So college has begun once again. I specifically planned to have a milder work load as I wanted time to continue developing Vacuous at a decent pace. Since the majority of my course work is either computer science or mathematics focused, working on the art for Vacuous will hopefully now feel like a breath of fresh air rather than a frantic marathon.
Speaking of art, I wanted to discuss color schemes again! To plan ahead, I have been creating preliminary color palettes for each of the worlds based upon my concept art.
You can compare the palettes for world 1 and world 1 alternate to the screenshots of those finished worlds I have posted in the other articles to see how these palettes end up manifesting themselves. As can be seen, usually the default color schemes are rather "conventional," while the alternate ones are a bit more "weird" (or "alien"). This is intentionally done to add an air of off-ness and mystery. Color scheme creation, especially for as wide a variety of worlds as are in Vacuous, requires intuition. Using only basic principles (opposite colors on the wheel) will lead to a small number of schemes. Sometimes, the creator has to be brave enough to just throw a whole bunch of colors onto the screen and see which look the best together. When these colors get applied to the art, they of course will have to have other shades. These shades should not only vary in value, but also in hue and sometimes in saturation. Shifting the hue adds both color and warmth to the shading.
Anyways, these are just some insights into how I am handling color in Vacuous. I generally am talentless when it comes to art, but I think that my decent intuition for good color combinations can compensate at times. I have just recently finished adding the alternate color schemes for world 4 and 5 to the game and plan to continue marching along with the art.
