how do you color your comic?

[LeV Oblivion]

herg. I'm trying to color pages but I'm struggling really bad with coloring.
and I'm just going between: stressed classified_fu crying emo
I can't figure out HOW to color the pages.
How can I color to make things look good and not take too long?
Do I separate different colors in different layers or just on one?
building colors. what? how?
Simple cell shading? Paint-y colors? what. (well, this is something I need to figure out on my own, first.)


so:
- uh, tips?
- how do YOU color your comic?

Thanks for reading.

oh. my sample...uh..thing:

[Kyousouka]

Colouring is all about understanding how colours work together and how to convey form. Techniques are secondary. So, read up on colour theory and things like that. This is a great article to read, it covers a lot of things that can help make your colouring look better.


As much as I love painting, it's usually bad for comics because it doesn't read as quickly/clearly as simpler styles. So, for my coloured comics I do one of two things:
A. Spot black shading (in my inks) plus flat colours or minimal cel shading added with a Multiply layer over the base colours. I keep my flats all on one layer, and have a single Multiply shading layer locked to that.
B. No spot black shadows, and soft/semi-painted shadows, same layer structure as above, but allowing for more subtleties
Here's a comparison I did a while back of various ways to do option B, all using the same basic technique (Multiply layer of a reddish colour on top of flats), but with different levels of detail and different styles of strokes.

Many artists have each colour on its own layer so they can fine-tune the shadow colours and things like that, but I prefer a single layer. I keep my flats aliased (pixel-perfect edges) so I can select areas very easily to adjust colours, as well as my shading colours.

[Static Sludge]

I thought you were supposed to always have it on anti alias? or was that the line work(correct me if im wrong there comes a day ill need to know color as well) and whats spot black shading?@kyousouka


when im attempting to try to color I use this as aguideline

its relatively easy to follow o 3o I just get lost with digital crap.

also, idk how if its diff for webcomics (if that's what youre doing) but make sure your color mode is set to the CMY setting o 3o I believe.


also @ kyousouka, whats the advantage of having it all in one layer? wouldn't it be hard to change the color or do you just do the different selections

[Kyousouka]

Static Sludge

I thought you were supposed to always have it on anti alias? or was that the line work(correct me if im wrong there comes a day ill need to know color as well) and whats spot black shading?

When working with stuff for print, you should be working at resolutions so large that there is no effective difference in smoothness between aliased and antialiased lines. In fact, aliased lines at a high resolution (600dpi+) can make for sharper prints in B&W, which is why comic artists often scan their B&W art at 600dpi+, aliased black and white (no grey pixels at all).
I work in colour, which is printed at a significantly lower resolution (300dpi) than my working resolution (600dpi), so it doesn't make a difference whether I use aliased or anti-aliased lines and shapes. Having them aliased makes them easier to select, fill, etc.
Even though I work with aliased tools (even for my lineart and shading, not just my flats), once printed or reduced in size for the web, everything looks fine. If you work at a low resolution, then the aliased lines might show up in the web/print version (still not an issue for flats though, since your lineart would hide those edges).
I have some other reasons for working with aliased colours and lines, but in short: as long as you're working at a large resolution, it doesn't hurt.

Spot blacks are solid areas of black (or whatever ink you use). Spot black shading is shading done with solid areas of ink/black rather than colour or tone.
In practice, when I have inked lineart/shadows in a colour comic, my inks and spot blacks aren't black, but some other colour to fit better with the rest of the colours.

Edit: My personal preference for having the flats on one layer is for three reasons:
1. I have a single Multiply layer for all the shading on the characters, and it's easier to create a mask the entire object/character if the flats on a single layer,
2. Fewer layers makes for much smaller files and less confusion,
3. If I need a specific area, I can simply select it, ditto for all areas of a certain colour, which is the same benefit layers have.
Also, just to clarify: I keep my background/environment and character colours (flats and shading) on separate layers, so in reality it's often two layers of flats, not one. The reason for this is to make the best use of the clipping mask, and to allow me to paint my backgrounds a bit without making them unwieldy to work with (painting ruins any selectability the background flats had).

[Static Sludge]

Kyousouka

Static Sludge

I thought you were supposed to always have it on anti alias? or was that the line work(correct me if im wrong there comes a day ill need to know color as well) and whats spot black shading?

When working with stuff for print, you should be working at resolutions so large that there is no effective difference in smoothness between aliased and antialiased lines. In fact, aliased lines at a high resolution (600dpi+) can make for sharper prints in B&W, which is why comic artists often scan their B&W art at 600dpi+, aliased black and white (no grey pixels at all).
I work in colour, which is printed at a significantly lower resolution (300dpi) than my working resolution (600dpi), so it doesn't make a difference whether I use aliased or anti-aliased lines and shapes. Having them aliased makes them easier to select, fill, etc.
Even though I work with aliased tools (even for my lineart and shading, not just my flats), once printed or reduced in size for the web, everything looks fine. If you work at a low resolution, then the aliased lines might show up in the web/print version (still not an issue for flats though, since your lineart would hide those edges).
I have some other reasons for working with aliased colours and lines, but in short: as long as you're working at a large resolution, it doesn't hurt.

Spot blacks are solid areas of black (or whatever ink you use). Spot black shading is shading done with solid areas of ink/black rather than colour or tone.
In practice, when I have inked lineart/shadows in a colour comic, my inks and spot blacks aren't black, but some other colour to fit better with the rest of the colours.

oh, I usually work at 300-600 dpi depending on the pic. I think the reason why im thinkin the anti alias off is because of how they want you to format your submission for most publishing houses, not just working on the picture. and that the bigger the picture the less it matters also doesn't affect me too much. since for typical submissions they also want you to have an easily loadable file that isn't giant. but I also don't do too much digitally, if anything ill just adjust the levels and shiz
and now that I know what its called (the spot blacks) I know exactly what you're talking about with changing the tone

[LeV Oblivion]

thank you very much for the input. I'll look at the links in detail this weekend.

colors. picking color has always been hard for me. I'm bad with colors. I will study color theory more then.

this is what I have now:

I might color it like that. cell shading combined with a multiply layer for shading.
I have all the colors, including bg, on one layer though. Is that bad?


anti alias? sorry I am clueless as to what to do.
I believe my partner wants this to be a webcomi- ...crap. I've been coloring with RGB.

I work at 300 dpi. current canvas size is 3300 x 2550 (too small?)

[Kyousouka]

LeV Oblivion

thank you very much for the input. I'll look at the links in detail this weekend.

colors. picking color has always been hard for me. I'm bad with colors. I will study color theory more then.

this is what I have now:

I might color it like that. cell shading combined with a multiply layer for shading.
I have all the colors, including bg, on one layer though. Is that bad?


anti alias? sorry I am clueless as to what to do.
I believe my partner wants this to be a webcomi- ...crap. I've been coloring with RGB.

I work at 300 dpi. current canvas size is 3300 x 2550 (too small?)

I can't see your image (Photobucket and Firefox don't get along), so I can't give you feedback on it, but I can clarify some things for you:
Anti-aliasing is best explained with an image: here's one.

RGB is fine to work with (in fact, I personally prefer to work in RGB even when working exclusively for print), but you should make sure your colours look okay in CMYK too. As long as you avoid certain colours (like anything with very strong saturation), it should be fine.

Do you understand what dpi is? 3300x2550 at 300dpi is 11" x 8.5", US letter size. That's certainly big enough to print, it's just a non-standard size for books. Non-standard sizes aren't a big issue, most printers can do custom trim sizes with no problems.

[Static Sludge]

I might try fading the blue a bit more in the sky, and adding some different tones to your colors (i.e if you want it colder use blues purples etc or warm : red browns) I think that would help the panel colors appear more organic.

personally, I always have the anti-aliased off because I find at the size I work at (which isn't ginormous) it has a tendancy to look more pixalated, and I scan in my own hand done work and it messes with the lines.

but if you're doing digital im not sure how that goes. kyousouka said she does large pictures...but if you're not idk if anti-alias being on would affect yours as it does mine, I want to say it would.

EDIT: RGB should be fine is recommended for a webcomic or anything that will be solely on the web, the CMYK is recommended for any kind of publication you might plan to do now or in the future. and in CMYK the colors are replicable via printer(the RGB uses web colors i think that the printer cant always replicate)like if you converted RGB to CMYK the colors may not match since RGB doesn't use the same ...eh hues? to change the color.

RGB(redgreenblue)- smaller sizes, I know why I was thinking black was added to them. its cause its not advised to convert RGB to CMYK "just to check" because CMYK can't duplicate all the colors the RGB has so you'll usually end up with a percentage of black ink mixed in with your colors making them look ruddy. especially with yellow colors. also it does equate to adding black for darker and white for lighter. since it deals in "transparent light" ... the best way I can describe use of RGB successfully was in KOF'99(video game) where you were able to change the colors of the characters, that uses the same principal, and you'll find for natural looking skin it looks strange and its hard to do.

CMYK-"another reason to work in CMYK mode is its easier to understand the principles of CMYK than those of RGB. a printing press adds different percentages of cyan,magenta, yellow, and black together to form colors. we can all easily understand how this type of color mixing works, because we all played with play doh when we were kids; if you added red clay with yellow clay, you got orange clay."- the dc comics guide to coloring and lettering comics
CMYK is best if you do plan to be printing or sending this off. but if not dw about it and go with RGB

I apologize for any mistakes that's why I said id double check tmrw. didn't have the source with me at the time.


and as for size, do you want to print this off?? I think the size you work at is fine, as long as you can see what you're doing and you link it so you can see the image and read clearly, I think that's just up to you.
if you find its too small tho try upping it to 11 x 17 (typical comic paper size)

color theory is tough Dx if youre not very good at it, try getting a color wheel (: those can really help when you need to ease into it, you can do it^^

[Kyousouka]

Static Sludge

RGB should be fine for a webcomic, the CMYK is recommended because the color results are the same they don't change when you convert it to a different color mode. and in CMYK the colors are replicable via printer(the RGB uses web colors i think that the printer cant always replicate)like if you converted RGB to CMYK the colors may not match since RGB doesn't use the same ...eh hues? to change the color.

RGB- im pretty sure uses blacks and whites to darken or lighten colors(ill double check this tmrw)

CMYK-different percentages of cyan,magenta,yellow,black added or subtracted to colors to change the color.

Going to correct the mistakes in this because mistaken information is rarely a good thing xP

The difference between CMYK and RGB is two-fold: different primary colours (cyan, magenta, yellow for CMYK, red, green, blue for RGB), and CMYK is subtractive (more colour = darker), while RGB is additive (more colour = lighter). Printing is a subtractive process, so you can think of CMYK as different amounts of ink, and it's true that most printing is done in CMYK. RGB, on the other hand, is light (more light = lighter colour).
The technical colour mixing is very different in CMYK and RGB, but unless you're using blending modes, you're not likely to notice the difference. When you're painting by putting one colour over another at a low opacity or when you mix them together in Normal mode, the final results are the same between the two modes.

CMYK colours DO change when converted to some colour modes, but converting from CMYK to RGB (RGB is what you should use for the web) is usually less lossy than converting from RGB to CMYK because RGB has a broader range of colours.

"Web colours" is just a name for 24bit RGB as used for webpages. It's unrelated to the nature of RGB.


tl;dr: Unless you're genuinely interested in the math and physics behind colour, don't worry about it and just work in RGB, avoid overly bright colours (those tend to be out of gamut for CMYK), and convert to CMYK as needed (some printing companies will even do the conversion for you). If your software supports it, check in CMYK every now and then, especially when building your comic's palette (either in proof mode, or do a temporary conversion).
I haven't checked other programs, but PS has a gamut warning in its colour picker so you can know whether your colours are printable even while working in RGB.

Do not save your files in CMYK for the web even if you work in CMYK. Make sure you save as RGB to ensure maximum compatibility with various browsers. You can have your originals in any mode you want, but make your pages RGB for the web.

[Static Sludge]

Kyousouka

Static Sludge

RGB should be fine for a webcomic, the CMYK is recommended because the color results are the same they don't change when you convert it to a different color mode. and in CMYK the colors are replicable via printer(the RGB uses web colors i think that the printer cant always replicate)like if you converted RGB to CMYK the colors may not match since RGB doesn't use the same ...eh hues? to change the color.

RGB- im pretty sure uses blacks and whites to darken or lighten colors(ill double check this tmrw)

CMYK-different percentages of cyan,magenta,yellow,black added or subtracted to colors to change the color.

Going to correct the mistakes in this because mistaken information is rarely a good thing xP

The difference between CMYK and RGB is two-fold: different primary colours (cyan, magenta, yellow for CMYK, red, green, blue for RGB), and CMYK is subtractive (more colour = darker), while RGB is additive (more colour = lighter). Printing is a subtractive process, so you can think of CMYK as different amounts of ink, and it's true that most printing is done in CMYK. RGB, on the other hand, is light (more light = lighter colour).
The technical colour mixing is very different in CMYK and RGB, but unless you're using blending modes, you're not likely to notice the difference. When you're painting by putting one colour over another at a low opacity or when you mix them together in Normal mode, the final results are the same between the two modes.

CMYK colours DO change when converted to some colour modes, but converting from CMYK to RGB (RGB is what you should use for the web) is usually less lossy than converting from RGB to CMYK because RGB has a broader range of colours.

"Web colours" is just a name for 24bit RGB as used for webpages. It's unrelated to the nature of RGB.


tl;dr: Unless you're genuinely interested in the math and physics behind colour, don't worry about it and just work in RGB, avoid overly bright colours (those tend to be out of gamut for CMYK), and convert to CMYK as needed (some printing companies will even do the conversion for you). If your software supports it, check in CMYK every now and then, especially when building your comic's palette (either in proof mode, or do a temporary conversion).
I haven't checked other programs, but PS has a gamut warning in its colour picker so you can know whether your colours are printable even while working in RGB.

Do not save your files in CMYK for the web even if you work in CMYK. Make sure you save as RGB to ensure maximum compatibility with various browsers. You can have your originals in any mode you want, but make your pages RGB for the web.

I edited it, since I said id check it O_o 3nodding

[EternalFlame]

I do all my colouring in Opencanvas 1.1

Generally I do whatever large 'flat' colours (i.e. clothes, skin, backgrounds) on each of their own layers, then combine them down to (on average) three layers. Mostly just to reduce clutter, cause I hate having over a dozen layers for a picture, just makes it impossible to find things when I need to edit them.

Then as for detail layers, pretty much the same overall procedure really. I will also use layers to texture stuff (wood, reptile skin, etc) and backgrounds where I don't want my characters just in front of a wall.

It might not be the most efficient, but as with anything, it works good enough that I don't feel compelled to find something else.

[KaneCares]

Cool drawing

[Kani Jalo]

I'm still figuring out coloring myself-- my favorite method that I've tried so far is to shade a selection in greyscale, then make a new layer set to color, and fill in the base color for that selection. It goes a lot better for me than if I try to 'paint' traditionally in terms of both speed and appearance.

[Kyousouka]

Kani Jalo

I'm still figuring out coloring myself-- my favorite method that I've tried so far is to shade a selection in greyscale, then make a new layer set to color, and fill in the base color for that selection. It goes a lot better for me than if I try to 'paint' traditionally in terms of both speed and appearance.

Do you colorise the grey shading afterwards? I'd imagine leaving it as grey would look really drab and unnatural, no matter what blending mode you use.

[Kani Jalo]

Kyousouka

Kani Jalo

I'm still figuring out coloring myself-- my favorite method that I've tried so far is to shade a selection in greyscale, then make a new layer set to color, and fill in the base color for that selection. It goes a lot better for me than if I try to 'paint' traditionally in terms of both speed and appearance.

Do you colorise the grey shading afterwards? I'd imagine leaving it as grey would look really drab and unnatural, no matter what blending mode you use.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking--no grey is visible because of the color overlay.

This is the result of my first experiment with that method--the sketch and coloring is rough, since the point was mostly to see if it would color at all, and work with the changes in shade.