I need an efficient and simple way to colour some comic book pages.

[ZenzybaR]

OKay here's the deal. I need a way to colour 2 pages, about 13 panels by monday night.
Right now i've tried the value then overlay method in photoshop, but i'm not gewd enough right now to do that many that fast. They look crappy anyway, but i can handle crappy if it wasn't also slow.

I need a quick and simple way to do the pages. And please, please, please, no "go and practice." I don't need that right now, i need some solid quick fix info or i don't pass my course and don't go to uni and end up being a bum. Would you do that to a fellow artist, no matter how shit he was!

[Noah Bradley]

If you want speed, just do flat color on the whole thing.

[arenhaus]

What Noah says - use flat color.

I also have a tip: do not ever use neutral grays with color, and in this case don't use "proper" colors of the objects. Instead, think of what color the light source is, and use that color as the key for each panel. That'll work with flat color just fine.

[vineris]

2 pages should be easily doable.

First off, ink and clean those suckers up. At least adjust the brightness/contrast to remove the pencil lines and threshold your line art so it's B&W. Hope they're high-res.

Next up, make a colour layer (set to multiply, or put the lines on a transparent layer) and fill each shape with a flat colour. If you feel the need to use the "fill" tool, use the magic wand and grow your selection by a couple pixels. Make sure you've turned the anti-aliasing and feathered edges off so that you can later use the magic wand tool to select entire areas of colour.

Duplicate this flats layer. Hide one copy of it. Now you have a way to select, say, just the man's skin and you don't have to worry about going over the edges. Every time you want to work on an area, use the magic wand tool to select it from the hidden flats layer.

Now decide whether you want to cel-shade the pages (easy) or fully render them (less easy). Whatever you do, try to do it across all the panels equally. One beautifully rendered panel with 25 unfinished ones looks like shit, 26 panels of about the same finished quality look better even if the finish quality isn't the best.

[ZenzybaR]

Thank you guys SOOOOOOOO much. I'll try it out now.

[Ivory_Oasis]

13 panels in 3 days or about 60 hours? That isn't very much....

Cell shading would only take a couple hours....actually painting each panel would take like an hour a panel (or 5ish hours a page?). You could do that in less than a day of work!

So...just take your time... and go to it... it doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about....

[Raoul Duke]

comicbook coloring is actually a different discipline than digital painting. I've seen somebody do it without layers. He only used color channels. It's more tech minded. You'll need to keep the files small.

here's a tut
http://vimeo.com/281210

[Psychotime]

DAH! I forgot how to use channels!

[Raoul Duke]

DAH! I forgot how to use channels!

Same here. I never touch that menu. Apparently they are more data efficient.

[Ivory_Oasis]

comicbook coloring is actually a different discipline than digital painting.

meh, it just depends what style you are doing.... some comic books are exactly like digi painting. If you are copying a certain comic book, then you are confined to their style. Longer comic books aren't even in color (like graphic novels), they just do things b&w with full painted covers.

[RyerOrdStar]

I'd just do Cel shading. ->http://celesse.deviantart.com/art/Ph...torial-9731752

[Raoul Duke]

Thanks for the tut.

meh, it just depends what style you are doing.... some comic books are exactly like digi painting. If you are copying a certain comic book, then you are confined to their style. Longer comic books aren't even in color (like graphic novels), they just do things b&w with full painted covers.

I wasn't talking about aesthetic choices. I'm talking about storage efficiency. The guy I talked to about it had worked for about 15 years as a colorist for all the big hitters and produced hundreds upon hundreds of panels every week. Things have changed allot and I'm betting storage wont be much of an issue in the future. We aint running windows 95 anymore. Just remember that storage is time and money. I'd be lying if I said I took storage seriously though.

[ZenzybaR]

Thanks guys. I'm gonna start right after i do this post.
So what about artists like Sonio O'back, how do you think she colours. I'm just a little interested cause i thought it was all just painted lol. (lines are by Mike Choi.)


Colour channels?

[Raoul Duke]

You need good clean inks to work with the color channel method I saw. There are hundreds of ways you can use photoshop. In the end it's about what you feel most comfortable with. Colorists do thousands of panels a year, so do yourself a favor and find a process you enjoy. You don't want to stress yourself out too much.

PS those are the worst pencils I've seen since Liefeld.

[dose]

Most comics these days are flatted first, which means that a layer of flat colors is applied underneath the linework. The flatting serves two functions- it's a base of color to work on top of, and it also makes it easy to mask off areas using the wand tool. Flatting is sometimes done by someone other than the actual colorist.

Flatting can be a real pain, but fortunately there are some plugins that make it very quick. The plugins will basically flat your image automatically with random colors. You can then use the bucket tool to change to the colors you want:

http://www.bpelt.com/psplugins/flatting.html

Tips:
Start with good clean ink lines
Run the filters on a copy of your line work, so you can get it back.
Always save a copy of the flats so you can "get back to them" if necessary
Set the fill bucket to 0 tolerance and turn of anti-aliasing
Put the lines back over your colors on a multiply layer

As others said, flat color is fine if you're in a hurry, and these plugins make it go very quickly- especially for simpler images. If you're going to do anything more than flat color, do it on a layer(s) above the flats, so again you can "get back to them"

Hope this helps

Tim

[ZenzybaR]

Most comics these days are flatted first, which means that a layer of flat colors is applied underneath the linework. The flatting serves two functions- it's a base of color to work on top of, and it also makes it easy to mask off areas using the wand tool. Flatting is sometimes done by someone other than the actual colorist.

Flatting can be a real pain, but fortunately there are some plugins that make it very quick. The plugins will basically flat your image automatically with random colors. You can then use the bucket tool to change to the colors you want:

http://www.bpelt.com/psplugins/flatting.html

Tips:
Start with good clean ink lines
Run the filters on a copy of your line work, so you can get it back.
Always save a copy of the flats so you can "get back to them" if necessary
Set the fill bucket to 0 tolerance and turn of anti-aliasing
Put the lines back over your colors on a multiply layer

As others said, flat color is fine if you're in a hurry, and these plugins make it go very quickly- especially for simpler images. If you're going to do anything more than flat color, do it on a layer(s) above the flats, so again you can "get back to them"

Hope this helps

Tim

I'm confuuuuuuuuused. I've just used the pen tool to put block colours on the parts with the multiply. And I don't even know if i'm succeeding.
How do you put colours under the lines if the lines are on the background layer.
I feel like i've just walked into my classroom and i'm in some old angry mans house. It doesn't make sense and i feel frustrated and bothered.

What's running filters? And i HATE this pen tool thing, it keeps making these strange layers.

I know i must sound like a MEGA noob seeing as how long i've been using photoshop but honestly i only know about the brush, erase, new layer, and choosing colour, and some other basic things. This so bad. I've got one day. OMG, how much do marker pens cost, the cheapest of the cheapest, and is it more intuitive unlike this monstrosity i am trying to deal with.

[Flake]

Dude, just colour them as flat colour.

Copy the lines (Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v) onto a new layer, set new layer to "multiply", then UNDER this layer paint flat colour.

You now have a basic starting point that you can polish until you run out of time.

this is not the most efficient approach, nor is it probably how a professional would do it, but it will allow you to paint freely while keeping your lines so it might be handy for deadlines. When you finish you can easily reinstate the panels.

[ZenzybaR]

Dude, just colour them as flat colour.

Copy the lines (Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v) onto a new layer, set new layer to "multiply", then UNDER this layer paint flat colour.

You now have a basic starting point that you can polish until you run out of time.

this is not the most efficient approach, nor is it probably how a professional would do it, but it will allow you to paint freely while keeping your lines so it might be handy for deadlines. When you finish you can easily reinstate the panels.

okay, should i draw out all the lines on a fresh layer, 'cause i scanned these images in so they are background layers; and they have the whole white space thing. Everyone keep saying paint "under" but i can't see how unless i erase all the white spaces which i'm just going to do for the next page.
I almost wish i never chose to do a comic book.
Another guy in my class just made ink drip on pages for 5 minutes and was done in an hour. But noooooooooo, i don't want to be conceptual, i want to do a god damn frikkin comic book.

[Insignia]

Everyone keep saying paint "under" but i can't see how unless i erase all the white spaces which i'm just going to do for the next page.

That's why you put it on a multiply layer. I don't use Photoshop myself, but there should be a Blend Mode menu in the layer panel; just click on that and select "Multiply". In effect, this will make the white parts transparent. The beginning of the video tutorial Raoul linked to shows how to do this, so I recommend taking a look at that if you have any problems.

[Eva K]

That's why you put it on a multiply layer. I don't use Photoshop myself, but there should be a Blend Mode menu in the layer panel; just click on that and select "Multiply". In effect, this will make the white parts transparent. The beginning of the video tutorial Raoul linked to shows how to do this, so I recommend taking a look at that if you have any problems.

Just remember to double-click the Background layer, and click ok. This makes your background layer a normal layer, and then you can change its blend mode.

[Flake]

That's why you put it on a multiply layer. I don't use Photoshop myself, but there should be a Blend Mode menu in the layer panel; just click on that and select "Multiply". In effect, this will make the white parts transparent.

^This.

OK, quick messy example.


First panel is scanned pencil, second is that layer duplicated and set to "multiply". We then make another layer (Ctrl-Shift-N) above the background but below the multiply and smear colour around in it while leaving the top layer of pencils untouched.

Your layerstack should look like a variation of this.


Again, almost certainly not how a pro would work but it will let you get a lot of colour laid down quickly.

Edit: oops, goofy eyes, shouldn't have grabbed closest pencil sketch..

[PuppyKitten]

Gosh, you poor thing. You didn't know you could color under your line art? No wonder this is so frustrating for you!

To reiterate: Make a copy of your line art/background layer. Set it to "multiply" and create a new regular layer underneath it. Then you can color all you want on the new layer and the multiplied line art will stay on top (with no need to erase any white or use the pen tool).

[velderia]

Also: http://bakanekonei.deviantart.com/journal/31070150/

She does livestreams often.

Multiply is your friend. Normally I just create a new layer, multiply it, and just add color on there. Setting your linework to multiply, and adding color to a bottom later also works. Overlay can do things too, depending on the effect you want. Multiply's fine though.

[ZenzybaR]

OMG thanks Flake, Eva K, Insignia and guys. It's actually working, any tips on how to make things look nicer after flat colours. I found that i have till next week to finish the pages before the final evaluation of the whole project.