# Custom Light Colors



## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Hi folks. For my 2011 concept I'm aiming for something a little more down and dirty. Blighted swamp/marsh/bog. Which means of course more greens, yellows, and perhaps a little amber highlighting.

The shade green I'm looking for though is a bit more washed out and desaturated as opposed to the off the shelf commercial flood light Christmas green that most of us use. Something like below:










Short of using gels, which I have zero experience doing, is there anyways to get those tones of green or any place that offers custom colored flood lights?

Thanks,
TM


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## Allen H (Feb 13, 2010)

What you see is green in the pic you posted, but that is a gray light reflected off of green moss. A green light will not give you this effect. Most likely a green gel and a purple gel over one of the slightly blue tinted lights would do it, or get closer than a green flood, then Id put it on a dimmer to get it where you need it.
Im a big fan of mini LED spot lights, I love them, I can get the colors I want by aiming a few spots of different colors at that spot. I have a document on how to make your own if you want it. Its free, just email me.
[email protected]


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Sounds like the best way with floods (which I want to use because I want to cast an intentional general wash over the scene) is to use gels then? Other than getting gels, what else would I need? I'd presume a par can? I know there's some home-made par can tutorials out there using coffee cans and paint cans. Would I just tape the gels down over the open end?


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Here's another good example of what I'm trying to achieve (not the dragon itself, could be any character/creature prop). I know the creature could be lit with spots. But it's that yellowish green wash in the background (most likely yellowing lighting on green moss).


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## tot13 (Jul 25, 2007)

Allen H said:


> What you see is green in the pic you posted, but that is a gray light reflected off of green moss. A green light will not give you this effect. Most likely a green gel and a purple gel over one of the slightly blue tinted lights would do it, or get closer than a green flood, then Id put it on a dimmer to get it where you need it.
> Im a big fan of mini LED spot lights, I love them, I can get the colors I want by aiming a few spots of different colors at that spot. I have a document on how to make your own if you want it. Its free, just email me.
> [email protected]


That is so cool knowing stuff like that. I started working more with my lighting this year and now you've given me something to think about.


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Any other tips? Awfully quiet in here...


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## thrilltainment (Apr 8, 2010)

it's difficult to find a single LED of the exact color you're looking for (photos will always look different from the actual scene) so if you need to find tune your lights, you probably want to get a DMX light of some sort that offers full color control. by changing the relative intensities of Red, Green, and Blue you can adjust the color output of the light.


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## stagehand1975 (Feb 22, 2010)

In the dragon pics. the dragon would have it own light and the background would be lit with other lights in a different color.


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## Bascombe (May 18, 2010)

There's a great lighting tutorial at www.skullandbone.com. probably do for you what you want.

The idea isn't to flood an area with one color of light, but to have a warm and a cool. helps to round everything out and make it much creepier.


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## remylass (Sep 18, 2008)

I am not an expert. I just tried googling a few things and came up with this article.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5600637_color-flood-lamps.html

In the article, it references a product called Rosco Colorine to tint bulbs. I have no idea how safe it is. I have never used it. Anybody else ever use these products?


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## DarkLore (Jan 25, 2009)

Check your local music and DJ suppliers to get some additional insight into DMX lighting and theater effects. Make sure you understand color theory as it applies to light.

Pigment (paint) is the color wheel we all learn in grade school. Pigment is a subtractive system. Which means you subtract the primary colors or yellow, blue, and red to get to white.

Ink (such as a printer) is similar, using CMY...cyan, magenta, yellow as the primary colors. Mixing them together doesn't give black, so black is added to give the palette CMYK (k-black). Again...a subtractive system. Subtracting ink gets us closer to paper color of white.

With light however, it doesn't work like paint or printing ink. Light is an additive system. The more light you add, the closer you get to white. (Reverse it..taking away light takes us to total darkness or black.) Recall what happens with a prism or raindrop...white light breaks into a rainbow. Many of us beginners make the mistake of setting up too many colored flood lights. This saturates the area in brightness and leaves us with no color.

To get good color effects for Halloween, it's often better to use small lights that don't wash over each other. This gives distinct hues (colors). Achieving a wash out, or dull green is going to be a lot harder. As suggested, you'll possibly achieve the best affect with a dimmed flood to wash the overall scene.


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## stagehand1975 (Feb 22, 2010)

depending on your budget. check out Giutar Center. They have led color changing light lights. I use these in my haunts. yes it can get pricey but you will not regret it. there smallest light may be $50. You can get a long list of colors just by changing the dip switches on the back of the fixture or hook it up to a dmx controler and get limitless color mixing that you can control and change on the fly. I know you said that you wanted to use floods but leds will last you forever, generate almost no heat, and has rich color that never fades unless you make it fade with the controler. One of the forum sposnsers has a tiny version of these dmx controlable leds as well.


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## Jaybo (Mar 2, 2009)

Terrormaster said:


> The shade green I'm looking for though is a bit more washed out and desaturated as opposed to the off the shelf commercial flood light Christmas green that most of us use.





Allen H said:


> What you see is green in the pic you posted, but that is a gray light reflected off of green moss. A green light will not give you this effect. Most likely a green gel and a purple gel over one of the slightly blue tinted lights would do it, or get closer than a green flood, then Id put it on a dimmer to get it where you need it.
> Im a big fan of mini LED spot lights, I love them, I can get the colors I want by aiming a few spots of different colors at that spot. I have a document on how to make your own if you want it. Its free, just email me.
> [email protected]


I really like the LED idea, but we have to work with what we have and the budget allowed. You probably have a lot of existing spotlight fixtures I'm guessing? Allen has the right idea.

Get one of the Roscoe Gel swatch books, which has small samples of all their gels. That way you can play with your lighting until you get what you like.



The books usually cost about $25. Click the picture above for one vendor.


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## VillaHaunter (Jul 13, 2011)

I have used clear flood lights, and stained glass paint from Hobby Lobby. Use a small brush and several colors of paint in random patterns. I can get very erie greenish yellow tones with green, yellow, blue and orange paint.


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