A tanned man in a wooden room...colors for page two are done!

Finished the colors on page two, complete with John Beohner's eternal tan. I'll be lettering it and finishing it today.

Page One Update: Our heroes jog..in color!

So page one for issue five is done! I'll post the finished page when I have time to write a bit of commentary about it. But for right now, feat your eyes on the colored page, including the shot of the Capitol building, which I had to draw/ink on the spot on the computer when a photo background I was going to use didn't work out. Needless to say, that panel took a little longer than expected, but I'm happy with the results.

Second Issue: The Lessons Learned

Learning to create is an ongoing process. Here's what I learned making the second issue:

Pencils- You just got to get in there and do it. This was my first time drawing for an actual comic in 13 years and I just had to start drawing to get over the intimidation factor. Don't think something is outside your skill level until you actually try to draw it. You'll often surprise yourself.

And doing sketches before you try to do it on the page and working off models helps. I used a lot of photo references off the internet for objects and photos of myself to get anatomy, poses, etc correct.

Inks- First off never say, "I'll fix it in the inks" and then hack the pencils. Good precise lines are a lot easier to ink. You can make a straighter line in a computer, but it really helps to start off with one that's practically straight to begin with.

Secondly, inking digitally has a lot of advantages. Computers are awesome at making straight lines and geometric shapes. Inking overlapping objects on different layers allows you to erase lines of one object without worrying about messing up what it's overlapping. Plus you can transfer identical portions of panels (backgrounds, bodies, static objects, etc) instead of re-inking them every time. And erasing is a god send!

Digital inking is easier but it's not a cure all and still takes a long time. I'll be getting better as time goes on.

Colors- Like inks, transferring colors between panels on identical character bodies, objects and backgrounds is a real timesaver.

Letters- Lettering can be an important part of storytelling and making the art look good. The logos, labels and even the numbers on a clock are as much a part of the composition and look of an image as anything you draw.

  

Next up, I'll be doing that video I promised on issue two and then...on to issue issue three!

Page One, Part 1: Technical Difficulties

First color panel...ever!

So lets get the technical goobledygook out of the way first.

 

Remember when I found a method of refining the edges on the magic wand that I said cured pixelization? Well the cure had a curse to it too. It leaves this area around my lines that I can't select. Why is that bad? Because it means any color I lay down with a paint bucket won't reach the lines and leaves sometimes noticeable white areas around every line. So I can't use the paint bucket or magic wand to select and fill areas with color, which is the quickest, easiest way to color something.



So how in the name of Lynn Varley do I color the thing? Well I have to do what real comic colorists do. You see, when coloring for the web, anything goes. What you see is what you get on screen (though the colors will vary slightly from screen to screen, but that's a frustration for another day).

Print is a bit more...complicated. You've got different color plates for CMYK you have to color on and you have to do it a certain way because the plates can slip. I don't really understand all of it, but since I'm doing this for the web, I don't have to deal with it.

But basically all this forces those coloring comics for print to color using multiple layers that you lay the inks over, and that's the idea that came in handy. If you've ever seen comics colored by hand, you've got some idea what I'm talking about, with the inks on one transparency that's laid over other transparencies with the different colors on them.



Here's the work in progress.

So that's what I had to do: delete to a transparent background on the inks and put color layers underneath it. Now there's definitely advantages to that. Instead of having to worry about coloring around a person to do the background color, you just color over him and color his face, clothes, ect on the layer (or layers) on top of that.



The downside to this is that I had to select larger areas manually by drawing around it with the lasso tool and I had  to color the finer details freehand with the paintbrush tool. I'm doing this with a mouse. It...takes...forever.



However, I will say I actually really enjoyed doing it, and wouldn't mind being a colorist based on my experience so far. But it does take up a lot of time, so hopefully I can find a way to refine how I'm refining the magic wand so I can use some of the quicker methods too.

I'm also finding the method of digitally cutting the word balloons and text boxes out of the old printed comic and laying them in the new version is also taking forever. It's just taking too long to erase the art around the balloons, and the zillion layers in Photoshop I'm having to deal with as I drag them in isn't helping either. So I'm probably going to have a friend transcribe the script and I'll have to re-learn Illustrator so I can re-letter it. It may slow me down at first, but it'll be a lot faster in the long run, I think.

Next: Page One, Part 2:  Now that's a damn fine peacock!