General Colour Discussion

[paupadros]

I had no idea under which subforum put this, but I figured this was the closest to "Miscellaneous" or other geeky and weird stuff.

 

Official Lego Colours

Lego colours have been gradually increasing since the beginning of times, suddenly increased around the early 2000s, with the addition of the "sand" colours. Now, I've been wondering the current Lego palette has 57 colours: 38 solid, 14 transparent, technically 3 pearlascent/metal (Gold Ink and other shiny things don't count) and 1 glow in the dark colour. Now, I know many of us think the use of transparent pieces and chromed ones at some places is a little redundant and like using the solid ones instead.

The solid colours are basically split into colour families, but I'll try to divide them even further:

Blues: 8 (Earth, Sand, Bright/Classic, Aqua, Royal, Medium and both Azures) - more than enough to cover your needs, I think.

Greens: 7 (Earth, Bright, Dark, Sand, Spring Yellowish, Lime and Olive) - Olive being the latest addiiton the line up, if I'm not mistaken.

Purples and Pinks: 6 (Bright Pur., Light Pur., Magenta, Lavander, Medium Lav., Lilac) - Utterly redundant as some of them are practically useless and stupid.

Browns/Tans/Earthy Thingys: 8 (Flesh, Nougat, Medium Nougat, Tan, Dark Tan, Dark Orange, Reddish Brown, Dark Brown) - some universal colours such as Tan but others just ugly like Nougat.

Grey/Black/White: 4 (Light Bluish Grey, Dark Bluish Grey and Black) - Universal colours everybody uses and loves. Would be interesting returning other shades of grey, or making a lighter shade of grey, but bluish.

Red: 2 (Bright and New Dark) - A very low number for such a universal colour, but it's true that it's the colour with less itinerance, meaning not many shades can be made out of it and still look different enough.

Orange: 1 - Just orange.

Yellows: 3 - Bright/Classic, Cool, Flame Yellowish Orange - a surprisingly low number for such a universal colour.

 

My Own Ideas:

Now you may have seen that towards the end, the numbers reduced drastically. But why? Why doesn't Lego make just more shades of yellow, red and orange?

I've been playing around with the idea of a new shade of colour for quite a long time. Some time ago, Lego made a colour called "Curry" -or at least that's what Brickset called it-. Curry only appeared in a single Duplo piece in 2002 (https://brickset.com/parts/colour-Curry). Now, Curry looked a heck of a lot like Flame Orange, but that got me thinking. Why not make a "Mustard" colour? a colour darked than Flame Orange but much more orangy? Something like this. Or why not returning the glorious Dark Turquoise (https://brickset.com/parts/colour-Bright-Bluish-Green). One of the façades of one of my modular buildings uses this colour lightly to give it personality. There isn't a colour more perfect to me than that one.

 

What do you think? Are some colours Lego makes just strange and useless? Is something really missing? Do you like my ideas? Comment!

Edited October 13, 2018 by paupadros

[Legofunbuild]

Sometime this is not about using green instead of red, it is a matching and harmony of the color together. Your signature says a lot!

[Aanchir]

Part of the reason there are so few yellows and oranges in your list is because a lot of the colors derived from yellow and orange fall into the Tan/Brown color family. Lighten a typical shade of orange and you arrive at something pretty close to Nougat (flesh) or Light Nougat (Light Flesh). Darken the same color and you get something close to Dark Orange or Reddish Brown — in fact, the classic brown color that Reddish Brown replaced was officially called "Earth Orange", meaning it had the same relationship to Bright Orange that Earth Blue (dark blue) has to Bright Blue (classic blue). Additionally, Brick Yellow (tan) and Sand Yellow (dark tan) are tones of Bright Yellow much like how Sand Green and Sand Blue are tones of Bright Green and Bright Blue.

Your idea that some of the purples and pinks are "utterly redundant" feels a wee bit arbitrary? The only two listed that are particularly similar are Lavender and Medium Lavender, which are hardly any more redundant than Bright Green and Dark Green (classic green) or Medium Blue and Light Royal Blue. Plus at the end of your post you suggest bringing back a color that would fall into either the blue or green color family, both of which already offer plenty of variety according to your own list. It goes without saying that pink and purple are also extremely popular colors among girls and women, so singling them out as "useless and stupid" has some unfortunate implications.

I'd say if anything feels conspicuously absent in my eyes it's a shade of  reddish-orange — pretty much all other RGB tertiary colors have some LEGO color to approximate them, but the only reddish orange colors besides Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange are all retired (and were rarely used to begin with). I'd also like to see Nougat and Light Nougat used more for building elements rather than just skin tones — while you may think Nougat is "ugly", the Nougat family are the closest colors the current palette has to a "Light Orange", "Medium Orange", or "Sand Orange".

Worth noting also since you are an LDD builder, Nougat and Medium Nougat look much richer and more different from one another in real life than on LDD.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Aanchir

[tafkatb]

1 hour ago, paupadros said:

Why doesn't Lego make just more shades of yellow, red and orange?

Depends on how you group them, really. Your list lumps a lot of what I would consider shades of yellow and orange into the "brown/tan/earthy" segment. Nougat, light nougat, medium nougat, reddish brown, dark brown, dark orange - those are all colors you'd get by adjusting the saturation and brightness of plain ol' orange. Same with tan and dark tan for yellow - their official names are Brick Yellow and Sand Yellow, after all.

ETA: Probably should have assumed Aanchir would say pretty much the same thing before I managed to click submit 

Edited September 16, 2017 by Tragic Banjo

[koalayummies]

1 hour ago, paupadros said:

Now you may have seen that towards the end, the numbers reduced drastically. But why? Why doesn't Lego make just more shades of yellow, red and orange?

From a technical standpoint Lego classifies Brick Yellow, Reddish Brown and Sand Yellow under the Color Family of Reddish Brown. Aanchir said basically as much that they're just different hues of red. 

1 hour ago, paupadros said:

Official Lego Colours

Browns/Tans/Earthy Thingys: 8 (Flesh, Nougat, Medium Nougat, Brick Yellow, Sand Yellow, Dark Orange, Reddish Brown, Dark Brown) - some universal colours such as Tan but others just ugly like Nougat.

Grey/Black/White: 4 (Medium Stone Grey, Dark Stone Grey, White and Black) - Universal colours everybody uses and loves. Would be interesting returning other shades of grey, or making a lighter shade of grey, but bluish.

Orange: 1 - Just bright orange.

Also since we're talking Official Lego colors. 

[paupadros]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

Your idea that some of the purples and pinks are "utterly redundant" feels a wee bit arbitrary? The only two listed that are particularly similar are Lavender and Medium Lavender, which are hardly any more redundant than Bright Green and Dark Green (classic green) or Medium Blue and Light Royal Blue. Plus at the end of your post you suggest bringing back a color that would fall into either the blue or green color family, both of which already offer plenty of variety according to your own list. It goes without saying that pink and purple are also extremely popular colors among girls and women, so singling them out as "useless and stupid" has some unfortunate implications.

Yeah, it could feel a little rude to say they're useless, but they're not "GO TO" colours when deciding for a main colour scheme for a model. At least not for me, and I do know many Friends sets use them very often. Well, to be honest, Elves is one of the themes that uses those usually fogotten colours and mixes them brilliantly, all the purples, pinks etcetera. For me, at least, I use them very rarely for what? Flowers, wall decor sometimes. That's about it. Bright Green on the other hand does feel a lot like Dark Green, but each feel a lot more unique than both Lavenders, to be honest.

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

I'd say if anything feels conspicuously absent in my eyes it's a shade of  reddish-orange — pretty much all other RGB tertiary colors have some LEGO color to approximate them, but the only reddish orange colors besides Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange are all retired (and were rarely used to begin with). I'd also like to see Nougat and Light Nougat used more for building elements rather than just skin tones — while you may think Nougat is "ugly", the Nougat family are the closest colors the current palette has to a "Light Orange", "Medium Orange", or "Sand Orange".

Worth noting also since you are an LDD builder, Nougat and Medium Nougat look much richer and more different from one another in real life than on LDD.

Something like this? A sort of burnt orange, but quasi-red? I'm all for that colour, Lego once did a colour Ryan Howerter nicknamed "Rust" but I think that is way too dark for what you mean. Maybe, a salmon-ish red could also be an good idea. For the years I've been building in Lego, I've figured there's just no way of making old Barroque or Neoclassical (mostly European) look decent in terms of colours. I've tried Tan, but it's just way too light. I've tried "Dark Tan" but it's way too dark. I've tried a combo of Medium Nougat, Light Bluish Grey, Dark Tan and a bit of Sand Blue but it looks odd. Aiming for something like this, but never looks right.

And yes, I do know Nougat and Medium Nougat in LDD are just way too dark. I've always found annoying the fact that Olive Green and Dark Tan are practically indistinguishable.

 

But I strongly disagree that Tan could be considered yellow. It's just not, maybe it's what it's closest to, but it's not yellow. In fact, Sand Yellow, aka. Dark Tan looks more like a dead brown than a yellow too. I do know it's "sand", but Sand Blue and Green are clearly blue and green. Sand Yellow isn't.

1 hour ago, koalayummies said:

Official Lego Colours

Browns/Tans/Earthy Thingys: 8 (Flesh, Nougat, Medium Nougat, Brick Yellow, Sand Yellow, Dark Orange, Reddish Brown, Dark Brown) - some universal colours such as Tan but others just ugly like Nougat.

Grey/Black/White: 4 (Medium Stone Grey, Dark Stone Grey, White and Black) - Universal colours everybody uses and loves. Would be interesting returning other shades of grey, or making a lighter shade of grey, but bluish.

Orange: 1 - Just bright orange.

We'll keep that in mind!

[Aanchir]

19 minutes ago, paupadros said:

Yeah, it could feel a little rude to say they're useless, but they're not "GO TO" colours when deciding for a main colour scheme for a model. At least not for me, and I do know many Friends sets use them very often. Well, to be honest, Elves is one of the themes that uses those usually fogotten colours and mixes them brilliantly, all the purples, pinks etcetera. For me, at least, I use them very rarely for what? Flowers, wall decor sometimes. That's about it. Bright Green on the other hand does feel a lot like Dark Green, but each feel a lot more unique than both Lavenders, to be honest.

I think them not being "go-to" colors speaks more to the sensibilities of the builder than the quality of the colors. There's no particular reason a building or vehicle couldn't use any of those as a main color, and I'd say Emma's House and Heartlake Sports Center use purples quite well. Plus, as the saying goes, "any part can be a Space part", and that applies to colors too!

19 minutes ago, paupadros said:

Something like this? A sort of burnt orange, but quasi-red? I'm all for that colour, Lego once did a colour Ryan Howerter nicknamed "Rust" but I think that is way too dark for what you mean. Maybe, a salmon-ish red could also be an good idea.

Yeah, like that. The rarely-used color Bright Reddish Orange is a great example of this. Currently, for things that are around that color, neither Bright Red nor Bright Orange is an ideal match. For example, the Porsche 911 GT3 RS set used Bright Orange, but the original color of the car is more of a reddish orange, and I saw a number of reviews mention that the Bright Orange didn't quite feel right. The Twin Pod Cloud Car from Star Wars is another example where LEGO has been forced to choose between red and orange — they used Bright Red for the classic set, and Bright Orange (which was a closer match) for the "Planets" series mini-model, but a reddish-orange would probably have been preferable to either.

19 minutes ago, paupadros said:

But I strongly disagree that Tan could be considered yellow. It's just not, maybe it's what it's closest to, but it's not yellow. In fact, Sand Yellow, aka. Dark Tan looks more like a dead brown than a yellow too. I do know it's "sand", but Sand Blue and Green are clearly blue and green. Sand Yellow isn't.

My point isn't that these colors are "yellow-looking". My point is that there's much, much less you can do to a color like yellow or orange than to a color like green or blue before it stops looking yellow at all and starts looking brown or tan. Brick Yellow isn't really any further from classic yellow than Sand Green is from classic green, it's just that the word "yellow" is much more narrowly defined than the word "green". As such, it's just not realistic to expect as much variety in yellows or oranges as in most other color families.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Aanchir

[Digger of Bricks]

20 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I'd say if anything feels conspicuously absent in my eyes it's a shade of  reddish-orange — pretty much all other RGB tertiary colors have some LEGO color to approximate them, but the only reddish orange colors besides Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange are all retired (and were rarely used to begin with). 

^THIS!^ 

I too think that really is the only color Lego needs to round out their already well laid out color palette, a shade that sits in the spectrum between Bright Orange and Bright Red.

As far as the discussion of redundant colors goes, the only two pairings I find within Lego's current palette that seem to me to be that way are Medium Azur/Dark Azur and Bright Yellow/Flame Yellowish Orange. I'm not saying that I would want either one of two within each pairing to be cut from the palette, they are just observations that at times in the past have fooled me into thinking they were the same, showing both how similar and therefore confusing their near alikenesses' can be.

18 hours ago, paupadros said:

Something like this? A sort of burnt orange, but quasi-red? I'm all for that colour, Lego once did a colour Ryan Howerter nicknamed "Rust" but I think that is way too dark for what you mean. Maybe, a salmon-ish red could also be an good idea. 

Ryan H. has some parts from a unreleased color called "7 Orange" that I think better fit the sort of color we are discussing here.

[paupadros]

23 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Ryan H. has some parts from a unreleased color called "7 Orange" that I think better fit the sort of color we are discussing here.

Hmmm... Isn't it a bit too orange for what he meant? I imagined a red that just doesn't scream "Ferrari!" at your face like the current one does. Also, a dark mustard could be good. I already mentioned this, but I want to clarify: a sort of Dark Orange, but in yellow instead. I think it would be properly useful, as Dark Orange already is my go-to colour in terms of brown, over Reddish Brown. Of course if a colour just doesn't exist in Dark Orange, Reddish Brown has to do, but DO is that little bit lighter, that little bit more personal to me, maybe because it's the least used brown (aside from Dark Brown). I also mentioned a salmon-ish colour. An orange that slowly fades into pink, something really unique and beautiful I would say.

 

23 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

As far as the discussion of redundant colors goes, the only two pairings I find within Lego's current palette that seem to me to be that way are Medium Azur/Dark Azur and Bright Yellow/Flame Yellowish Orange. I'm not saying that I would want either one of two within each pairing to be cut from the palette, they are just observations that at times in the past have fooled me into thinking they were the same, showing both how similar and therefore confusing their near alikenesses' can be.

I must agree on both Azures. Medium was taken from Duplo, if I'm not wrong and some four/five years ago Dark Azure was introduced. Out of the two, Medium Azure has too much of a cake look to me, Dark Azure is just so much better. But Medium Az. sometimes comes in very handy, eg. the globe in Big Bang Theory. I strongly disagree on Bright and Flame Yellow. While Bright is the classic that must be maintained, Flame is sometimes just a million times better. It is stronger, has more personality, looks less fagile...

Aaand... a thing I forgot to mention that could also be interseting is returning the old Copper. I'm pretty sure Lego only makes shades of Gold and Silver right now, but sometimes both of these are just way too striking or fake to be used. For instance, I used Copper, thank God it's inside LDD for a wrought iron door portal on one of my modulars. It's a pretty necessary return in my opinion.

[cimddwc]

On 16.9.2017 at 8:47 PM, paupadros said:

For the years I've been building in Lego, I've figured there's just no way of making old Barroque or Neoclassical (mostly European) look decent in terms of colours. I've tried Tan, but it's just way too light. I've tried "Dark Tan" but it's way too dark. I've tried a combo of Medium Nougat, Light Bluish Grey, Dark Tan and a bit of Sand Blue but it looks odd. Aiming for something like this, but never looks right.

Yeah, a good color for this would really be nice. And I'd also like a graysih-orangish-reddish-brownish brick color as used in Hamburg's Speicherstadt... :)

[peedeejay]

The high number of blue shades and pinks and purples is something I don't really understand. Well I do, since LEGO is mainly made for kids, but still I don't understand it. :)

For modular builds I'd love to see a revival of sand red. Also a sand brown would be cool as something which is not as dark as dark tan, but not as bright as tan. LEGO could also play nice and provide some normal bricks in the existing color flesh. :)

[Lyichir]

7 hours ago, paupadros said:

I must agree on both Azures. Medium was taken from Duplo, if I'm not wrong and some four/five years ago Dark Azure was introduced. Out of the two, Medium Azure has too much of a cake look to me, Dark Azure is just so much better. But Medium Az. sometimes comes in very handy, eg. the globe in Big Bang Theory. I strongly disagree on Bright and Flame Yellow. While Bright is the classic that must be maintained, Flame is sometimes just a million times better. It is stronger, has more personality, looks less fagile...

One other thing that Flame Yellowish Orange, and for that matter, Cool Yellow, are good for is for minifigures. When the standard minifigure skin tone is Bright Yellow, having separate yellow hues (one lighter, one darker) can make the difference between a yellow-clothed figure and one who looks nude.

[Aanchir]

6 hours ago, paupadros said:

I must agree on both Azures. Medium was taken from Duplo, if I'm not wrong and some four/five years ago Dark Azure was introduced. Out of the two, Medium Azure has too much of a cake look to me, Dark Azure is just so much better. But Medium Az. sometimes comes in very handy, eg. the globe in Big Bang Theory.

Medium Azur and Dark Azur actually came out around the same time. Dark Azur first started appearing in 2011, in Galaxy Squad sets, while Medium Azur began appearing the very next year in Friends sets. One thing I love about Medium Azur is how great a look it offers for water (it's used in this capacity in a lot of Friends and Elves sets). Medium Azur is also a great "companion color" to Tr. Light Blue, which like the Azurs is more greenish than most of LEGO's other blue colors.

6 hours ago, paupadros said:

Aaand... a thing I forgot to mention that could also be interseting is returning the old Copper. I'm pretty sure Lego only makes shades of Gold and Silver right now, but sometimes both of these are just way too striking or fake to be used. For instance, I used Copper, thank God it's inside LDD for a wrought iron door portal on one of my modulars. It's a pretty necessary return in my opinion.

I kind of doubt that any of the old coppers are coming back. However, LEGO introduced a brand-new copper color called 346 Copper Metallic just this year. So far it's only been used in the LEGO Ninjago Hands of Time sets but I think we can probably expect to see more of it in the future!

I'm not sure if this will be useful for what you want to use it for, since compared to 139 Copper, it has less of the brown color of an old penny and more of the orange color of a copper wire or a shiny new penny. So probably not as useful for wrought iron.

1 hour ago, peedeejay said:

The high number of blue shades and pinks and purples is something I don't really understand. Well I do, since LEGO is mainly made for kids, but still I don't understand it. :)

For modular builds I'd love to see a revival of sand red. Also a sand brown would be cool as something which is not as dark as dark tan, but not as bright as tan. LEGO could also play nice and provide some normal bricks in the existing color flesh. :)

As far as purples and pinks are concerned, you can think of it this way. Back in the day many LEGO color names could be organized into a neat spectrum of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. That means Reds, Reddish Oranges, Oranges, Yellowish Oranges, Yellows, Yellowish Greens, Greens, Bluish Greens, Blues, Bluish Violets, Violets, and Reddish Violets. I made a chart on LDD  years ago organizing the colors named in this fashion by hue and tint/shade/tone, which you can see here.

Today, a lot of those colors are retired, and in many cases new colors with less formulaic names have taken their place. But just thinking in terms of a horizontal spectrum of 12 different hues, what we might think of today as purples and pinks would take up between 1/6 and 1/4 of that spectrum (depending on whether you consider "bluish violets" more purple or more blue). Six colors out of 38 falling within this space hardly seems like overkill to me.

Plus, even thinking of pink as more purple than red is kind of an arbitrary distinction — ask a kid what colors make pink and they'll usually say "white and red". To be honest, this is probably a big part of the reason that other tints of red (like the old Salmon/Medium Red and Light Salmon/Light Red) don't exist on the current palette.

Incidentally, that chart also pretty effectively illustrates what I meant about tans and brown being derivatives of yellow and orange — darken or desaturate yellow or orange and you're inevitably left with some shade of tan or brown.

[Agent Kallus]

More reds are needed , I was trying to make the Ruby squad

Spoiler

brickheadz but I put it off as I couldn't find enough shades of red.( the difference in skin tone shows age so that is important.)  

[Digger of Bricks]

There are two particular colors I would wish to see from Lego, but I necessarily don't think they need anyway. I think that a darker, deeper shade of Olive Green would be cool, but it shouldn't get too close in similarity to Earth Green. Also, a darker take on Sand Blue would prove quite useful to me; but, just like the prior wish I stated above, it would not stray too closely to Earth Blue.

3 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Medium Azur and Dark Azur actually came out around the same time. Dark Azur first started appearing in 2011, in Galaxy Squad sets, while Medium Azur began appearing the very next year in Friends sets. One thing I love about Medium Azur is how great a look it offers for water (it's used in this capacity in a lot of Friends and Elves sets). Medium Azur is also a great "companion color" to Tr. Light Blue, which like the Azurs is more greenish than most of LEGO's other blue colors.

I've always wondered, was Medium Azure really necessary for the Friends theme, especially after introducing Dark Azure the prior year? Couldn't Dark Azure just been used where Medium Azure had been utilized in the theme without affecting its cosmetic aesthetics? 

4 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I kind of doubt that any of the old coppers are coming back. However, LEGO introduced a brand-new copper color called 346 Copper Metallic just this year. So far it's only been used in the LEGO Ninjago Hands of Time sets but I think we can probably expect to see more of it in the future!

I'm definitely hoping for a much more prevalent usage of that color in the near future also! 

[paupadros]

22 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I kind of doubt that any of the old coppers are coming back. However, LEGO introduced a brand-new copper color called 346 Copper Metallic just this year. So far it's only been used in the LEGO Ninjago Hands of Time sets but I think we can probably expect to see more of it in the future!

I'm not sure if this will be useful for what you want to use it for, since compared to 139 Copper, it has less of the brown color of an old penny and more of the orange color of a copper wire or a shiny new penny. So probably not as useful for wrought iron.

Wow! How could have I even missed such wonderful news! It's true the old one was "dirtier" more brownish and this one is basically a Pearl Copper, much like Pealy/Warm Gold. Probably just as useful as the older Copper for what I'm aiming at, it's just the overally colour I'm looking for, not the slightly more serious or more cartoonish hue.

 

22 hours ago, Lyichir said:

One other thing that Flame Yellowish Orange, and for that matter, Cool Yellow, are good for is for minifigures. When the standard minifigure skin tone is Bright Yellow, having separate yellow hues (one lighter, one darker) can make the difference between a yellow-clothed figure and one who looks nude.

Very very good point, imagine having all those blonde minifigures have same colour hair and face!

On 18/9/2017 at 9:52 PM, peedeejay said:

For modular builds I'd love to see a revival of sand red. Also a sand brown would be cool as something which is not as dark as dark tan, but not as bright as tan. LEGO could also play nice and provide some normal bricks in the existing color flesh. :)

Yes! Sand red, the old forgotten family member. Aside from Sand Purple, which I think just was in a Zam Wesell (Attack of the Clones) minifigures in 2004. Sand red would also be a solution to the problem one of the members in the thread had of not having enough reds. Again Salmon would greatly help to that too.

 

22 hours ago, Aanchir said:

As far as purples and pinks are concerned, you can think of it this way. Back in the day many LEGO color names could be organized into a neat spectrum of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. That means Reds, Reddish Oranges, Oranges, Yellowish Oranges, Yellows, Yellowish Greens, Greens, Bluish Greens, Blues, Bluish Violets, Violets, and Reddish Violets. I made a chart on LDD  years ago organizing the colors named in this fashion by hue and tint/shade/tone, which you can see here.

Plus, even thinking of pink as more purple than red is kind of an arbitrary distinction — ask a kid what colors make pink and they'll usually say "white and red". To be honest, this is probably a big part of the reason that other tints of red (like the old Salmon/Medium Red and Light Salmon/Light Red) don't exist on the current palette.

Wonderful chart! Would also be interesting for knowing what an Earth Pink would look like. Not sure it would be any useful, but it's always fun guessing. What do you mean with the second part, though? Just because kids prefer less complex colours they know, Lego can't make others? I'm fairly sure when you ask kids what their favourite colours, they won't say "Sand Green", but that doesn't stop Lego from making those such wonderful colours. I would love to see both a lighter red, or Salmon and the Burnt Red you mentioned earlier.

[Aanchir]

18 hours ago, paupadros said:

Yes! Sand red, the old forgotten family member. Aside from Sand Purple, which I think just was in a Zam Wesell (Attack of the Clones) minifigures in 2004. Sand red would also be a solution to the problem one of the members in the thread had of not having enough reds. Again Salmon would greatly help to that too.

Sand Purple (Sand Violet) was also used extensively in the Life on Mars theme! It was a fun color, although nowadays I feel like Medium Lavender is often a decent substitute. Fun fact: there was actually even a metallic (pearl) sand violet that was never really used for bricks.

18 hours ago, paupadros said:

Wonderful chart! Would also be interesting for knowing what an Earth Pink would look like. Not sure it would be any useful, but it's always fun guessing. What do you mean with the second part, though? Just because kids prefer less complex colours they know, Lego can't make others? I'm fairly sure when you ask kids what their favourite colours, they won't say "Sand Green", but that doesn't stop Lego from making those such wonderful colours. I would love to see both a lighter red, or Salmon and the Burnt Red you mentioned earlier.

An "Earth Pink/Earth Reddish Violet" might look sort of the color of grape juice. Something kind of intermediate between black, red, and purple. I do have to admit that I've found myself wishing such a color existed in the past, when trying to construct a brick-built figure of Garnet from Steven Universe. The color of her shoulders and the left side of her body are such that Dark Red, Dark Purple (Medium Lilac), and Magenta (Bright Reddish Violet) all feel somewhat "off". But there's the question of how many sets or themes would actually end up using a color like that.

There are a few reasons LEGO might want to avoid introducing too many new colors even to fill gaps in their palette. One is simply logistical — their color palette expanding out of control was a big issue in the early 2000s, with many of those colors only appearing in a few sets. The decision to cut back to between 50 and 60 colors that could be used extensively and shared between themes was very deliberate. Nowadays it's much, much harder to get new colors approved — Copper Metallic is actually the only new color that's been added to the palette since 2013, and the fact that it even got approved is part of why I'm so confident we'll see it again in other sets and themes.

Another reason is more branding-related. Compared to real objects, customers often expect a certain brightness or richness from LEGO bricks. This is part of why so many colors got replaced with newer versions around 2004 — they were often colors that looked dull, dingy, or washed-out and didn't seem to truly fit in with classic LEGO colors like Bright Red, Bright Blue, or Bright Yellow. To an adult builder, a color like Salmon or Sand Red might be open up some really great possibilities! To a kid, though, it might just feel like a gross or dingy-looking pink.

[MAB]

Rather than add more colours, I'd prefer them to fill in gaps with existing colours where some commonly used brick shapes don't exist or are rare. For example, bright light yellow (BL name) is common as a 1x2 and 1x4 brick, appearing in bulk in many classic boxes, Friends sets, etc. Yet odd stud bricks are rare - the 1x1 is missing and the 1x3 is only just appearing in Ninjago City. The distribution of parts in a colour limits their use even when some parts are very common.

[koalayummies]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

Rather than add more colours, I'd prefer them to fill in gaps with existing colours where some commonly used brick shapes don't exist or are rare. For example, bright light yellow (BL name) is common as a 1x2 and 1x4 brick, appearing in bulk in many classic boxes, Friends sets, etc. Yet odd stud bricks are rare - the 1x1 is missing and the 1x3 is only just appearing in Ninjago City. The distribution of parts in a colour limits their use even when some parts are very common.

Agreed, fill in the gaps of the current color part availability. I run into this a lot when designing digitally, I always have Brickset loaded in the background to check that the part I've placed is actually made in the desired color. 

[x105Black]

I'd really just like a Dark Purple.  What BrickLink considers Dark Purple is really Medium Lilac, according to LEGO.  So, how about a Dark Lilac?  That'd be great.

[Mr Bill]

On ‎9‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 8:55 AM, paupadros said:

Or why not returning the glorious Dark Turquoise (https://brickset.com/parts/colour-Bright-Bluish-Green). One of the façades of one of my modular buildings uses this colour lightly to give it personality. There isn't a colour more perfect to me than that one.

You'll be happy to know that according to the parts list we use in the model shop at LEGOLAND for ordering shows Turquoise (107) returns in 2018. So far only basic brick and plate are listed. Not sure what sets these will end up in (I doubt Rock Raiders is returning) but I suspect it will be Elves and/or Nexo Knights...

 

--Mr Bill 

[antp]

6 hours ago, Mr Bill said:

You'll be happy to know that according to the parts list we use in the model shop at LEGOLAND for ordering shows Turquoise (107) returns in 2018. So far only basic brick and plate are listed.

I hope that's true

I like that color, I try to get a few parts of it when making Bricklink orders

[paupadros]

11 hours ago, Mr Bill said:

You'll be happy to know that according to the parts list we use in the model shop at LEGOLAND for ordering shows Turquoise (107) returns in 2018. So far only basic brick and plate are listed. Not sure what sets these will end up in (I doubt Rock Raiders is returning) but I suspect it will be Elves and/or Nexo Knights...

 

--Mr Bill 

I did see that on some leaked preview images of Ninjago sets! So exciting! 

[Digger of Bricks]

On 11/9/2017 at 8:47 PM, Mr Bill said:

You'll be happy to know that according to the parts list we use in the model shop at LEGOLAND for ordering shows Turquoise (107) returns in 2018. So far only basic brick and plate are listed. Not sure what sets these will end up in (I doubt Rock Raiders is returning) but I suspect it will be Elves and/or Nexo Knights...

We're waiting to see whether this is real or not, but it looks like next year's Creator Expert modular will be utilizing Dark Turquoise in a most beautiful way. 

Spoiler

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yImC2g_UF4mGAM1S4bxsZw

 

[Agent Kallus]

I'm an idiot I literally forgot that I already said that months ago please ignore this. 

Edited November 18, 2017 by Agent Kallus