The color, broken down
Four ways to describe one color. Each slider in the game maps to one of these dimensions.
- HEX
#DC2E3A
- RGB
- 220, 46, 58
- HSB
- 356°, 79%, 86%
- HSL
- 356°, 71%, 52%
Nearby tones that look right and are wrong
#DB3A2E
#DB2E51
#DB4852
#DB1421
#B82730
How this color came to be
Betty Boop was developed by Max Fleischer's animation studio and first appeared in 1930. The strapless red dress is her single most-recognized visual element — paired with garter and heels — and across decades of merchandise and re-releases the dress has stayed locked to roughly the same red.
The hex breaks down to HSB(356°, 79%, 86%). The hue sits at 356°, four degrees on the magenta side of pure red (0°) — not toward orange, the way many cartoon reds lean. Saturation is high (79%) but not maxed, and brightness is high (86%) with a sliver of headroom. Translated visually: it is a confident red with a quiet warmth pulling it slightly toward pink rather than toward fire.
Most players overshoot this color by reaching for fire-engine red. They pin the hue at 0°, max the saturation, and push brightness to the top. That produces a #FF0000 red that scans as "cartoon red" but reads too aggressive against the dress. Betty's red lives one step in on every slider, and on the magenta side of the wheel rather than the orange side.
How to match it from memory
Calibrated to this character's specific hex, not generic color advice.
- Hue: ~356° — a hair on the magenta side of pure red (0°), not toward orange.
- Saturation: ~79% — high but not maxed.
- Brightness: ~86% — high with a small headroom.
- Common mistake: reaching for fire-engine red (0°, max saturation, max brightness).
