Many of you in the Unity Technical Artist: Lighting in Game Development course have inquired about color theory and learning more about how colors work together.
Cinema
Don’t forget that we have over a hundred years of cinema to draw from, and if you’re in need of some inspiration, probably you should start with color palettes from some of your favorite films.
You may find these articles useful.
https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/color-palettes-famous-movies/
https://www.esquire.com/style/news/g2760/color-palettes-iconic-films/
And for you David Fincher fans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAW09Jy48bM
Some of these palettes have been duplicated on Pinterest, which itself is a never ending source of reference.
https://www.pinterest.com/alevgct/movie-color-palettes
Of course, Pinterest is useful for more than just saving palettes. As a 3d artist or designer, you want to collect a library of source material and start organizing them.
Even if an image might not be useful immediately, if you think it might be worth keeping, store in your archive or “morgue” (a term coined at Disney).
Review your Pinterest boards now and again, and something might pique your interest for your current project.
Palette Generators
Color design is also vital to the development of the World Wide Web. If you want something a little more “high tech,” check out these color palette generators:
https://htmlcolorcodes.com/resources/best-color-palette-generators/
Though the end product is slightly different, the “color logic” remains the same. Use the color wheel to create a nice equilibrium of colors with just enough harmony to set the mood.
Just remember that creativity isn’t paint-by-numbers. But these tools might help.
Wilmer