The colours, according to Bricklink

[5imon]

Growing up in a family of painters (craftsmen as well as artists), I soon developped a fascination for colours, and besides Lego, drawing and painting was one of my big topics in my childhood. Also later I became a real colour aficionado, not fitting in the "men can only distinguish 8 colours" stereotype...

So when I came back to Lego, I was naturally fascianted by the wide range of available colours, compared to my boy's Lego in the '80s. Soon I developped the urge to collect these colours, all of them that are in the Bricklink list! I know of the flaws of this system as well as all the others that are around (see the Peeron conversion table with all its loose ends). But in the end I had to choose one system that is most convenient for my purpose, the purpose being "buying stuff on Bricklink".

But what to do with all these colourful bricks? Then I had an idea: why not display them in an orderly fashion? As a starting point, I took 1x2 bricks, as these are available in a broad variety of colours and also have a nice smooth surface large enough to really get an impression of the colour. Then I put them in a frame according to their colour names. For the plain colours, I took the rows for the basic colour (i.e. black, red, blue, turquoise, pink, etc.) and the columns for the varieties of the base (dark, bright, light, sand, etc.). Things like olive green, sky blue, reddish brown I took as a separate basic colour, as "olive", "sky" or "reddish" aren't commonly used prefixes.

This is the result so far, still having some dark bluish grey bricks as placeholders for colours I couldn't find so far in a part that fits into the display:

Of course, I had to cheat sometimes, using several smaller parts to create a 1x2 surface, or having larger parts sticking out to the back. I also suspect there are placeholders that will never be replaced by the real thing...

There is also a second display for the transparent, glittery, glossy and other special colours. Here I took the hue (red, yellow, blue etc.) as columns and in the rows I placed the group, like transparent, chrome, milky, speckle etc. For some of the groups I had to create multiple rows for different brightnesses:

So as you see, this is still a "work in progress" and it will most probably stay for a long time. But I already enjoy looking at it and having a good colour reference to compare all the parts in my collection of which I don't remember the correct colour any more.

[TheWarden]

There are a few of these projects on Flickr. I'll try to dig them up for you.

Don't feel bad as they are bigger than your samples - feel good that you have something in hand. Color tables like these don't have the same impact usefulness over the screen.

The only thing I might suggest is a way to compare colors against each other for MOC purposes. Sometimes I have to put two or three colors together to see what they look like, so if rows could slide out, or you have spare pieces, or pieces come off and go back on, it might be useful.

You can also study color theory (color wheels, complementary colors, accent colors, Gestalt organization, foreground / background, more...) if this interests you and want to improve your building skill.

Edited February 28, 2015 by TheWarden

[sparkart]

Nice looking display! Pictures don't do justice to seeing the physical objects with your own eyes.

Sometimes shape can affect the perception of some colors in LEGO, too. For example,

What color is this dress? by SPARKART!, on Flickr.

The curved piece is flat silver. In bright light, it appears to be close to light bluish grey, but in shadow, it looks like dark bluish grey. My guess is that there's some kinda multiplicative specular effect with metallic colors and curves - the more light there is, the much more light is bounced back, and the lighter the color appears.

[LEGO Historian]

In the early years of LEGO (1949-56) during the Automatic Binding Bricks and LEGO Mursten years, I started a color chart for the LEGO colors of that era, which is in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide. And at the time there were 24 color variations (before TLG dropped it down to just 7 colors for nearly 40 years)....

Now of course this count is expanding as new (old) colors are found, mostly in Norway and Sweden.

[5imon]

There are a few of these projects on Flickr. I'll try to dig them up for you.

Don't feel bad as they are bigger than your samples - feel good that you have something in hand. Color tables like these don't have the same impact usefulness over the screen.

I have already seen some of these. There are very interesting projects out there, and I have no reason to feel bad about mine being small(ish). It is exactly what I want for my purpose. And of course it's not meant as a reference for use over the screen, as I'm fully aware of the problems of reproducing colours on different screens vs. reality – especially taken into account the difficult light situation I had when photographing the displays.

The only thing I might suggest is a way to compare colors against each other for MOC purposes. Sometimes I have to put two or three colors together to see what they look like, [...]

This is true indeed. With this display it's not easy to directly compare two or more colours.

so if rows could slide out, or you have spare pieces, or pieces come off and go back on, it might be useful.

Making some sliding mechanism is too complicated for my purpose and would block even more parts that I'd rather use for MOCing. But of course the pieces I have in the display do come off and back on, it's the very nature of Lego and I didn't use Kragle ;-)

But kidding aside, I have duplicates (or even more) of most of the coloured bits, so I still have somthing to hold together and compare without disassembling the display.

You can also study color theory (color wheels, complementary colors, accent colors, Gestalt organization, foreground / background, more...) if this interests you and want to improve your building skill.

Of course, being a colour addict means I have read a lot about these things and use them when choosing colour combinations, perhaps often even inconciously. However, so far I rarely use the fancier colours in MOCs, as I'm mostly building technic, where the palette is quite limited.

In the early years of LEGO (1949-56) during the Automatic Binding Bricks and LEGO Mursten years, I started a color chart for the LEGO colors of that era, which is in my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide. And at the time there were 24 color variations (before TLG dropped it down to just 7 colors for nearly 40 years)...

Now of course this count is expanding as new (old) colors are found, mostly in Norway and Sweden.

Very interesting colours you show here. Really a pity the palette got so restricted in the later years. But there might also be a good point about this: with only 7 colours you are less likely to end up with a lot of different colours that you can hardly use for building because you only have 2 or 3 bricks of each...

[kinggregus]

This is so great, I want to have a color palette in a long time but could not figure out how to do it. Your model seems to be the best I have seen yet.

I was just thinking about using a white background though, instead of black.

Is there a specific reason you used a black background?

[5imon]

Thanks kinggregus, I'm glad you liked the display.

Why I used black... I think it makes the colours look brighter and stand out more. Except maybe for the very light ones, like e.g. light violet, which become hard to distinguish from white or very light grey. But with a white background you'd have a similar problem with the dark colours. Other reasons were that black parts don't have different yellowed shades and I had more of them already available. But in the end it's just a matter of personal taste; I ike black more than white. (Btw. I also considered lbg, being more neutral...)

Ah yes, I used some white parts as well: they're behind the transparent samples because in front of black they'd look too dark.

[mpfirnhaber]

Very nice! Do you actually have the bricks labeled somehow, or is the labeling done in a spreadsheet or similar?

I am up to 62 colors in modern 2x4 bricks but right now they're all in individual baggies with the color written on them. I want to make some sort of chart, but I'm afraid if I start pulling them out, I'll never figure out which color is which :)

[5imon]

mpfirnhaber, my bricks aren't labeled. With the grid I used for the display it's easy to track down the right colour of each part – and the grid is noted in a spreadsheet, as you suspected.

I have to admit however that after collecting the bricks for a while and storing them without labeling I had some trouble remembering which was which. Fortunately I keep good record of my orders on BL, so in the end I was able to deduce all the colours in the style of "if I have three 1x2 bricks and a slope, it must be colour X".

BTW, congratulations on your 62 colours of 2x4 bricks, I'm only at 57 with the 1x2's (but still growing ;-). Some of the bricks you posted in the "rare parts" thread I could acutally use very well for my display, like the yellowish green or the flat silver one...

Edited March 4, 2015 by 5imon

[mpfirnhaber]

Those 2x4s are all available on BL, you just have to be willing to pay for them :)

I'm close to having all Modulex colors in 2x4, and I'm slowly working on Duplo. Also various clone brands like Mega Bloks and TYCO, which are much more difficult since there is no BL for those brands!

[TheWarden]

I'm back and oddly enough the links I was looking for just came up on the most recent entry on http://www.newelementary.com/

Sounds like you are familiar with them and most of theories I posted about, but good work anyway.

[WoutR]

The Brick Colorstream by Ryan/Eldeem as shown on newelementary is the most excellent LEGO color resource I know.

http://www.newelementary.com/2015/03/lego-colour-chart-reference.html

Here is how all those colors are represented on BrickLink:

http://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=903204