How to colour comics

Colouring comics may be the best job in the art world, so far as I’m concerned, since it leans heavily towards the fun part of art: the storytelling. In this post, I’m going to consider you through my top tips for adding colour to black and white drawings to bring your scenery and character designs alive.

Source: horse coloring sheet Colour might help expand the scope of a comic, turning each panel from a two-dimensional drawing right into a window to a rich, nuanced world. The color in those panels can flow together to create the pace, just like a song. I’ll begin by answering some key questions, before sharing some tips so you can get the most from colour. If you’re after drawing tips, check out our article on how best to produce a comic page. Why use colour in comic art?

This might look like an inane question, but it’s worth considering what benefits colour may bring to an illustration that black and white can’t. Colour can convey things such as mood, period, change of scene, image planes and depth of field. 01. Focus on flat colours Laying in ‘flats’ is usually a typical step for colourists in america comic industry. Flatting may be the process where flat, contiguous, aliased shapes are laid in on another layer from the line art to create it possible to choose areas when rendering. Like most colourists, I subcontract this task to a specialist flatter to save lots of time. Once I get yourself a batch of flats back again I’ll go over all of them with a Paint Bucket to improve the bottom colours accordingly. 02. Don’t use way too many layers I’ve seen colourists make use of a large number of Photoshop layers on a full page. I think it is hard to keep an eye on so many (read: I believe that’s crazy), therefore i usually limit myself to 3 or 4. This will generally contain my flats, a duplicate of these flats to render on, and a layer with my lines onto it. Clean and simple. I would possess a layer or two for colour-holds (coloured line art) and/or glows and lights, but that’s generally it. 03. Choose your painting style Through the use of an aliased Lasso or the Pencil tool, I could render in a set, ‘anime’ colour style that’s easy to edit with the Paint Bucket. Using an Airbrush or painterly brushes could be even more artistically expressive, but makes adjustments more time consuming. Getting the flats layer as a backup for every shape’s selection makes that editing easier, however. Both styles possess merits, and they could be combined. I’ll often paint my backgrounds, and use flat shapes for characters. Or I would leave shadows flat and render in to the highlight areas. 04. Consider just how much detail to include A hyper-realistic, detailed style can truly add weight to a tale via grit, texture, stubble and so forth, while a straightforward style can allow reader mentally fill some blanks and increase the reading encounter, without having to sort out a glut of detail. A simpler rendering makes it possible for more expressive hits of colour. I’m not selling detail short here. Detail adds gravity and that matters for a whole lot. There are benefits and drawbacks to dropping out details, and I hum and haw over rendering options each and every time I take up a new gig. 05. Then add personality A whole lot of colourists, veteran and newbie alike, worry that their colour should fade in to the background to allow line art shine. I don’t really sign up to this approach. Collaborative art ought to be collaborative! I hope might work is recognisable whatever the rendering style I take advantage of, through my colour choices and the types of shapes I make use of in my rendering. Collaborative art is similar to being in a band. Everyone must play with their strengths and display their personal style. Otherwise the art you make together becomes boring.