color harmony
The trick to getting blue and red to play nice together is to make sure the red you choose is \'blue\' rather than \'yellow\'. Think alizarin crimson (check it out in the acrylic artists\' paint section at the hobby store) rather than blood or brick red. And when shading the red, shade it with blue-black rather than straight black, which might have a tendency to go greenish when thinned. The blue, on the other hand, should be true or navy, rather than a greenish blue. If you go with this color scheme, then the perfect accompaniment, in my opinion, is silver. You could try a bluish dark purple, also, but you have to watch how it plays with the red. A rich, cool dark grey shaded with cool purple might do the trick. And if you absolutely have to have brown accessories (leather boots, for example), make them a grey-brown instead of a \'snakebite leather,\' which is too yellow to go well with the rest.
If you try to match a blood red, which is rather yellowish, and a greenish blue, you\'ll end up with a really puky looking orange/green combo if you\'re not careful.
That\'s not to say orange and green can\'t work together, but it has to be the *right* orange and the *right* green.
All this goes along with the color wheel--you CAN choose opposing colors on the wheel to use together, but you should \'slant\' them both toward the same side to keep the clash down.
If it helps, you can take inspiration from men\'s clothing--navy pants and red striped oxford shirts, or choose an attractive tie and use those colors. You can let someone else pick the colors (think paint chip schemes at the home center). You can try out combos by taking a piece of white paper and painting splotches of the colors you\'re testing side by side (with a tiny black line between, of course).
Anyway, it\'s all about spin--gotta get the right spin on the colors or even two that are adjacent on the color wheel can look nasty together.
