Back in the swing

I've a number of different skillsets under my belt, and they overlap in strange and wonderful ways. I work as a background artist, illustrator and comic colourist. From a layman's perspective, they could come off as being more or less the same thing.

I'm back colouring comics for the first time in a while, and as always, the first page is always painful to work through. Firstly, it's the only job I do where I'm not technically drawing anything. Everything else allows building, adding, fixing.

Colouring has you in a purely supportive role; what has been done before you is set in stone and that is what you work with. I've worked with artists of many different skill levels and you can see in the great ones how much time and consideration has been put into the visual weight of each element. Even doing colour holds upsets that balance, and you are literally messing with their storytelling.

Over a longer run, a rapport and understanding can be built in an art team, and you can tell where you can push the envelope or where to play it safe. Page 1 though, it's still too soon to know, so it's safe all the way.

Technically, there's different tricks to flatting and colouring other people's lines and this takes a while to get used to, and learning how to compliment each artist's visual language.
It's not uncommon for me to colour a first page two or three times, just so I get used to the lines, the tone of the story and what is feasible to get done under deadline. Putting in that work early on will save you from going over the top and overburdening yourself later on.

For some of the more novice art teams, the penciller is still getting used to the story as well, so page one will usually host a lot of superfluous traits that may be honed as the book progresses. Things like how clean the lineart is, resolutions, borders and so on are for a lot of people mistakes yet to be made and usually will only be made once. So teams grow, and get better, and great books get made.

There are some small things that make life incredibly awkward for people further down the chain This is why I recommend that anyone wanting to work in any creative collaborative field should try AS MANY of the different disciplines in their field as possible. Harper Lee said it best

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

I've immense respect for everyone in every part of the comics machine, and I do my best to give as much leeway as possible in any project I work on. After all, it is a process, sometimes clunky at first but can become a great adventure that lets you do cool and different things. Already, three pages in today it's like the gears have been greased and I'm back having fun.

Speaking of which, it's time to get back to work :D

Celtic Warrior

Will Sliney's Celtic Warrior: The Legend of CuChulainn was published recently by O'Brien press, and I have to say I was looking forward to this one for a while. There's been a great surge of Irish content recently, free of being twee or self deprecating or farcical; just really great stories.

If you didn't already know, Cuchulainn makes Leonidas look like a wuss. Check it out here :D

Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain

I'm waiting on an issue of MacGyver to open up for a last minute check, and while I do I figured I might write up a bit on my process for colouring comics.

STEP 1- Read the script. OK, this usually isn't step 1. Usually I get the pages- digitally- and drool over them somewhat and THEN read over the script. Twice. Once on it's own, as a squee-filled fan who counts his lucky stars to be working on awesome books, and again with the pages in mind. I play it out as a film in my head, and think about how the colours play out in my brain. Not EVERY SINGLE PANEL, but the main beats.

STEP 2- MR FLATTER, I SUMMON YOU. I've been using a flatter for MacGyver, and this presents advantages and disadvantages. The selections are INFINITELY cleaner than I would do solo, particularly on loose work like Mr Sliney is wont to do from time to time :D So, I send my pages off to Ranvic and he works 'em up for me. The colours that come back are OFF THE WALL, but that's good for selections.

MEANWHILE, STEP 3- I take low res versions of the pages, and thumb out the main colour beats. This is where some of the more off the wall colours come out of. Sometimes.

STEP 4- The pages come back from the flatter, and I press F6, my magical lineprep button. This takes the document, convert the lineart into a transparent layer with alpha (cloned, so I still have the original), set to CMYK and with a plain white layer to obscure the original lineart. This makes colour holds as easy as any other part of the page with locked transparency, and no need to rely on multiply layers  and the strangeness that can have with inks. I still cringe at some of the earlier work I did before I learned about this and trapping your work when I had a multiply layer. Ugh. Great pages ruined.

STEP 5. Correct them flats. No toning this time around, just go on the hues. Like the exact opposite of starting a painting in greyscale, it forces you to make decisions of colours, and shows when things are blending too much , and forces you to push the bar somewhat. I find that if I play it safe with this approach, with completely local colour, I get quite frustrated and change things up dramatically. One such scene had been coloured, finshed and ready for exporting, when I hid the layer and thought 'what would I do if I didn't hold back?' and re-keyed the scene to be what is now my favourite in the book to date.

I try and do different things every book, and for the next project I do, I want to stop at this point. The style we're going for with Mac calls for full on tones and everything, but work like Will's doesn't need rendering- it's all there already. I see other colourists with flat tones and it sings, and to be honest, it's terrified me. I usually feel like I haven't done enough and need to earn my keep more. Pushing my palettes, and not holding back, I can rest easy on a book not rendering things. But for this book, I'm not done

STEP 6- Now's where the rendering comes in. Things like shadows, highlights, material transparency, translucency, reflections, bounce lights and all that jazz. The icing on the cake. The page COULD be sent off now, but I'm not done.

STEP 7- Line Holds. I said before I try to do something different with every book, and for Mac I'm pushing my use of line holds. It looks subtle onscreen, but Danger Academy showed me they really sing in print. SUBTLE PLUGGING IS SUBTLE.

STEP 8- and this is what I'm doing right now. Wait a day (if you can) and read the whole issue. Mistakes should pop if there are any, and any inconsistencies will be more noticeable than if you've done a horrible grind.

I know I haven't gone into WHY I pick certain palettes, but that'll be another blog post. The pages have all opened, and it's time for that last run over. I should finish with

STEP 9- Edits. Writers and artists both pour hours and love into a book, so if they see something they think is wrong, you listen. Thankfully pretty much all the folk I've worked with have known their trade well, so I don't think I've gotten an edit I didn't think 'd'oh!' for missing out on. Hopefully they'll be minimal, but either way the book'll be better for it, and that's the most important thing.

Peace :D