Step 1 Print the Color Buster (Part A) Thank you for purchasing the Color Buster Color Mixing Tool the easiest way to mix your colours.

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1 Thank you for purchasing the Color Buster Color Mixing Tool the easiest way to mix your colours. In this manual you will learn how to assemble and correctly use your new colour mixing tool. The Color Buster consists of two parts, the main tool itself (Part A) and a slider that slides across the tool (Part B). In this section we will learn how to assemble the Color Buster correctly. In order to print and assemble your Color Buster you will need: 1) a Sheet of inkjet photo paper A4 or Letter size 2) Inkjet Printer 3) Laminating pocket to fit A4 or Letter paper 4) Laminator 5) Clear tape (Sellotape) Step 1 Print the Color Buster (Part A) Print out the Color Buster on the highest possible setting. Adjust your printer settings to photo and best for best colour reproduction. Also ensure your printer is set to Landscape or your Color Buster will print too small. It should print to fit along the long length of the paper as you can see on the next page.

2 Note : Each printer will print the colours slightly different to the the next printer. This is okay as the colours will ALL be affected, so the rainbow of colours on the Color Buster will still be there, they will only be in a slightly different position, eg., your brightest red may be slightly to the right when compared to mine. This will not affect the working of the Color Buster or your ability to mix your colours correctly. If however your print has a definite colour shift, like when your ink is running low and all the colours have eg., a green tint, then the Color Buster will not work correctly. In other words, if you have a nice natural looking rainbow of colours on the right hand side of your Color Buster after printing, then your Color Buster will work 100% correct. If you are concerned about the quality of the print then you save the pdf to a memory stick and take it to your local copy shop and ask them to print it onto photo paper for you. Copyright Notice: You have permission to print two working Color Busters for personal use at a time (one for the studio, one for your outdoor painting kit). If one of those prints get damaged, you have permission to print another to replace it. You DO NOT have permission to print the Color Buster for your friends, etc., or to sell the files / prints. You DO NOT have permission to share the Color Buster source files. They remain our property and our copyright. If you lose your file, then contact us and we will send you the file again. Step 2 Laminate the Sheet Laminate the entire page. We have found that if you send the sheet through the laminator a few times, the laminate will become more transparent giving you a perfectly clear lamination. Step 3 Cut the Outside of the Color Buster Using a craft knife and a steel ruler, cut out the Color Buster itself (Part A). Cut on the inside of the black outline so that this black line is not part of the final Color Buster. The outline is just there to help you cut straight. You can see where to cut on the next page.

3 Step 4 Cut out the 3 Holes Marked C Next we need to cut out the 3 Colour Compare holes on the Color Buster. They are in the large grey block at the bottom right hand side of the Color Buster and are marked C. You need to be very careful when doing this to ensure you cut out only the 3 white blocks marked C. Cut as close to the line as possible. Use your craft knife & steel ruler to cut the holes. The three holes are marked in the picture above. Your Color Buster is nearly complete. All we need to do now is construct the slider. The Slider is marked Part B on the original sheet you printed out. Step 5 Cut the Slider Hole Marked D on Slider (Part B) Cut out the center slot of the slider using your steel ruler and craft knife. The slot is marked D (Colour Finder). Cut on the outside of this line. The line is just there to help us cut straight. We don't want to see the line in the final slider. The cuts are shows in the picture below: Step 6 Cut the Slider itself (Part B) Using the steel ruler and the craft knife cut out the slider itself (Part B). Cut on the inside of this line so that the line is not part of the final slider. The cut is marked in the picture above.

4 Step 7 Cut Two Strips of Clear Tape Cut two strips of clear tape (Sellotape) roughly 5cm (2 inches) long. Step 8 Pick up the Slider and Color Buster Pick up both the Slider and the Color Buster. We are now going to align our Color Finder slot with the Tone Checker (the block containing the rainbow of colours). Step 9 Align the Slider and Color Buster Align the slider along the short edge of the Color Buster as shown below: Move the slider left or right to ensure the Colour Finder window aligns with the Tone Checker. You want to see a white block on the one side, a black block on the other end of the slider window. Step 10 Stick the Slider into Place Using a strip of clear tape (Sellotape) stick the slider into place ensuring it doesn't move. Stick the clear tape along the length of the slider. Half on the slider, half on the Color Buster. You can see the positioning of the tape in the picture above. Step 11 Turn the Color Buster Over Carefully turn the Color Buster over and place it on the table so that the back of the Color Buster is facing upwards. We are now going to complete the "loop" of the slider by folding the protruding "arms" back.

5 Step 12 Fold the Slider Arms Back to Complete the Loop To do this press the edge of the Color Buster down with the one hand and carefully fold the protruding arm of the slider back over the Color Buster ensuring it remains aligned with the short edge of the Color Buster. Now do the same with the opposite arm of the slider. See Figures 1, 2 and 3 below

6 Step 13 Use Clear Tape to Fasten the Slider Arms Together Finally stick the two "arms" of the slider together using a strip of clear tape (Sellotape) as shown below You can now turn your Color Buster over, it is ready to use. For video instructions on to use your Color Buster go to Below you will find text instructions on how to match colours using the Color Buster. The Color Buster consists of various different parts. Each part has its own use, so let's take a look at what each part is, what we call it and how to use it. The first part, top left is a standard 12 part colour wheel. This is used with the colour mixing rules.

7 You will see that the Primary colours have been marked with a P, Secondaries with a S and the Tertiary colours have been marked with a T: Next to each colour, in the outside ring, the opposite (complimentary) colours have been added for quick reference : The colour wheel has also been split into two halves, the warm and the cold side. You can see this in the image above.

8 There is also a Panchromatic Colour wheel for reference. A panchromatic colour wheel is a greyscale version of the standard colour wheel. It is very handy for comparing the tonal values of the different colours : In the same area all the colour mixing rules have been listed. These rules are vital to colour mixing success, so they have been listed here to ensure we don't forget them: To see the colour mixing rules explained in more detail you can visit this page on our website: At the bottom of the left hand side you will see a Tonal Chart: A tonal chart is used to see how light or dark a colour is along the scale between black and white. This gives you an indication of how light or dark the colour you are mixing must be. In order to find the correct tonal value of a colour, place the tonal chart onto your reference photo, or if you are painting outdoors, hold it up so the tonal chart is at the area you are trying to match. You can see this on the photo on the next page.

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10 The easiest way to know whether you have the correct tonal value is to ask yourself if the block on the tonal chart that you are looking at is lighter or darker that the area on the photo. You can see how I have illustrated this on the picture above. We can clearly see by the left and right hand arrows that the tonal values are not correct, but in the circled area it becomes difficult to tell. When that happens you know you have the correct tonal value reading. Moving to the right hand side of the Color Buster now. At the bottom there are three holes and a neutral background. This is the Colour Compare section. When looking at a scene or photo we are painting it is often difficult to tell what the difference is between two similar colours. At first glance they may even look the same. This is because the surrounding colours optically mix together fooling your eye into thinking it sees a colour that doesn't exist. For example in the photo on the next page it isn't easy to tell the difference between the greens in the grass, but by using the Color Compare holes we are able to isolate them. We can now immediately tell exactly how much darker the back grass is compared to the front grass, we can also now see that the front grass looks more yellow than the back grass. Being able to isolate and compare the colours like this helps a lot when trying to match colours.

11 We will also use these isolating holes when doing the actual colour matching. For now let's move to the top of the right hand side of the Color Buster. The three blocks in the Colour Checker area are used to check the colour you have mixed with the colour on the reference. When mixing colours on the palette they will often look spot on, but then the minute you start painting with them, they end looking different. There are two reasons for this : 1) If you hold the same colour up against different coloured backgrounds that same colour will appear different because of the optical mixing that occurs. Especially when there is a large tonal value difference between the two. You can see this shown below :

12 Can you see how the small brown box on the left looks brighter than the small brown box on the right. Yet we know they are the same colour. That is our eye messing us around. The same thing happens when painting. You may mix this brown colour up for a tree. The colour looks perfect on your white palette, but when you paint that colour on the canvas next to say the green of the grass, it could look all wrong. A dark background makes the colours around it look brighter. A light colour makes the colours around it look darker. 2) The angle of your palette and your canvas are not always the same. The palette may be lying flat on the table where your canvas may be standing upright. This means the amount of light on the palette will be different to the amount of light on the canvas because of these angle changes. In order to combat this we use the Colour Checker area. If you are mixing a light colour, then you place your paint onto the white square. If you are mixing a dark colour you place your paint on the black square. If you are mixing a mid tone colour, you place your paint on the mid tone square. Like this : You will then hold the Color Buster with the paint on up against the reference picture to do a visual comparison of the colours: That way you eliminate the optical mixing caused by the tonal differences because all the colours in the area are now the same, plus you eliminate the colour change due to the angle difference. The final part of the Color Buster is the right hand central area. This area works in conjunction with the slider. When using this area you will need an erasable white board marker as well.

13 We will use this area for two different purposes. The first is to quickly read off the tonal value of a colour. Place the colour you have mixed onto the slider like this : You want your paint to be right next to the Colour Finder window on the slider. Now slide the slider across the rainbow area until it is in the area where the paint colour matches the colour on the rainbow area like this: As the rainbow area is not a smooth rainbow, but in tonal value increments, you may not find the exact colour, find the closest possible match.

14 Mark that area using your erasable white board marker like this : You can now move the slider out the way and read off the correct tonal value of your paint colour : As easy as that. Now let's use the rainbow area to match a colour.

15 Start off by using one of the Colour Compare holes to isolate the colour like this : Now use the Colour Finder window on the slider to find the same colour on the rainbow like this :

16 You have now isolated the colour on the spectrum of colours. Mark it with your erasable white board marker : We can now instantly see the entire tonal value of that colour through the window:

17 In order to match this colour look at the tonal range through the window, then see if you have a paint colour that is close to one of the colours you see in the window. In our example it may be a Sap Green or maybe a Brilliant Green: If you don't have a colour that is close, like in our example, let's say you don't have any green. Then slide the slider back to see what colours are to the left and right of the colour we need : If we have those colours we can use them to mix the colour. In this example we can see that a blue and a yellow will give us a green to use as a base colour.

18 For simplicity, let's assume we do have a Sap Green in our box of paints. Take some of the paint colour and place it on the slider, then go find that colour on the rainbow : As before find the closest matching colour on the rainbow and mark it with your erasable marker. You can now slide the slider back to compare the two colours : We can immediately see our paint colour needs to go down and to the right.

19 Or put more correctly it needs to go darker and more towards the yellow side of the spectrum. Start by adjusting your colour to move it either up or down or left and right, not both. It's easier that way. Later when you become more proficient you can make adjustments to your paint to move it diagonally. For now let's first adjust our paint so that it moves to the right. To do this we need to add yellow. Add some yellow to your Sap Green. Erase the old paint mark on the rainbow (red dot) and go find your new colour on the rainbow again : Do this until your paint colour is in the same column (above or below) as the colour we need :

20 Now all we need to do is adjust the colour up or down. In our example we need to go down. What colour you add next will depend on your position on the rainbow. We can split the rainbow like this : On the center line the colour is pure like this : Above the center line the colours become gradually lighter. Below the center line the colours become gradually darker. The colour we add to our paint will depend on if we are in the top half or the bottom half and in which direction we need to go. If we are in the top half and need to go up, we add white. If we need to go down, we add the center line colour. If we are in the bottom half and need to go up, we add the center line colour. If we need to go down, we add the opposite colour on the colour wheel. Let's do this with our example. Our paint colour needs to move down. As we are below the center line, we need to add the opposite colour on the colour wheel, which in the case of green = red. Add small amounts at a time and check to see that you are moving closer the mark every now and again until you are as close as you can get. Lets say we end up here : That is close enough for now. All we were interested in here is getting a broad match on the colour.

21 From this point onwards you will only need to add small amounts of paint at a time because your colour will be 95% there already. In most cases it will be close enough to use. Place some paint on the correct Colour Checker block. We will now fine tune our colour. In our example, the colour is on the dark end of the spectrum so we will place some paint on the black block. We can now hold our colour up to the reference and check our colour: From here you will use your colour mixing rules to fine tune. Ask yourself do I need to lighten, brighten, darken or shadow my colour in order to get it any exact match. You can also ask is the colour on the reference more red, yellow or blue than my colour. Red, yellow and blue being the 3 primary colours. If your answer is more blue, then add more blue to your mixture. I hope you can see how powerful the Color Buster is in helping you to match your colours. What is more important though is that the Color Buster teaches you to see tonal values correctly and to spot small differences in colour. The more you use the Color Buster, the more your eye is trained, so you will find yourself reaching a point where you will actually need your Color Buster less and less. Eventually you will only be using it to match the odd colour. When you reach this point the Color Buster becomes you companion instead of your guide and colour mixing will be an absolute pleasure. Even more important than learning to use your Color Buster though is learning your colour mixing rules. You HAVE to know then off by heart in order to succeed at colour mixing. Good luck and please keep me updated on how the Color Buster is helping you. Nolan Clark