Pixel art palette question

[zoekmath]

For my pixel arts, I use this kind of palette.
It's just like one or two colors with a lot of tones. But I've seen that many artists don't do it this way.
How should I do the palettes? I want a realistic palette, but how should I do it?

[Mathias]

Well . . . that's like asking - "How do I draw?"

Your colors, your palette choice, is so fundamental to your own art process nobody can tell you how to do it, unless you prefer to just be a robot and carry out preset instructions.
If you're around pixel art at all you'll see others' palettes and it becomes clear what methods and options you might try.


All you need to do right now is: Observe & Imitate

Step 1.  Go raid  http://pixeljoint.com/.   Monkey see.

Step 2.  Create mimic works, get INSIDE the minds of artists you like, STEAL palettes you like, use them, abuse them.   Monkey do.

Step 3.  Apply learnination into own original work.   Monkey now great artist.

[zoekmath]

Well, then I guess I'll make my own palettes xD
I like having my own style

[Vagrant]

Just don't forget to receive and integrate good palette critique, which can be invaluable sometimes.

[zoekmath]

Alright, thanks.

[PixelPiledriver]

You will get more value out of a more specific question or context.
Consider posting some art and get thoughts on the colors.

We could talk about this in a lot of ways.
But 3 important things to think about:

Subject Matter --> what it is
Feeling --> how it is presented
Viewers --> how should people feel about what it is when it is presented to them

Use colors to serve the image, your intentions, and ensure people digest it the way you want them to.

I want a realistic palette, but how should I do it?

Study light.
The real world renders the way it does because of how light interacts with objects of various materials.

It's just like one or two colors with a lot of tones.

Using hues and tones is useful for fast iconic color picks.
But you should explore color mixing to open up a new dimension of choices.

[zoekmath]

Thank you. You helped me a lot.
Can you give me an example of color mixing, please?

[PixelPiledriver]

I'd be happy to, but I'm too busy with work at the moment.
Remind me in the future.
You don't really need my advice to explore anyway.
Just play with color and keep hitting up your art threads.

[Ryumaru]

First of all, grayscale is always an option for beginners. The value of your color is actually quite a bit more important than hue or saturation in getting an image to read, so it's good to be able to make a composition work tonally first.

If you don't know where to start, try one of these palettes. As a bonus you get a look into some of the restrictions of old consoles:

http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=10784.0

As for "realistic" you could always do photo studies. Color pick and try to find which colors are important to make the image read. Then you could recreate a similar scene and try to pick the colors yourself.

fellow pix member Arne also spent some time crafting a wonderful game art palette here:
http://androidarts.com/palette/16pal.htm

hope this helps 

[zoekmath]

Alright, thanks!