First Serious Comic Coloring Project

[Twyla]

First, the legal-ese stuff....

This lineart (http://seanellery.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=50) was provided courtesy of Sean Ellery' LineArt Gallery (http://seanellery.com/lineart/lineart.html) and credited to Walter Shoenleber. Apologies in advance if I have used the wrong color scheme for this character as I have no idea who she is; I just went with what felt right based upon the drawing.

While I've done some basic coloring and such with various online comics and whatnot, those have all been casual 'who-really-cares' sorta projects. This one (simply for practice) is to try and get a better feel for where I am and try to improve. With so many excellent artists in this forum, I've been getting quite discouraged with my own work. Then again, even Stan Lee once stood in the shadow of giants....

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q103/Twyla_Naythias/wip0001-flat.jpg?t=1166152597

I plan on trying to work out full shading and such for this piece (which I'll post later in this thread) but, of course, first things first. I'd greatly appreciate some feedback as to how I'm progressing with just the general stuff before diving headlong into shading and such.

PS ~ The imp in the lower left is intentionally the same color as the wall... I plan to use shading to make him stand out a bit more clearly, even though imps are notorious for being unobtrusive. :p

[James Thorpe]

I like those flats, they seem like a nice, harmonious starting point (I usually nudge the flats of yellow metals slightly towards the orange/brown end of the scale, but then, I also get complaints about how my metal isn't dazzling enough; personally I prefer erring towards the brassier, battleworn side of metal rendering, but you might not, and fair enough. It can also help to start with a pale brown when rendering blonde hair; gives some room in the spectrum for deeper shading, while still being bright enough to aid in the highlighting process. YMMV. Good luck; I take it you don't have earlier work to show, yet?

Incidentally, thanks for the Ellery link! Forgot all about that page.

[HaphazardJoy]

Very saturated, lots of black content. When you're doing work to just show off, that's not such a bad thing as long as it looks good. However, if you want to dabble or go further into full comics, there are some general color rules to watch out for. When it comes to saturation, that can be a problem if you're doing work that is going to print. Too much black content in you color choices will make an image look muddy in print. For digital images it's not as big a deal, then it only becomes a matter of taste. I generally try to keep my color choices having little to no black content whether I'm working for print or not, but again, just a matter of taste. The color of the little demon imp is way too close to the bricks he's standing by. I'd say that you chose the wrong colors, but you already admited you don't know the colors. The internet is a great tool for finding that stuff out, but if you're just doing it for fun/practice, no big deal.
Other than the darkness in the color choices, the only other thing I could think to criticize would be your flats/seperations, and they look pretty dead on so no more crits for you!

[SeanE]

Incidentally, thanks for the Ellery link! Forgot all about that page.

sheesh... I wooork and I slaaaave, to provide some decent high res lineart on the net, and WHAT do I get..?!!!!! :p :D oy!

here's the final coloured picture by me for colour refs. As you'll see, the inside of her cloak is red.

http://www.seanellery.com/gallery/albums/userpics/magdalena2.jpg

hmm.. maybe I ought to go back and do this one again. I could do heaps better now... ?...hmmm

[Miguel Marques]

http://www.ibrau.com.br/imagens/gxThemesSaturacion.jpg
Without Saturation Totally Saturated
Try to find a color in the middle of the road.

:) :)

[Twyla]

here's the final coloured picture by me for colour refs. As you'll see, the inside of her cloak is red.
http://www.seanellery.com/gallery/albums/userpics/magdalena2.jpg

HOLY MOTHER OF.....

Okay, NOW I'm officially freaked! To have absolutely no references as to this character's color scheme and to be SO CLOSE... I'm unsure whether to be proud or extremely frightened...

[Twyla]

Adjusted the character's color scheme slightly... Tried to back off on saturation levels and black content... Also felt that the brighter background (towards left center) brought out the bats more...
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q103/Twyla_Naythias/magdalena_wip2.jpg?t=1166195622
Getting closer?

[HaphazardJoy]

Yeah, a bit better man. Now you get to render hehehe.

[king]

ya.

flats: just keep it light and desaturated.

'light' to the point that you can clearly see the lineart. 'desaturated' to the point that it doesnt hurt your eyes while working at it.

dont spend hours on deciding on the colors while flatting. you can change all of it even the saturation while rendering.

be sure to duplicate your flats layer for rendering. the duplicate is where you render.

gud luck!!!

[HaphazardJoy]

Or alternately, work in channels. A lot of people here are fond of using layers for general work, but I like to save them for special uses. I make two extra channels for the typical piece, one for the line art and one for the flats. Channels save you space since they're just a set of grayscale values, whereas a Layer is basically a whole new imageworth of information in the file.

[Twyla]

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q103/Twyla_Naythias/wip0001-shading01.jpg?t=1166281975
Erg... Two hours and that's all I have to show for it...

I think I'd just better accept the fact that flats are my limit for the foreseeable future.

[Jasen Smith]

you should astablish your light sources of the overall piece and work from bigger to smaller.

Going for the faces and hands first will take you away from the rest when looking at it at a whole. If you slowly work from bigger to smaller it will all flow together.

It takes time and practice to understand color..I still am adjusting.

[HaphazardJoy]

The main problem I see with the face there is that the cheekbones don't seem to match. There's work out there for just flats/seperations, but I can't imagine doing that, rendering is the fun part!