*** September 2016 Challenge: Choose a Color Palette ***

[Diamond]

This month's Challenge comes to us courtesy of Neyjour:

https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=34664

The rules are simple this time around -

1. Pick a color palette from Neyjour's lovely selections below. One palette only! Use it to create your map - any kind of map at all.

2. Post it in the first post of your thread.

3. You must use EVERY color in the palette, and you CANNOT use any other color.

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As usual, name your thread like so: September 2016 Challenge: << Your Title Here >>

Don't forget to preface every work-in-progress picture you upload with the WIP hastag - there's a handy little clickable icon for it now in the toolbar:

This month's challenge will run until the evening of Friday, September 30th, after which will be 3 days of voting. The winner gets - yep, you guessed it - a lifetime supply of broccoli-flavored Fig Newtons!!! Oh wait, no. You get a Golden Compass. Still pretty awesome, right?

The color palettes:

[ChickPea]

I presume we can use our colour palette in conjunction with our Gimp/PS skills? *coughs, layer blends* We'd still only be using one palette of colours, right?

EDIT: what about black & white? Not technically colours!

Sorry Diamond, I know you roll your eyes when you get lots of questions about this kind of stuff, but I think lots of people will want to know.

[kacey]

Just out of curiosity, I'm also wondering along with Chickpeas question, can we use different layer blend modes, and different opacities to get more variation in colour? And is it acceptable to use different shades of the colour pallets like lighter or darker variants to do shading. And can we use textured backgrounds like paper or parchment, or do we have to do everything in solid colours from the chosen pallet?

[Ilgoth]

I double the same questions. Layer blending / modes, and how about blending two colors within same palette? On a technical level, this is just using those colors to create new ones.

[ChickPea]

I'll let Diamond make the final decision, though there's an argument that the more colours you introduce, the further you're getting from the spirit of the challenge.

I've been a bit of a disaster with the last two challenges (despite my best intentions, I never even got started on last month's.) I'm thinking I might do a little village in Inkscape. Vector is absolutely perfect for a limited colour palette, and if I can use black & white mixed with my colour palette, I can do a lot with that. Of course, now I just need to decide which colour palette to use....

[Ilgoth]

Buy mixing B&W, do you mean changing the color's value but not saturation? I think its a good and clear rule.

[ChickPea]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but I'll defer to Diamond. He may have other ideas.

[kacey]

I'm hoping that the pallet we choose could be similar to a painters pallet were they mix, and blend to their hearts content while applying it to the canvas. If Diamond decides that black, and white is permitted I would find it most useful for line work, and maybe even text. I'm antsy to see what he sais. I may put my other project on hold for a bit to actually try this one, it definitely seems like it might be challenging to complete.

[Diamond]

Hmm. Well, the idea of this challenge is to see what you can do with a limited color range, so if we go introducing TOO many rules exceptions it kind of negates the whole thing. But I think using black and white to modify existing colors would be okay*, as would mixing the colors on the palette. I think we've got to nix anything else though. So no pure black or white (unless they're already part of the palette).

*Even though you could be inventive and use a light color and a dark color from the palette to simulate B&W...

As always, the voters will be the judges, so you'll be basically policing your own work when it comes time to vote. Remember, these challenges are supposed to be challenging - it's sort of the whole point.

[ChickPea]

Thanks for clarifying, Diamond.

I've been giving it some thought and trying out a couple of the palettes. Some of them are quite tricky and rather limiting. However, I'm going to try to stick as best as I can to the original colour palette and only use shades outwith that if it's absolutely necessary. I'm thinking I'm going to do an Elvish hamlet... which will explain the purple trees!