00040 – Custom Colour Wheel

[Mr. Ribs]: Back in the day we have been reading about Colour Theory. Have not you done it yet? Never it is too late to learn something!

Among all the topics that Colour Theory has, one recursive image was the Colour Wheel: Primary colours, Secondary colours, Tertiary colours, Analogous colours, Complementary colours… all of them represented in a Colour Wheel.

Looking in Google Images for Colour Wheel examples, there was a lot of results showing the typical Red-Yellow-Blue colour wheel, and we also saw some examples of a not-so-common Red-Yellow-Blue-Green colour wheel (yes, built with 4 Primary colours). And even we saw a fantastic tool distributed by The Color Wheel Company, called Color Wheel, and you would never guess what it was… Oh! A Colour Wheel! But this one allows you to see how the colours interact between them, apart from seeing their relationship. We wanted one!

But then we realized something… All those Colour Wheels have the RYB but when we thought about building one, we were in front of all our paints and… Oh! Which Red should we use? Which Blue? Which Yellow?

Hard decision… But looking at the Vallejo Model Color paint chart, the decision was made. The chosen ones were:

• 957 (31): Flat Red
• 962 (56): Flat Blue
• 953 (15): Flat Yellow

The reason: All of them were Flat and all of them were the colours I needed.

Then, just adding 951 (1) White for a Tint and 950 (169) Black for a Shade, everything needed was at hand.

The first mixes were made, adding a drop of paint of each of the selected Primary colours, so we had RB: Violet; BY: Green; YR: Orange. Hooray! We have the Secondary colours!

Let’s go for the Tertiary… To do the Blue-Violet we need Violet (so RB) and Blue, but how many drops of blue? Violet is made of two drops. Is enough adding only one drop of Blue? Or it is better to add the same quantity (i.e. 2)? Or is it too much? Another decision to be made… And the final decision was: All the mixes will have the same amount of drops of each colour involved.

That meant that the hue section of the wheel would be as follow:

• Yellow (Primary) → Y [Y] → [Y]
• Green Yellow (Tertiary) → GY [YBYY] → [3YB]
• Green (Secondary) → G [YB] → [YB]
• Blue Green (Tertiary) → BG [BBYB] → [Y3B]
• Blue (Primary) → B [B] → [B]
• Violet Blue (Tertiary) → VB [BRBB] → [R3B]
• Violet (Secondary) → V [BR] → [BR]
• Red Violet (Tertiary) → RV [RRBR] → [3RB]
• Red (Primary) → R [R] → [R]
• Orange Red (Tertiary) → OR [RYRR] → [3RY]
• Orange (Secondary) → O [RY] → [RY]
• Yellow Orange (Tertiary) → YO [YYRY] → [R3Y]

The notation is quite simple: Colour name; kind of colour; colour abbreviation; drops of primary colours used; simplified notation about paint used (so [R3B] is read “drop of Red and 3 drops of Blue”).

To complete the colour wheel, each portion of the pie has six sections:

1. Hue
2. Hue + Red
3. Hue + Yellow
4. Hue + Blue
5. Hue + White (Tint)
6. Hue + Black (Shade)

Yes, it is not the typical colour wheel with tints and shades where the hue is in the middle of the portion and you go black to the inside and white to the outside (or vice versa). As we said before, we were trying to do something similar as the Color Wheel by The Color Wheel Company.

Just to show how each hue behaves, here it is how each section of the pie portion was painted (with the simplified notation). You can work out the rest of the pie, don’t be lazy!

• Yellow (Primary)
  • [Y]
  • [YR]
  • [YY]
  • [YB]
  • [YW]
  • [YK]
• Green Yellow (Tertiary)
  • [3YB]
  • [4R3YB]
  • [7YB]
  • [3Y5B]
  • [3YB4W]
  • [3YB4K]
• Green (Secondary)
  • [YB]
  • [2RYB]
  • [3YB]
  • [Y3B]
  • [YB2W]
  • [YB2K]

As a summary, each Primary colour have the hue with a single drop of paint and all the mixes with two drops of paint. All the Secondary colours have the hue with 2 drops of paint and the mixes with 4. Finally, the Tertiary colours have the hue with 4 drops of paint and the mixes with 8.

And here it is my Custom Colour Wheel

Custom Colour Wheel

What we’ve learnt:

• Yellow is very weak. You have to add a loooooot of yellow of you want that it affects the final result.The YO hue [R3Y] is closer to the R than to the Y, even with 3 drops of Y!
• The Red towards Yellow Zone (R, OR, O and even YO) are quite similar.
• Black is made with a very dark blue. The [YK] mix gives a dark green, therefore, in the K you have to have some B.

Maybe some day we’ll make another colour wheel with more Tints and Shades… or with another RYB as Primary Colours… Time will see…