What's better than 1 color scheme? How about mixing multiple color schemes. This thread is where I keep track of avatars that were intentionally made by combining two (usually) or more distinct color schemes. At some point this post may also include an index if this becomes a more common thing I track.
Process
Most combinations are drawn from this random scheme generator under my Gaia User name and also my IRL nickname. A second edition of the color scheme generator (with three options) has arrived.
Of the combos that aren't randomly generated, a lot of avatars in this thread weren't created specifically to test out color scheme blends, but were selected for inclusion because they were good examples of intentional color mixing.
I use my inventory to build avatars instead of the Avatar Builder, as I'm enough of a hoarder that I can get a fairly representative selection for most schemes. If something has a good selection of items, I probably have a good selection of items. If a scheme is rare, then I might just have 1-2 items. I like wearing things out in the wild just to give me the sense that the avatar is 'complete'.
As this is a color-scheme mixing thread, I pay the most attention to how the colors are working together and want the final avatar to reflect the color blend. However, it's also important that the avatars work on their own and meet my standards for what I want my avatars to look like.
Notes
As I'm updating this thread, I'm changing the formats to share a some short thoughts on each mix and give a difficulty rating as well as blending combos.
Difficulty is based on:
Color Harmony Item Selection Style Harmony
Color harmony is based on how close the colors in each scheme match and how easily the different colors in a scheme can play together.
The easiest schemes will share the foundation colors in a mix even if it's not an exact match, or even have a color in common. For schemes with different colors, it's easier to incorporate them if there's a definite contrast that makes them do different jobs. Lighter colors are highlights vs. darker colors adding weight and shadow. Saturated colors work as accents/focal points vs desaturated colors serving as a good canvas.
The most difficult schemes to blend will have vastly different colors that all play the same role.
Item Selection is pretty straight forward. Schemes that have a lot of items made for it will start with more options for creating a good blend, while rare schemes may have 5 or fewer items available so everything has to be used more effectively.
Style Harmony looks at what kind of style each scheme trends towards. For example Ossidian has more of a formal style, while Fruit Salad has a streetwear vibe. Even if these two schemes weren't vastly different, fiding a way of getting the two styles to talk together would be a challenge. There may be some schemes where the Colors aren't particularly difficult, and the Item Selection is decent but the styles are so far apart that it takes work to get a cohesive avi.
Schemes with low difficulty can be blended successfully without much thought. Schemes with high difficulty will take strategy and maybe some extra creativity to get working. Blending combos may be vital just to get some harmony going.
The Possible Blending Combos are quick suggestions based on similar/shared colors between one scheme that could harmonize well with the others. These could serve as a bridge between two very different combos, or, if the combo is similar, add that missing ingredient.
1. Combo: Bugberry + Biohazard Thoughts: This combo blends well together because they share two compatible blues. The yellow green of bugberry and the purple of biohazard add the contrast. The one difficulty is that these are both very heavy, dark schemes without an in-scheme color to add brightness/contrast. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: I don't think it needs a blending combo, but Horizon, Sinful, or Bluebellvine could work well to add some brightness.
2. Combo: Bugberry + Dusk Rose Thoughts: This is another combo I made 'organically' while building an avatar around a pose in The Experiment REI. The dusk rose brings out the pinkish tones in the tentacles and adds a neutral background while the bugberry provides color impact. A situational mix, but one that looks natural with the experiment. Difficulty: 5/10 Possible Blending Combos: Possibly (?) blooming. Could work well with older items that have a green/yellow/pink overtone and are somewhat hard to blend.
3 Combo: Tiamat + Ambrosial Thoughts: Who doesn't love purple and green together? I certainly don't think of any 90s TV dinosaurs. All that aside, this is one of those combos that don't seem to either blend or compete. Ambrosial has the light, Tiamat has the darks, and a balanced distribution of the two can make some nice contrast without too much fighting between schemes. The biggest problem is a lack of items and a very different style in those items that are available. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Venomous would be a good choice if wanting to make the blend more Tiamat-focused. In the reverse direction Velvetine would work to make more Ambrosial focused blend.
4. Combo: Etoile + Latitude Thoughts: There's not a lot of Latitude items, but what does exist is in the same style as a lot of Etoile items. The darker colors in the Latitude make it more visually heavy than the Etoile, which ends up serving more as a subtle color accent. Difficulty: 5/10 Possible Blending Combos: Catharsis could extend the item availability of Latitude by a lot. Pure would lighten up the mix and make Etoile more prominent in the mix.
1. Combo: Poppy + Blooming Thoughts: This is a very natural match. The poppy orange completes a gradient between the pink and yellow in the blooming scheme, and gives good color harmony. Poppy is a touch darker than the blooming scheme, so it also extends the range of values in the avatar. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
2. Combo: Poppy + Peppy Thoughts: I did this one for the name, lets be real. The oranges and yellows in Poppy add a gradient effect to the red in Peppy, while the blue in Peppy adds acts as a complement to the orange in Poppy. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
3. Combo: Antique + Dreamland Thoughts: Antique is a very limited color scheme with a very distinct aesthetic. Dreamland makes a surprisingly good match, with the red and yellow playing against the darker red and gold in Antique. I found a few pieces in Dreamland that could act as a base or play in Antique's more fancy olde-timey style and then added the hat. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Black Forest, Autumn, Valentine, *sigh* Catharsis, Rose Saga.
4. Combo: Antique + Oriana Thoughts: The same problems with limited availability in Antique, but with more purple and fewer reds to compensate. Make a character and pray? Try one of the blending suggestions below? Difficulty: 8/10 Possible Blending Combos: Amaranth, Heartbeat, Librarian
Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 4:08 pm
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1. Combo: Ponderosa + Decay Thoughts: A natural match! These schemes both have burgundy in common which makes this combination more of an extension of each other rather than two separate blends. Difficulty: 1/10 Possible Blending Combos: N/A
2. Combo: Ponderosa + Opulent Thoughts: The teals and golds in these work as an extension of each other. There's not a lot of items in opulent, so mixing and matching is somewhat limited in that direction. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Using a coordinating theme with gold, teal, or offblack could be a way of getting around the item limitations of Opulent.
3. Combo: Dusk Rose and Duckling Thoughts: This is an example of two schemes doing completely different jobs and working well together to do it. Duckling manages the lighter shades and Dusk Rose rules the darks. The warm pink the Dusk Rose makes a red, orange, yellow effect with Duckling. The off white color in both schemes serves as a unifying shade. Item availability is not an issue with either scheme. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Butter
4. Combo: Blossom + Valentine Thoughts: There's not a specific color in common between the two schemes, but both are playing in the same pink and white sandbox, but with enough bonus contrast that additional schemes are 100% optional. Difficulty: 1/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
1. Combo: Stagony + Sickly Thoughts: This is one of those natural combos where they have a black base, and then sickly's purple fits naturally into Stagony's green, purple, pink gradient. Stagony has enough items to provide an effective base, while Sickly can works as an accent to add sheen. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: Melty, konpeito, or gloomy could harmonize with both schemes while pushing the blend in a more specific direction.
2. Combo: Obscurity + Konpeito Thoughts: This example avatar is particularly Konpeito-dominant, even though Obscurity is overall a much darker and more saturated scheme. In this looks, it makes up the shirt, base, and much of the make up. It would be interesting to see how the scheme blends in reverse. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Thumbelina to add a contrasting pick and extend the Obscurity. Despair or tinsel are choices that add mid-tones.
3. Combo: Sunlit Lavender + Holographic Thoughts: Sunlit lavender is the perfect midtone base to showcase the much flashier holographic scheme, as purple is right between the blue and pink on the color spectrum, and also serves as the shadow color for holographic. Difficulty: 1/10 Possible Blending Combos: Using the full Ghastly scheme, not just the Sunlit Lavender color would add some extra darkness/contrast. Konpeito would also blend very well.
4. Combo: Blushing/Coral + Borealis Thoughts: These are both pretty and light combos and they do look good together. Only one is very summery with lots of warm weather items and the other is very wintery, so I found them somewhat challenging to harmonize on a style level. Difficulty: 5/10 Possible Blending Combos: Ossidian or Dusky to add some dark values to the palette.
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 12:18 pm
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1. Combo: Robin's Egg + Nova Thoughts: This biggest challenge is that there is not a lot of items available for Nova. There's 4-5 dedicated items, plus a few poses in more generic hairs, bangs, eyes, and make-ups. "Robin's Egg" as opposed to "Robin Blue" has a few more items, but the selection still isn't particularly big or plentiful. This one has two avatars, the first is an attempt to evenly distribute the color that crashed and burned; the second is a more successful attempt that primarily used White and Robin blue as a base, and then the darker Nova tones around the face and a bit around the feet. Difficulty: 8/10 Possible Blending Combos: Pure or anything with white will help for general blending. Using anything with Robin Blue will add a lot of items to the Robin Egg scheme's limited pool. To extend Nova, try Oriana/Andromeda for sparkle or Black Doris for shading. (optional)
2. Combo: Robin Blue + Tsunami Thoughts: The lack of items is the main difficulty here. There's about as many items in the Tsunami color scheme as there are Nova scheme. The two saving graces is that Robin Blue is a bigger scheme than Robin's Egg and Tsunami has more degrees of similarity with Robin Blue. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Nightbreak, Sinful, or Fafnir
3. Combo: Marshmallow + Tsunami Thoughts: There's actually fewer items available in Tsunami than there is in Nova. So the horns and the chest piece make a reappearance. I actually think the difference with the marshmallow theme helps out here, since it relegates the Tsunami pieces to an accent. I ended up using some out of scheme shoes to bring in more of the Jay Blue in the feet. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Anubis, Exalted
4. Combo: Velvetine + Ambrosial Thoughts: Sort of an old-meets-new match made in heaven. Ambrosial is pretty much a lighter and shinier take on the old scheme Velvetine. I could wish for Ambrosial to have more items, but I'm sure those are coming. Difficulty: 1/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
1. Combo: Ectoplasm/Swampberry Thoughts: A match made for each other. The offblack ties them together and matches the darks. These two are very close in hue and value, which lets them play subtly together. The general style of their items also works well together. Difficulty: 1/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
2. Combo: Moth + Samui Thoughts: The relative lack of items in Samui is offset by the neutrality of the Moth pallette. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Skyward
3. Combo: Apatite + Schoolboy Thoughts: The tone of these items is generally so different, it wasn't my favorite to try and blend together. Apatite does generally work as a darker undertone to the turquoise in Schoolboy, though. Difficulty: 5/10 Possible Blending Combos: Sketchbook or cathartic to bring in some darker warm colors.
4. Combo: Swampberry + Asexual Thoughts: Asexual is one of those themes that has very few items. So I brought in the Byzantine Purple to balanced out the hair. Otherwise, it's a fairly balanced purple and green mix with some white and black thrown in. Side note: I am amused that an avatar using the asexual theme is also a Big Tiddy Avatar. Sorry, not sorry. Difficulty: 4/10 Possible Blending Combos: Byzantine is a must to round out asexual. Withered is a great scheme to blend since it combines both a purple tone and Swampberry.
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:39 pm
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1. Combo: Gaia Orange + Merina Orange Thoughts: Pretty much a monochromatic blend using oranges. Unsual, but not difficult to blend. Styles are a good match. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: Goddess/Divine, Lotus, Passionate. Pumpkin spice if you really want to commit to the orange thing.
2. Combo: Merina Orange + Matcha Thoughts: This is pretty much manual Calabash with a slightly pinker orange. Difficulty points for finding Matcha/Tea Green items without any other colors involved. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Calabash, Sea Dreams, Melon
3. Combo: Kashmiri + Luminescence Thoughts: The colors themselves go together pretty well. The difficulty comes from the general lack of Luminescence items combined with the more abundant, but not terribly abundant Kashmiri scheme. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Fallen Wish, Bluebellvine, Opal
4. Combo: Moss + Candyfloss Thoughts: The rhyming in this combo makes it a little more fun to try. That said, the fact the colors do not talk to each other at all is mitigated by the fact that each scheme is clearly serving a different purpose. Difficulty: 5/10 Possible Blending Combos: Blossom, Cottonfrost
1. Combo: Comet + Sinful Thoughts: Basically the same scheme except comet has sparkles and sinful is touch lighter on balance. There shouldn't be problems blending, but the fun part will be adding contrast. Difficulty: 1/10 Possible Blending Combos: None needed, but Fafnir would add a contrast with a darker undertone while confectionary could add highlights.
2. Combo: Comet + Sandman Thoughts: Honestly probably the most difficult one so far. Both schemes are dominant in their own rights, with Comet being super sparkly and Sandman having high contrast between the Red, Black, and White. Red, blue, and purple are next to each other on the color wheel, but in this case, the purple is very distinctly comet and isn't doing anything to connect the red and the blue. 2a is my first attempt and I like the overall shape/aesthetic better. In 2b, I tried a character design approach to make a space bandit with a comet base and sandman clothing. I think this makes the colors look more intentional, which might be the best I can do with this pairing. Difficulty: 9/10 Possible Blending Combos: Perhaps Blue Raspberry to bring the red and blue together.
3. Combo: Denim + Yuki Thoughts: Not a whole lot of item selection here and a very different style in what's available, but the colors in this scheme blend amazingly. The hardest part was finding a Yuki toned hair to layer well between the hat and the bandanna. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: None needed but Teddy could be used to add more item availability to Denim and bring some brightness/contrast. Muted or Gloomy would be a good choices to extend the item availability of Yuki.
4. Combo: Catharsis + Atlantis Thoughts: Catharisis pretty much blends with everything so long as the general style of the items is compatible. Here, it's used used it as a base to let the Atlantis items shine. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: None needed.
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:44 pm
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1. Combo: Ivran + Diana Thoughts: Basically Sinful with a pink gradient a smaller selection of items. Still, colors blend fine. Difficulty: 4/10 Possible Blending Combos: Sinful, Thumbelina, Marshmallow
2. Combo: Proto/Dusk Rose Thoughts: The lack of items within Proto was the difficulty. There wasn't enough items to spread evenly, but there also wasn't enough concentration of items in one particular area to make emphasis. Difficulty: 7/10 Possible Blending Combos: Gambino, Concrete Jungle, Monochrome, Schoolboy
3. Combo: Offchrome + St. Ciel Thoughts: Catharsis, but make it shimmery. Difficulty: 1/10 Possible Blending Combos: Vintage/Catharsis.
4. Combo: Delicate Death + Dreamland Thoughts: My least favorite Dreamland Combo so far. Possibly the least enjoyable avatar to put together. The item selection isn't the best, particularly for Delicate Death and the styles for the items in the scheme are so different. Difficulty: 8/10 Possible Blending Combos: Anubis, Bubblegum
1. Combo: Anubis + Independence Thoughts: They're very similar schemes except Anubis has the volume turned up and Independence is more muted. Good item selection too. Difficulty: 4/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
2. Combo: Meowgical + Galaxy Thoughts: Somewhat difficult, but then I found the rabbit head and....then kind of went "******** it, Rabbit Wizard." This would be have been easier if I had expanded to Amaranth in general. Difficulty: 8/10 Possible Blending Combos: Elusive, Sinful, Amaranth, Marshmallow
3. Combo: Mythical + Opalescent Thoughts: They're both shimmery combos with some similarly styled items, with enough contrast to be interesting without clashing. Just...there's not a lot available in the Mythological vein. I think I used what was available to me effectively. Difficulty: 7/10 Possible Blending Combos: Melty Kiss, Monochrome
4. Combo: Moluccella + Oxide Thoughts: This combo taught me the spelling of Moluccella. That said, a very odd division of labor here. Molu has base items and not so much in clothing or accessories, and Oxide has the reverse. However, it was tricky to get the items to blend in a way that felt complete and seamless. Difficulty: 7/10 Possible Blending Combos: Festive, Sandman
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:48 pm
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1. Combo: Lyra + Milky Way Thoughts: Milky Way is very much a book end to the light blue/pink spectrum of Lyra. Very specific theme, but one that blends well together. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: (optional)
2. Combo: Ochiba + Ifrit Thoughts: Could have a wider item selection, but Ifrit is basically an extension of the Goshiki yellow into the orange/red spectrum, which makes for a natural blend. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Goshiki
3 Combo: Unicorn + Gossamer Thoughts: The items in this scheme fit a very specific style, but if that's what you're about, it's difficult to even tell she's two different combos. The hardest thing is to remember how to search to get the Unicorn color scheme instead of generic unicorn themed items. (Sugarplum Icicle) Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: Elusive, Sinful, Konpeito
4. Combo: Monarch/Eventide Thoughts: On one hand, yes, item selection was not great. On the other hand....everything blends. And, yes, I did use the original Monarch Dress from Dernier Cri. It seemed appropriate. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: Sunset, Orijen
1. Combo: Lullytuft + Vivid Rainbow Thoughts: Easy combo in that the shades are compatible and Vivid Rainbow is so much stronger, so it naturally becomes the focal point. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: Sherbet/Pastel Rainbow, Velvetine
2. Combo: Elusive + Pastel Rainbow Thoughts: Seamless blending. Used the Elusive as a base, and then the Pastel Rainbow as the outfit. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
3. Combo: Pastel Rainbow + Gloomy Thoughts: Bit of an odd combo here. Lots of items, and good delineation between dark and light. But it was hard to combine them to get something I was feeling. It probably goes better for someone with Fantasy Skintones or with a more cutesy aesthetic. Difficulty: 4/10 Possible Blending Combos: Melty, Konpeito, CMYK
4. Combo: Monochrome + Lullaby Thoughts: There's very few Lullaby items, but just so much Monochrome. Plus, Monochrome is p. much neutral. So I just decided what Lullaby poses I wanted to use and then used the Monochrome items as filler. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Lullytuft, Midori
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:51 pm
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1. Combo: Heartbeat + Pumpkin Spice Thoughts: Heartbeat is a somewhat limited User-created scheme with some very specific items. Pumpkin spice is more generic, but doesn't have many colors in common. The Orange and brown in Pumpkin Spice set up with the Red in Heartbeat to make a warm base. The Crepe, Iris, and Pink work as paler accents. Difficulty: 7/10 Possible Blending Combos: Antique, Autumn, Dusk Rose
2. Combo: Heartbeat + Independensea Thoughts: This one is probably easier than the above, but I wanted to make something that felt different even with Heartbeat's limited item pool. They do share the crepe color in common. The Crimson gives a hero color and a contrasting element. The difficulty is really the Iris. The independence blend below would support the blue-ish purple of Iris. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Independence, Kaguya, Demure, Dusk Rose, Softbreeze.
3. Combo: Haunted + Seasalt Thoughts: A fairly easy to blend combo made difficult by the sheer lack of items available in either scheme. Focus on finding other schemes with the same/similar colors to widen the variety of what can be made. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Independensea to extend the pool Sea Salt items, Ghastly or Biohazard to extend the Haunted item pool, and Gloomy to provide less saturated undertones compatible with both schemes.
4. Combo: Glacial + Gasoline Thoughts: Suffering was had here. Not a great selection for either scheme. And a lack of nice small accessories/detail pieces. She feels like the clunky version of a much better avatar. Difficulty: 7/10 Possible Blending Combos: Fallen Wish, Horizon, Ectoplasm
1. Combo: Candyfresh + Lucifer's Kiss Thoughts: So we have almost no items to work with. But the dark teal blends with the light teal in Candyfresh, and the black is a bit of a gimme color. Difficulty: 5/10 Possible Blending Combos: Monochrome, Skuzy
2. Combo: Gunmetal + Ambrosial Thoughts: Amused at the mashup of the v. masculine Gunmetal scheme against the v. feminine Ambrosial scheme. Definitely made a bit of a funky they/them look out of it. Difficulty: 6/10 Possible Blending Combos: Fafnir, Velvetine
3. Combo: Fafnir + Ochiba Thoughts: Good blending. The Fafnir does overpower the Ochiba somewhat, leaving the second scheme as more of a subtle accent. Difficulty: 3/10 Possible Blending Combos: Twilight, Sinful
4. Combo: Librarian + Starlit Thoughts: The good version of that Comet + Sandman pairing, where everything is working together. The gold accents are *chef's kiss*. The kind of combo where I forgot about color and just spent time tinkering. Difficulty: 2/10 Possible Blending Combos: n/a
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