So you're probably sitting down at your computer, wondering just where to start with this complicated looking profile template in front of you. Here's a guide that will try to cover all the common problems that people run into when it comes to filling these templates out. It will mainly focus on longhand/shorthand shinobi profiles, but it should be relevant for pet profiles and summon profiles too.
1. Aaaagh. It's so hard figuring out what kind of color scheme to go with! And you're telling me I have to pick 12 colors!? :c
I'm not an art/design major myself so I don't have a real knack for these things like other people might. But what I generally do is look at picture(s) of my character, specifically the one(s) I'm going to use for the profile skeleton(s), and pick colors that I think would look nice with the picture(s). Other ideas are to go with your character's favorite colors, your character's clan colors, your character's elemental colors, or your character's hair/eye colors (it helps if they are anime hair/eye colors too).
If you still can't find yourself meeting the status quo of 12, you can try darker or lighter shades of colors you have already picked. Alternatively, you can go with complimentary colors. They are:
red and green
yellow and purple
blue and orange
If you're having trouble figuring out how to get the codes for those colors, here are some sites you can use.
- HTML Color Codes - This site is simple in design and pretty easy to use. There's a decent color chart that comes with all sorts of assorted colors for pick and choose. And if that chart doesn't have the color you want, there's a color picker at the bottom for you to fish it out.
Computer Hope - Computer Hope also has a color picker feature, but it's not as good as the first site since the window is much smaller in comparison. However, it does offer a decent list for colors, and they're all next to each other so you'll have an idea of how well they'll look good next to each other.
TekTek - And then there is TekTek which is devoid of color charts, but has nifty gradient text and rainbow text features. To access the color picker, you'll have to click on the boxes next to First Color and Second Color, at which a color picker should pop up. With those 2 boxes next to each other, you'll have an idea of how well they'll match with other.
2. Okay, well what about assigning these colors?
- COLOR1, COLOR3, COLOR4 are used for the three traits listed at the top. Only COLOR1 gets reused again: in the shorthand for MHp, and for the longhand it is used for small bolded text under each section heading.
Since COLOR1 is used the most frequently, you'll want to pick that first and then have the other two colors to compliment it (they are only used once, no biggie).
So what you could do here is go for a gradient color scheme for the traits. The first trait would be some color that you like, second trait would be the same hue as the first color but a lighter shade, and then the third would be the same hue as the second color but even more lighter. Or reverse that going from light to dark. (note: Using the TekTek site's gradient feature here is a good idea.)
Another suggestion is that since there are 3 primary colors, you can use them to color your 3 traits. Or go with the 3 secondary colors instead. You don't have to limit yourself to this train of thought, however.
COLOR2 is used for the hearts and the single
Your first line of thought might be to use red or pink since COLOR2 is going to be used on hearts so how could you not? Buuuut those 〈brackets 〉are going to be placed around your character's name in the longhand. So I suggest that you pick COLOR2 with the intent of making sure it looks good next to COLOR7 (the color of your character's name), or vice versa.
COLOR5 is used for the quotation marks for the long quote at the top of the shorthand and for the bullets used in listing jutsu.
COLOR6 is used for the quote in between the quotation marks.
So you want to make sure that COLOR5 and COLOR6 look good next to each other (having COLOR6 match up nicely with COLOR2 is also a good idea). Just refrain from using those really, really light colors for COLOR6 since it is text (unless you want to hurt someone's eyes).
COLOR7 is probably the trickiest of the bunch. Not only do you need to make sure it looks good next to COLOR2 but also COLOR1, COLOR11, and COLOR 12. COLOR7 is the Hp next to COLOR1's MHp in the shorthand and the ↪ arrow next to COLOR1's bolded text in the longhand.
COLOR8 is used as the ▬▬▬▬▬ dividers around the Hp, MHp and Cp section in the shorthand and for and the → arrows in both shorthand and longhand.
It doesn't NEED to match up with COLOR1, COLOR 2, COLOR7, and COLOR9 (since that is quite a bit of matching you'd have to do) but it looks better if you do. Since they're used as dividers and arrows you may want to consider easy to notice colors (like a loud red, or dark colors, etc.).
COLOR9 is the color for Cp and your character's surname.
If you went through the trouble of doing all that matching for COLOR8, you have your work done here already.
COLOR10 is yet another | divider. And the really long divider
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
here. Probably the easiest of the bunch to pick since you don't need to match it up with anything. Though you'll probably to use colors that stand out since they are dividers.
COLOR11 is going to be used as those 「 brackets 」 in the shorthand and these ↴ arrows in the longhand.
If you already did your matching for COLOR 7, you already did your work here.
COLOR12 is going to be used as those ▌dividers in the shorthand, and a heading for each section in the longhand. The headings have spacing between letters likex t h i s xso it would be a good idea to use a dark color or a color that stands out here for more readability.
Like COLOR11, if you already did your matching for COLOR 7, you already did your work here.
3. I'm having trouble editing out all the colors. The profile code is hard to read through and it's difficult keeping track of the code for each color.
I don't have stellar memory, and I don't think Proto expects you to either. Your life will be easier if you make a short list of all 12 colors with the corresponding code next to it. You can keep the list in your journal, or you can put it in a word document. Whichever is convenient for you. The list should end up looking like this.
Now, as for replacing each COLOR# with the appropriate code... say it with me now: ctrl+f is your best friend. A box should pop up somewhere on your screen when you do that.
It will probably be on the bottom for Mozilla:
It will probably be on the top for Chrome:
And it will probably be on the top for Safari:
As you can probably garner from my screenshots, what this function does is that it skips down and highlights whatever you put in that little box (for the best results, you want to be as accurate as possible down to capitalization/punctuation). So all you need to do is type in whatever COLOR# you need in the box, look at your COLOR + color code list, copy the corresponding code, and then mindlessly click that arrow down to each highlighted COLOR# and paste over it. Rinse and repeat for the next COLOR#s and voila!
This also makes tweaking your color scheme a lot easier. If you didn't like how a few colors turned out, just pick another code. Put the old color code in your ctrl+f box, replace it with the new code on your journal/word document list, and then pasta!replace it.
And that's about it for now. I'd love for any feedback you guys have to offer. If you've got any questions that I haven't covered here, feel free to PM me.
