Battlestation Setup Tips / Guide - Part 2
My personal journey into building my setup and tips on how to take your setup to the next level.
Battlestation Discussion 2
Today we will be discussing something I think is really important and that sets some setups apart from others. Colors and lighting. I think the two are mutually beneficially to one another and good lighting can bring out the colors you choose for your rig/setup and vice versa. To start I think it’s important to understand color and the way they can compliment one another. This discussion will also only touch upon lighting while next week I will go more in depth on it.
Also, before we get started, I wanted to answer a frequently asked question about my rig. The RGB power cables are by Lian Li and you need the LIAN LI RGB 24pin Strimmer Cable (Canada link) one first since it has the interface for it and then you can always grab the GPU cable here (Canada link). I can’t tell you how often this question has been coming up lately. I’ll be doing a full build article of my rig soon, I promise!
Reminder that most of the links here are Amazon affiliate links and they help support the content! It’s completely up to you if you want to purchase through them but I greatly appreciate if you willingly do so!
Psst. Don’t feel like reading? Listen to the podcast / voice over below!
Colors & How They Compliment one Another
As usual I am going to preface this part of the discussion by saying this is a summary on colors and how they work. A lot of this I learned growing up and it’s usually what I follow when I do photos and my own personal rig/setup.
To start I wanted to do a break down of colours and then give you an example of they can be worked into your personal setup.
Understanding the traditional color wheel is simple. It’s broken down into 12 hues (colors) and features 6 warm hues, and 6 cool ones. The wheel can be further broken down into the following. Primary colors, secondary colors and tertiary colors.
The Colors
There are 3 primary colors: blue, yellow and red. All colours are based off these, excluding white. When you combined these three colors produce what are called secondary colors.
Secondary Colors
When you mix equal amounts of two primary colors, you get secondary colors. The possible mixtures create the secondary colors of violet (red and blue), green (blue and yellow) and orange (red and yellow).
Tertiary Colors
When you mix primary colors in unequal amounts, you create tertiary colors. For example, mixing one part blue with two parts red makes red-violet.
I’m going to quote another website that goes more in depth about the way colors complimenting works:
Colors that lie on opposite sides of the color wheel are called complementary colors. This type of color pairing creates a great balance in a space since each color brings out the richness in the other. When working with complementary colors, it’s best to choose one color to be the more dominant one. For example, an intense, dark violet should be paired with a medium to light yellow.
Another pairing in this type of color scheme is split complementary colors. This palette offers more of a bold contrast. To achieve this look, start with your main color, then find the complementary color and select colors from each side of the complementary color. For example, if green is your base color, you would pair it with pink and orange, since they are next to red, which is the complementary color for green.
– via wow1day.com
How do I apply this to my battlestation?
As the title says of this section, how on earth do I apply all that stuff you just wrote / spoke about to my battlestation and how does this even affect me?
It affects you a lot! You don’t have to follow this like it’s make or break. I use lots of colors in my setup, but if you notice, I use a few colors more than anything else. I tend to follow the analogous color scheme. This is when 3 colors are chosen on the wheel and form a slow transition from cool to warm. If you refer back to our wheel I use blue, purple and pink, a lot. I also make those colors very dominant by adding a lot of darker tones to my setup, like my desk is a warm dark wood with a black desk pad.
For the most part, everything else on my desk is blacked out. You don’t have to mix it with a black tone to have it pop. White will reflect these colors and be just as beautiful and if you notice my wall, it carries those colors even further, which completely changes the dynamic of my setup.
My Advice: I see way too many rigs with colors everywhere. Try to apply the color wheel we discussed to your lighting and setup and see how far you can get with proper color matching. This includes peripherals and items on your desk, too.
Let's Discuss Lighting
Well, this part might just be limitation of what you currently own, but getting addressable RGB is something to start helping with the discussion above. This means getting lights you can control the colors of. In theory most lights are like that now, but if you want the kind where every diode is addressable, they it does cost a crazy amount more via retailers.
This can help you get started in color matching your entire setup! I also want to state, I believe less is more. Keep in mind, this is my opinion. I tend to like eyes being drawn to the key parts of my setup, which I touched on in the last article and podcast.
Example: I use the LIFX brand strips mixed in with Nanoleaf panels (linking to the new canvas ones too) to do this. They are probably the more costly option, but they have given me the most freedom to light up my desk and walls.
Thanks for reading! We’ll discuss more in next weeks article! If you have anything you’d like me to discuss, DM me on Instagram or leave a comment below.
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