oak skin, mint pattern, white hair, lemon glow). As much as I love the subtle greens and browns, I don’t really want my characters to look too similar.

My worry with the deep/dark purples, blues and reds is that using them as her skin colour might lock me down too much into a single armor dye scheme. I’ve seen some absolutely phenomenal sylvari, both in-game and in screenshot threads, who rock the fancy skins and matching dyes in ways that leave me in awe of their players’ eye for colour. So I’m asking folks whose sylvari look like that: how much do you feel locked into that one matching armor dye job? Can you vary your dyes without feeling your character’s own colours look “off” now? If you want to show off pictures of your characters in various armor colours, please do, I never get tired of looking at sylvari! Bonus points if they use the branch “hair”, which is my elementalist’s one original feature that I’m hesitant to change.

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: ofLegends.9853

ofLegends.9853

Yeah, I know exactly where you’re coming from.

Only problem is, I’m a noob and haven’t got any good armor yet TO dye nicely :P
All I would suggest is using colors that compliment each other, without completely matching, if you know what I mean. Or you could pick 2-3 colors and stick to them.

— Former engi main | Bring back my Power Rifle Grenadier!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0OWwwqPxDI

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: Celestina.2894

Celestina.2894

In my opinion, it’s best to use duller, neutral colors for the skin, and then more vibrant colors for the outfit. That’s how I went about it on my thief, though of course the midnight ice is anything but vibrant.

Basically, you want to use colors that will naturally blend and I like making sure the skin color acts as a neutral base to build off of. This holds true in particular if you use cultural armor, as sylvari cultural tends to use your skin color for certain sections of the armor.

Another thing you absolutely have to keep in mind is your glow. Your glow can very easily make or break your outfit.

https://imgur.com/a/x9Idt <——-my thief, for an example

(edited by Celestina.2894)

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: illictic.6183

illictic.6183

I have a blue sylavri elementalist and a purple sylvari mesmer. My thief is very dark. I’m an artist, so I work with colour a lot and it’s one of my favourite things to do. For me, persay, I don’t feel locked into a set colour so much as I just really like one set scheme with them.

If you want to get into some nitty-gritty art instruction, look into basic colour theory. For example, let’s look at the colour red on the wheel. The closest colours to it are orange and purple. These colours will automatically look good with red. If you want a bolder scheme with red, look on the opposite side of the wheel and you’ll find greens and teals. This is a complimentary scheme, and each colour will bring out the other. A triad scheme involves three colours on opposite sides of the wheel. This would be in this example red, green, and purple. All of these colours, when used in the correct shades, can give you great results for a red sylvari if you do not want them to wear red. And the correct shades part is really important. To start, it may be easier to stay away from bright playground colours and to lean on colours of that hue but not of that saturation.
So, yes, it’s more than possible to give your sylvari clothes that do not match their skintone that still look great! You will not have to feel ‘locked in’ so long as you practice and play with dyes. Once you get really good at it, you can throw a whole bunch of colours at your sylvari and still get gorgeous results.
http://imgur.com/a/2rYrj is a photoset of my elementalist in her regular scheme and then in purples. Excuse my calculator graphics!

i don’t know what’s going on

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: Chadramar.8156

Chadramar.8156

Thanks you three, especially for the pictures and the color theory pointers! I like both the “harmonius” blue and purple on the elementalist and the bold combination of blue, red and black on the thief. And yes, cultural armor is a must with sylvari.

I spent way too much time trying various armor dye schemes with various skin/leaf/pattern colours in the makeover kit, but am still ridiculously undecided. Currently I’m more-or-less settled on using either sandalwood, which is kind of a pale sandy colour, or phoenix red which is quite intense. I wanted to use purple but there’s no shade that looks “right”. The sandalwood looks better with a wider variety of dyes, so I might go with that after all instead of one of the more vivid colours. Now the second question is: scarlet or deep turquoise leaves. Argh.

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: illictic.6183

illictic.6183

Both of those leaves sound like they’ll be fantastic colours. What sort of armor colours are you going for, and what is your glow colour? Or, if you’d like to change it up a lot…I’d suggest the turquoise ones, because they may fit slightly more colours.

i don’t know what’s going on

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: Chadramar.8156

Chadramar.8156

I agree that deep turquoise would fit more colours and I was almost set on it, but since she has scarlet leaves now, I think I’ll carry that over so the “new her” doesn’t look totally different from the “old her”. Armor colours might vary. For now I’ll probably go with dusky dyes since that’s her cycle.

This is her most likely new look. (Posting the image directly refuses to work for some reason.)

(edited by Chadramar.8156)

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: Reincarnatie.7254

Reincarnatie.7254

If you want to get into some nitty-gritty art instruction, look into basic colour theory. For example, let’s look at the colour red on the wheel. The closest colours to it are orange and purple. These colours will automatically look good with red. If you want a bolder scheme with red, look on the opposite side of the wheel and you’ll find greens and teals. This is a complimentary scheme, and each colour will bring out the other. A triad scheme involves three colours on opposite sides of the wheel. This would be in this example red, green, and purple. All of these colours, when used in the correct shades, can give you great results for a red sylvari if you do not want them to wear red.

I agree with illictic, for my red sylvari, I tended to naturally gravitate towards reds and oranges with human armours. After upgrading to sylvari armours, I felt like she blossomed in every way possible, dyeing her armours in pinks, oranges, reds, purples, greens, yellows, and even blue!

Though, some may say the colours clash, I’m personally happy with my choices. Plants are crazy and diverse, go wild. :)

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Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: Protoavis.9107

Protoavis.9107

With Sylvari I feel a lot of it will depend on whether you’re using cultural armor or not, some of the cultural armor will use the skin colour fairly prominently (ie t2 heavy pants, so on my guardian below the yellow on the pants and legs is from the skin, see pants dye channel) which is going to limit you any way you go about it since you’ll probably need to include a similar colour on other clothing (the toon needs a new make over kit to tweak the colour a bit, particularly the markings although not really sure any of the greens/blues were light enough/appropriate and I’m not sure where the orange on the feet is coming from) .

I don’t feel locked into the colours from the skin since I could go green/red/purple/etc to replace the blue sections and still end up with a pleasant colour scheme but I do feel locked into the general colour scheme (although as said before it requires some tweaking) due to the hair colour which is also throughout the outfit and to a lesser extant that guardian moves are all blue hue. With Sylvari hair can play a big role in colour schemes (same can be said with hair pieces on other races where they’re locked into an even more restrictive use of a starter colour or something close to it if they are using a hair style with big ornamental pieces).

My ranger makes me a little locked into purple/pink due to hair but could fairly easily change the green since that particular armor doesn’t heavily use skin colour in it.

I’m probaby most free with my engineer who’s the most “neutral” with the beige skin and dark hair (although even that has hints of dark red in it, more noticeable in the back) but I kind of see her as a kind of anti-hero and like the general colour scheme (although I want to change the gloves/shoes and shoulders but I don’t feel any other gloves fit any better) but the outfit can easily change since it doesn’t have the cultural skin color issue of my guardians pants, the hair colour isn’t really obvious or clashy with other options, etc but she may be considered a bit bland to some.

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Let us buy vendor mats (eg spools of thread) in 250 stacks, end the excessive clicking.

Question about "vibrant" skin colours

in Sylvari

Posted by: Hyper Cutter.9376

Hyper Cutter.9376

I gave my elementalist a lot of bright colors, and I really like the results.

My mesmer is pretty bright too, light blue with pastel TA armor, and my warrior is white with golden armor. My thief is more subdued, with dark green skin and brown/green armor, but even she started out bright red.

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(edited by Hyper Cutter.9376)