Guild Wars 2

I haven’t seen very many characters that stand out, and that disappoints me. Yeah, the typical all white/black looks good, but it is exactly that, typical. To top it all off, typical dyes are expensive! With the right set of tools you can look as good as you want without spending a fortune on dyes.

I will be referring to this link anytime I talk about the color wheel, warm/cold colors, and color schemes.
http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm
to make the colors less vibrant and more like leather or metal, you should add a tint, shade, or tone to your colors picked. which you can find from this link, too.

I will be referring to this link when I walk about color dye names (such as Daffodil being yellow) http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dye

This guide is just to help people get on track of making their favorite color scheme, by no means do you have to follow this guide. All I hope is that I can inspire the community to be colorful and unique!
______________________________________________________
First off you can go simple with complimentary color schemes. That being colors opposite of each other on the color wheel.

Pick your main color, the one you want people to notice first when looking at your character, and then pick the color opposite on the wheel. What happens is you have one warm and one cool color. Usually I prefer the warm one to be the main color.

here is an example of Apricot (orange) and Stream (light blue), orange being my main color. My goal here was to make most of the fabric orange and have a light blue trim.
http://i.imgur.com/5YaoAdK.jpg
side note: I considered swapping the colors on the gloves to follow my “rule” of light blue trim, but I liked it better the other way. You can play around with it and see which you like best.

Next we will play with analogous color schemes. As we get into using 3 colors we need to pick our first, second and third favorite colors. Analogous schemes use colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. With this you can go either warm colors or cool colors. Only very few analogous color schemes has both, which makes this one more tricky.

I’m going to use Royal Blue as my main color. the colors on either side are Blue Rose (light blue, 2nd) and Evening (purple, 3rd) I had to play a lot with this and swap the colors around to get what was most appealing.
http://i.imgur.com/HrNOApW.jpg

here is a warm analogus color scheme using Autumn (red) Tangerine (orange) and Daffodil (yellow)
http://i.imgur.com/nQUDMv7.jpg

Next, we will work with triadic color schemes Pick your main color and your other 2 will be picked for you, but pick which of the 2 you like better for your second and third colors. This will give 2 warm and 1 cold, or 2 cold and 1 warm.

I am going to choose Autumn (red, 1st) and Daffodil (yellow, 2nd) and Stream (light blue, 3rd)
http://i.imgur.com/JrPV0hO.jpg

The split-complementary color scheme is your next best bet if you like the complimentary color scheme but cant seem to get it right, because it is difficult to mess up. In addition to the base color, it uses the two colors adjacent to its complement.

I am going to use the same Apricot (orange) as my complimentary color scheme, but my second and third colors will be Winter Sky (darker light blue) and Limette (green)
http://i.imgur.com/hQwsgs1.jpg

I won’t go into quadratic color schemes, as you should have the knowledge to try it out yourself, but I do want to share with you my Rainbow Scheme
http://i.imgur.com/tuAFr82.jpg

prices in blackgate (my server)

some good cheap dyes to buy are

• Fog (white) 4s
• Strawberry Breeze (pale pink) 1s
• Tangerine (orange) 1s
• Daffodil (yellow) 1s
• Spring leaf (lime green) 1s
• Grape Gum (purple) 1s
• Persephone (hot pink) 11s
• Evening (purple) 10s
• Evening wine (purple) 13s
• Scenic (light purple) 1s
• Fuchsia (fuchsia) 13s
• Afternoon (royal blue) 13s
• Blue Rose (medium blue) 13s
• Blueberry (close to blue) 13s
• Lava (red) 3s
• Red (red) 15s
• Humiliation (pink) 10s
• Spring Tide (turquoise) 1s

Not as cheap, but worth it if you want to.

• Cotton Candy (pink) 50s
• Royal Blue (royal blue) 70s
• Charcoal (black) 70s

good starter set colors to use (all free)

• Autumn (red)
• Apricot (orange)
• Stream (light blue)
• Limette (green)
• Jalapeno (dark green)
• Royal Rose (dark fuchsia)

If anyone can tell me some good cheap colors to use then I’ll gladly add them if I catch it in the comments

If you want to request a color anyone can help you try to find the color you are looking for.

I know most of you wont be using vibrant colors. The most important thing to remember is to make the colors less vibrant and more like leather or metal, you should add a tint, shade, or tone to your colors picked. which you can find from this link http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm

the coloration will be the same concept, just different shades of the color used. which would require searching in finding the better dye for you which can be done here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dye

I am surprised this hasn’t been done yet but this seems like the ideal target for an app which can pull all the possible colors from the color API. The user selects the primary color they want and the app can give all the different colors for each of the schemes. Cost can be obtained from several different places too.

Khisanth.2948:

I am surprised this hasn’t been done yet but this seems like the ideal target for an app which can pull all the possible colors from the color API. The user selects the primary color they want and the app can give all the different colors for each of the schemes. Cost can be obtained from several different places too.

That would be nice. but it only takes a few seconds and a minute amount of understand to do it yourself :p . sadly I know absolutely nothing about programming.

Stupidity ate my post.

Problem with standing out is that most inexpensive dyes are all dull, faded, pastel colors rather than bright bold primaries.

As for your list of cheap dyes. 60-70s isn’t cheap. It is compared to several gold each however.

There are 421 dyes in this game. Only 181 selling for 10s or less and 174 of those for less than 5s. And nearly all of them are bland and boring. 155 dyes in the 10-20s range and they are only moderately less bland and boring. 53 dyes in the 30-50s range and 19 in the 50s-1g range.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had some way to try on the various dyes without buying them first. But the preview in the TP is limited and the swatches in the Wiki are still too small to be of much use.

So we end up will an array of dull, muted but affordable color choices to choose from because all the really bright primaries/secondary/tertiary colors are above 1g a piece and aren’t coming down any time soon due to their rarity and popularity.

Behellagh.1468:

Most of the dyes i posted were in the 1-15s range. only 2 are any higher, but they’re at 70s and that is royal blue and charcoal. and you can use afternoon instead of royal blue at 13s.

I guess ebony (free) is ok instead of charcoal, black is just a super popular dye, but I dont use black or white in any of the combinations i showed here, i just thought i’d put cheaper alternatives to be helpful.

I’ll add prices

I doubt a lot of people go for black and/or white because they don’t know how to choose anything else. I think they do it because those are the most expensive colours.

Same reason so many people get T3 armor as soon as they can afford it and never really consider anything else. They want to use their armor to show off.

most of the free dyes are my favorite, like my favorite red is autumn, my favorite green is limette and my favorite orange is apricot. Glory is also very close to grape gum, which grape gum is my favorite purple.

Royal Blue is by far my favorite blue, though. if you can only get one 50s+ dye I would suggest this. there isn’t really any alternatives besides afternoon dye, which is very different if side by side.

Khisanth.2948:

I am surprised this hasn’t been done yet but this seems like the ideal target for an app which can pull all the possible colors from the color API. The user selects the primary color they want and the app can give all the different colors for each of the schemes. Cost can be obtained from several different places too.

found one. http://colorschemedesigner.com/

I’ve actually used the page before but I’ve forgotten about it. It is the sort of UI I was thinking of but restricted to GW2 dyes.

Khisanth.2948:

I’ve actually used the page before but I’ve forgotten about it. It is the sort of UI I was thinking of but restricted to GW2 dyes.

If I knew the actual color IDs to the colors in game i could put together something. not a program but some sort of table to follow.

wow awesome share

serisho.7053:

Khisanth.2948:

I’ve actually used the page before but I’ve forgotten about it. It is the sort of UI I was thinking of but restricted to GW2 dyes.

If I knew the actual color IDs to the colors in game i could put together something. not a program but some sort of table to follow.

http://jsfiddle.net/cliff/jQ8ga/
Name + color + RGB values + tweakable program example from the former API dev

Khisanth.2948:

serisho.7053:

Khisanth.2948:

I’ve actually used the page before but I’ve forgotten about it. It is the sort of UI I was thinking of but restricted to GW2 dyes.

If I knew the actual color IDs to the colors in game i could put together something. not a program but some sort of table to follow.

http://jsfiddle.net/cliff/jQ8ga/
Name + color + RGB values + tweakable program example from the former API dev

awesome. I have no Idea what the coding means, but I can try to make a chart.

and in case you were wondering, these are the colors I’m using. I’m using purple and gold with a shade with black to make the contrast of the shading less dull (since shading means to add black/darkness. the colors are evening (purple) squash (gold) and charcoal (black)
http://i.imgur.com/cgIuqAL.jpg

if you use colors that add tint (white) then you could use tinted complimentary colors + white to balance it.
which would look like this.
http://i.imgur.com/VrBk31i.jpg

and here is the complimentary colors without tints or shades and without the neutral.
http://i.imgur.com/yOLjvnj.jpg

Astral Projections posted this chart in another thread.

http://i.imgur.com/AWPpW.png

Behellagh.1468:

Astral Projections posted this chart in another thread.

http://i.imgur.com/AWPpW.png

this is very nice to use, if you pick towards center of the circle a red color, then on the other side (if complimentary) you should pick towards the center, too

so far I’m just sorting out the red blue green (and Neutral, if they are all close together) once I’m done with that I’m going to organize it and then change the colors to be more specific like.

red will split into pink red orange yellow
green kinda just stays green.
blue will split into blue and purple.

no means is it exact, gotta play it as it happens. so far I’m here..gonna start off again starting at 139 (I’m progressively going down)

Red
247, 170, 157 Pastel Pink
247, 155, 126 Sunrise Breeze
243, 154, 145 Strawberry Breeze
239, 171, 139 Pastel Peach
238, 149, 102 Cirtus Breeze
231, 168, 118 Pastel Citrus
227, 121, 80 Citrus
225, 128, 118 Primrose
225, 121, 108 Tulip
224, 158, 92 Buttercream
224, 174, 115 Pastel Honey
218, 188, 107 Pastel Lemon
218, 180, 77 Flare
217, 171, 149 Peach Ice
216, 172, 164 Pink Ice
216, 170, 134 Citrus Ice
216, 176, 128 Honey Ice
212, 178, 84 Nectar
204, 138, 72 Honey Suckle
204, 180, 113 Lemon Ice
203, 140, 169 Pastel Rose
203, 140, 22 Pyre
202, 107, 57 Creamsicle
201, 158, 178 Rose Ice
199, 162, 61 Banana
197, 189, 112 Spring Ice
197, 141, 54 Illumination
197, 93, 75 Cantaloupe
194, 97, 107 Pink
193, 183, 89 Pastel Spring
189, 136, 97 Orange Frost
189, 114, 148 Rose Breeze
187, 151, 85 Lemon Zest
185, 107, 107 Flush
185, 86, 41 Orangespring
183, 103, 129 Humiliation
182, 90, 128 Cotton Candy
180, 117, 42 Butter
179, 77, 116 Heather
178, 167, 64 Cornsilk
177, 77, 59 Melon
175, 159, 124 White Gold
172, 102, 32 Honeybutter
171, 135, 38 Lemonade
169, 65, 101 Persephone
169, 156, 129 Tarnished Silver
169, 72, 76 Coral
169, 54, 94 Hot Pink
169, 120, 21 Daffodil
163, 121, 115 Pink Tint
161, 109, 85 Copper Penny
161, 102, 12 Redemption
160, 75, 23 Apricot
160, 130, 108 Peach Tint
160, 37, 47 Strawberry
159, 106, 87 Peach
158, 139, 102 Lemon Tint
157, 146, 42 Stem
156, 106, 70 Shy Peach
156, 126, 81 Antique Gold
155, 108, 0 Lemon
152, 63, 23 Orange
152, 86, 11 Honey
151, 50, 44 Papaya
150, 80, 64 Peach Sunset
148, 86, 72 Demure
146, 119, 67 Sand
142, 38, 82 Mullberry

Green
156, 196, 160 Lime Ice
169, 193, 136 Mint Ice
138, 192, 148 Pastel Lime
181, 188, 114 Olive Ice
131, 187, 172 Pastel Sea
150, 186, 177 Sea Ice
124, 178, 134 Freshen
85, 173, 154 Sea Frost
134, 169, 86 Mint Breeze
151, 165, 59 Spring Breeze
99, 164, 111 Lime Breeze
149, 155, 95 Quickstalk
73, 152, 100 Mintay
117, 151, 74 Mint
67, 151, 140 Morning Sea
125, 150, 100 Spring
104, 148, 123 Watermint
137, 147, 42 Zest
45, 140, 127 Seafoam

Blue
147, 152, 214 Pastel violet
143, 167, 211 Pastel Blue
120, 149, 205 Frost Breeze
157, 160, 196 Violet Ice
168, 149, 195 Pastel Purple
177, 164, 195 Purple Ice
133, 179, 193 Pastel Winter
120, 125, 192 Shy Lilac
188, 157, 191 Wine Ice
102, 135, 198 Brook
184, 141, 188 Pastel Wine
74, 113, 187 Breeze
150, 177, 186 Winter Ice
107, 110, 185 Lilac
160, 168, 185 Blue Ice
99, 105, 181 Mountain Sky
172, 125, 177 Wine Breeze
111, 162, 177 Winter Breeze
143, 119, 176 Shylac
129, 96, 175 Thistle
86, 153, 174 Winter Frost
163, 102, 170 Heliotrope
89, 95, 169 Deep Lilac
157, 92, 164 Plum
61, 112, 162 Stream
117, 121, 161 Dewdrop
54, 130, 160 Sky
72, 143, 159 Spring Dew
118, 92, 157 Summer Thistle
138, 108, 153 Scenic
56, 98, 153 River
77, 83, 152 Periwinkle
105, 143, 151 Dapple
107, 84 144 Veronica
89, 125, 143 Shiver Sky
34, 120, 143 Midday
136, 74, 142 Phlox
94, 70, 140 Iris Blush

Neutral
211, 208, 207 Celestial
189, 186, 185 White
167, 153, 142 Mithril
157, 154, 154 Icing
157, 142, 108 Ancient Silver
155, 142, 121 Frosting
154, 131, 114 Cream
153, 139, 112 Refresh
142, 152, 129 Mint Frost
150, 132, 105 Ivory
130, 138, 146 Silver
143, 143, 113 Olive Tint
142, 138, 120 Matte
142, 138, 136 Fog
142, 139, 115 Cinders

interesting stuff

189 highest number where one number

is higher. (excluding neutral)

247 highest red color

214 highest blue color

196 highest green color

One thing that chart does show is the game’s preference toward Quake “browns” at the 10 o’clock position.

Thank you so much for all the work gone into this! Also, for all the links and images.

Talenna.4052:

Thank you so much for all the work gone into this! Also, for all the links and images.

no problem!

I finished the RGB, I’m sure I accidentally skipped a few, but I should have most of them down in order from highest hue to lowest hue

I’m not going to post it here because it’s really long, but you can get a gist of what it is from the post earlier

when I feel like it (after I’m not too drained from doing real homework) I’ll sort them out based on specifics…like the stuff i have for red will be changed to pink, red, orange and brown.

and blue will be Blue, Blue/green (for those few that are teal, or turquoise) and ill add the purples to the pink shades probably. maybe separate depending on how long/short/different they are.

I’ll also probably mix some stuff up as i go along. I gotta play it by ear.

Just some colors I’ve found to be really nice and fairly cheap:

Ocean
Blue Shade
Butter
Honeysuckle
Umber
Midnight Rust
Midnight Yew
Icing
Fog
Tarnished Silver
Spite
Forgiveness
Sincerity

Seras.5702:

Just some colors I’ve found to be really nice and fairly cheap:

Ocean
Blue Shade
Butter
Honeysuckle
Umber
Midnight Rust
Midnight Yew
Icing
Fog
Tarnished Silver
Spite
Forgiveness
Sincerity

it’s not letting me edit my original post anymore (maybe too many characters) These are good colors to use.

If you play around a bit with the fiddle (http://jsfiddle.net/jQ8ga/52/) you can get it to show the RGB values for leather, cloth, or metal.
If you scroll all the way down to the bottom you will see this line about 3 lines up:
var clothColor = compositeColorShiftRgb(color.base_rgb, color.cloth);
Change the cloth to leather or metal, and click update, and there you go. Not entirely sure what it all means, mind you…

Danikat.8537:

I doubt a lot of people go for black and/or white because they don’t know how to choose anything else. I think they do it because those are the most expensive colours.

Same reason so many people get T3 armor as soon as they can afford it and never really consider anything else. They want to use their armor to show off.

I strongly disagree, Dani. Most people who are dressed in black and white clearly have no ability to coordinate colour schemes. You can see this particularly when the same people do attempt an actual colour scheme – it’s pretty much always a disaster. Black and white is completely safe.

There are exceptions, of course, where B&W is a great way to make an armour look great, and the player is otherwise good at dyeing but they’re rare.

Behellagh.1468:

There are 421 dyes in this game. Only 181 selling for 10s or less and 174 of those for less than 5s. And nearly all of them are bland and boring. 155 dyes in the 10-20s range and they are only moderately less bland and boring. 53 dyes in the 30-50s range and 19 in the 50s-1g range.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we had some way to try on the various dyes without buying them first. But the preview in the TP is limited and the swatches in the Wiki are still too small to be of much use.

So we end up will an array of dull, muted but affordable color choices to choose from because all the really bright primaries/secondary/tertiary colors are above 1g a piece and aren’t coming down any time soon due to their rarity and popularity.

This is a bit silly Behellagh. The colours listed in various posts here are both cheap and strong. Some are pastels, but others are primaries. Either way, you can achieve a strong look very cheaply unless your look absolutely demands solid black, solid white, or certain primaries.

I do agree that a better colour-tester would be nice, but I know from practice that using wikis and so on does get you off to a good start – just try them on via the AH after that, and maybe 60-70% of them will in fact look how you anticipated, and you can buy those.

The only dye I’ve ever spent close to 1g on was Royal Blue, I note. Of course I once had Celestial drop for me… I sold it and used the gold to buy a new character slot!

@Serisho – this is a great thread, thank you for making it!

This is a great thread! Thanks for the information, all!

My engineer was intentionally mismatched while I was leveling her, for RP reasons. I have leaned toward really vibrant colors, particularly on light armor… and I love how there are great colors in every rarity.

Orangespring, Sand, Blue Ice, Lemonade, Sincerity, Midday, Oxblood, Warmth, Cocoa and Taupe are colors that I find memorable (and/or use frequently), off the top of my head. I haven’t found a lot of greens that I really love, though.

Guhracie.3419:

This is a great thread! Thanks for the information, all!

My engineer was intentionally mismatched while I was leveling her, for RP reasons. I have leaned toward really vibrant colors, particularly on light armor… and I love how there are great colors in every rarity.

Orangespring, Sand, Blue Ice, Lemonade, Sincerity, Midday, Oxblood, Warmth, Cocoa and Taupe are colors that I find memorable (and/or use frequently), off the top of my head. I haven’t found a lot of greens that I really love, though.

Those are some good ones too. I especially like Orangespring and Oxblood.

For greens, it seems you always gotta go darker than expected to get a shade that isn’t pastel or puke.

Eurhetemec.9052:

I do agree that a better colour-tester would be nice, but I know from practice that using wikis and so on does get you off to a good start – just try them on via the AH after that, and maybe 60-70% of them will in fact look how you anticipated, and you can buy those.

@Serisho – this is a great thread, thank you for making it!

Idk if you know this, but you can right click on dyes in the Trading Post and click preview. it’s not a very easy way to preview and i wish it ha a UI like real color dye.

for example, here is deep glacial sky…I can guarantee I don’t have this dye nor will I ever have it. (it is 130g!)
http://i.imgur.com/aawEzfW.jpg

here’s some more useful things I found for dyes
http://dyes.gw2-events.com/
http://www.dragonsworn.net/dyes/

I’m a bad boy….it looks so good, though!!!!
http://i.imgur.com/wNyFMxJ.jpg

on another note…pick your favorite super hero (or favorite colors from a super hero) and go for it!

Spiderman
http://i.imgur.com/MCRC1mg.jpg

Hulk
http://i.imgur.com/hVsRhXB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wLYTAFV.jpg

Aquaman
http://i.imgur.com/7Uh4SVr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4k5crzX.jpg

Superman
http://i.imgur.com/RSGYUJt.jpg

Captain America
http://i.imgur.com/hvt6OLD.jpg

Captain America also brings up countries colors.

America/every other red white and blue flag in the world
http://i.imgur.com/hvt6OLD.jpg

Jamaica
http://i.imgur.com/yGm58RQ.jpg

Mexico
http://i.imgur.com/etJm7kd.jpg

Brazil
http://i.imgur.com/NfyVI27.jpg

Japan
http://i.imgur.com/iIsBwcS.jpg

Canada
http://i.imgur.com/XcuZlk5.jpg

China
http://i.imgur.com/Z0lnURa.jpg

red, yellow, and green are common colors for flags, too.
http://i.imgur.com/rVNtiAD.jpg

I completely changed my sylvari’s hair and skin color.

Sorry for bumping this, but…

Anybody got any HSV codes? Or an advice on using Analogous colours or complimentary colours? I.E. which is better and such…

Ah also: vibrant dyes are to be used with the cloth armours yes?

Yes, vibrant colors are intended for cloth, but that just means they create slightly different colors on leather and metal. Same concept for the other two types.

As for HSV codes, you can take the RGB codes and convert them online. This is a converter that came up as one of the first options on Google.

I don’t know that you can say one type of color combo is “better” than another, as it’s all up to taste, but one thing that I don’t think Serisho’s mentioned so far is that your character’s skin color (especially for Sylvari, but also the human and norn skin colors) can affect which colors look good, just like they do for everyone IRL.

Vick.6805:

I don’t know that you can say one type of color combo is “better” than another, as it’s all up to taste, but one thing that I don’t think Serisho’s mentioned so far is that your character’s skin color (especially for Sylvari, but also the human and norn skin colors) can affect which colors look good, just like they do for everyone IRL.

So true! I was lucky enough to loot Celestial and spent a few minutes debating whether to sell or use it. I decided to use it, only to find that the colour looked awful on the Light 4 skin tone of my main character.

This was AWFUL, nonrealistic and worst colour combinations EVER! Straight blue and straight orange without even any texture is A-W-F-U-L Best colour combination is abyss and cocoa atm