Picking the right color combo for your printed parts can be difficult, especially if you have no background in design or color theory. Some colors that look great on their own just don’t work when they are put together. Lucky for you, I have gathered some easy ways for anyone to create beautiful printed assemblies.

Color Resources

If you don’t have faith in your color picking abilities, you should check out Adobe Color, Coolors.co, and Color Hunt. These three websites all feature different ways to generate color palettes; palettes that are randomly generated to work well with each other, designer curated palettes, and even user-friendly color palette builders. Of course, feel free to check out the MatterHackers Instagram to see the combinations that we put together for our prints. There are many different ways you can combine different colors together, and that’s called color theory.

Many different resources are at your disposal to find the right colors for your projects, including the MatterHackers Instagram.
Many different resources are at your disposal to find the right colors for your projects, including the MatterHackers Instagram.

Color Coordinating Tips

Studying color theory is an entirely different matter, but I find what works best for my tastes is what’s called “analogous;” I tend to pick colors that are similar to each other, but have enough contrast to differentiate them. With Phil’s Cruiser, red, orange, and yellow are very close together on a color wheel, with a little blue thrown in for some contrasting pop. Red is the main color, so the other colors are chosen to work with that. The engine models that I have printed over the years are more of a “complimentary” color choice; each has a base “bland” silver or gray and the parts of note like exhaust, valves, or camshafts are printed in the colors that can stand out so you can really notice them.

Colors can matched with each other very differently depending on the intent for the finished palette, complimentary being one of the simplest and most common.
Colors can matched with each other very differently depending on the intent for the finished palette, complimentary being one of the simplest and most common.

How to Color Your Part (In Software)

My Personal Workflow

For my workflow, I like to use Autodesk Netfabb since it gives me the ability to precisely move parts into position to virtually reassemble a set of files that may have been pre-plated. Once I’ve taken the time to move all of Phil’s Cruiser into position, if I select any object, right click while hovering over it, I can “change display color” and pick from a preset list, define my own and save them, or pick from any combination of RGB, hue and saturation. To streamline things, I can even group models together and change the color of an entire group of models at once. Of course, it’s not a complete 1:1 comparison, as you can’t change the “finish” of the part like matte, glossy, or sparkly, so it can be difficult to match the exact hue, but this is a significant improvement over the guesswork I used to do with models. By having this schematic, it’s a lot easier for me to test out and change that colors at any time until I find the right combination I want.

AUtodesk Netfabb has a lot of useful features, and one of the simplest ones is the ability to organize and color parts before committing to a print.
AUtodesk Netfabb has a lot of useful features, and one of the simplest ones is the ability to organize and color parts before committing to a print.

Other Workflows

A lot simpler, but less precise way to test out your colors is to use something like Photoshop or GIMP to take a photo of the finished print taken by either the designer or another person that printed it out, and color over it. Start by converting it to grayscale or turning the saturation to 0 and adjusting the contrast to your liking, then add a new blank layer for every different color you want to use. Select the first layer and pick the first color you want to work with, like red in my case, then color in every part I want to have in red. Once you’re happy with where you’ve placed the color, adjust the opacity or transparency of the layer to color in the base layer below it of the original 3D print, then repeat this process for the rest of the colors. This method certainly relies on your ability to color within the lines, but it’s at least something you can work with to get a general idea of the finished print.

Photoshop or GIMP take a little more work to preview a color scheme, but still remain a viable alternative.
Photoshop or GIMP take a little more work to preview a color scheme, but still remain a viable alternative.

And that’s it! Now you should have a better idea of how to create all your 3D printed projects in colors that create a cohesive final image. MatterHackers’ variety of colors and materials might even be a great choice to meet the diverse palette that you’ve created, and with fast and free shipping, what’s not to love? Have fun creating your color palettes.

Happy planning!