[Dives]

This is my first try and it seem to be too bright.


This is my second try and i did this one in corel photo paint 9. Has some dark sumdges but i can call that dirt


So in general i would like to know exactyl what i should do to make them look better and possibly tell me of some good tutorial places. And i love Chapel's coloring.

[CapnPyro]

first off ya always gotta have a background, so you can tell the relationship of yours colors. my art teacher always harped on 'Fill in the white first!" So start with that. Most people, I think, take a solid color for each area and matte it in. So it's just flats. Then go in and model it, add lighting, shading, textures, whatever. Also.. that's really smudgy and brush stroke looking, mebbe try and fix that up. Also his skin tones are a bit extreme, the first one he's really orange, second he's really pink.

Look at his bicep. When you shine a light on a sphere, what happens? You get a bright highlight, then it fades into dark, usually theres reflected light, or another light source, so there will be a rim of light on the dark side of the sphere. Try and incorporate some more dynamic shading like that...

[Dives]

Thx for the help. I cant do a background cuz i would have to do it by hand. I don't know how to use corel And i noticed the skin problem too. That is because i was lazy and ended up using a corel's ready colors insted of doing my own. But im happy it does not have a lot of pixels And my mouse is going crazy as hell i think the laser is gonna go *boom* soon.

[CapnPyro]

i dont mean like a painted landscape background, just a single color or a gradient. also get a wacom! or geto one for christmas or something hehe

[Rinaldo]

Hey Dives, Here is a thread where I posted a few bit's and pieces on how I colour things.
have a look, http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/Forum2/HTML/004912.html

I can't write a lot now but if you have a look at that it might give you some ideas.
of course I don't view comic colouring as any differnet from normal painting. you have to learn about colour and value etc.
some good tutorials on that stuff have been done by Ron (fred flick stone) Lemen. some of which can be found on www.anticz.com in the learn section.

hope this helps a bit

[Dives]

What is it with this WACOM stuff?! I only know how to draw on paper and if i buy it i will only use it for coloring anyway. It costs maybe 600mk here. that is something like 100$.

Rinaldo: Thx i will check them out. The best way to learn is to practice.

[This message has been edited by Dives (edited December 01, 2000).]

[Rinaldo]

there are some good tuts on general digital painting on www.goodbrush.com as well.

[Chapel]

If you seriously want to pursue any type of digital art I would suggest you get a wacom tablet. $100 is really really cheap.. make sure you get an Intuos if you get one. I've never used Corel. I prefer Photoshop and most comic companies do to.

Check out this site for tutorials: http://www.comiccolors.com

[Dives]

Chapel: Im really green at both drawing and coloring ive been drawing maybe for 3 months and im improving and coloring abou a week. I think i should first see just how good I am before i make any major investments. Besides we have tablets at school and i just started a digital art course today I will see how my hand likes the tablet and if i like it i will ask one for christmas or something.

Also i can't seem to get my hands on photoshop from anyone(lost a cd i had from a frend who bought a new version, had it fro maybe 2 week, formatted my had and didn't find the cd. I I like corel a lot it beats psp real easy.

[Chapel]

Try and tackle one thing at a time. If you want to improve drawing then stick with that for awhile. Learning to draw will make coloring much easier in the long run. I still have a ways to go. When I first joined the forum though I really really couldn't color or paint, but I'm trying to get past that and now I think my coloring has improved past my drawing ability. That isn't saying much though.

[Dives]

Chapel: if im gonna be as good as you at coloring or drawing in 10 months i will be really happy.

[Seraphire]

I started coloring about 8 months ago. If that is anything...

Chapel is right. Do one at a time. Either work on coloring or pencilling. If you try to do both, you couldn't possibly have enough time to invest in practice of each.

When you color remember to color within the lines. I can't stress that enough.

I'd suggest you get some serious time in coloring with a mouse before you spend the money on a tablet. They are expensive. The one I want is about $490, I believe. And I know plenty on very capable colorists who don't use them at all.

I like real backgrounds. Graidents are better than white. But it's good practice and will look even better with some sort of painted bg. No matter how simple.

And aren't light sensor mice just plain cool. It glows red!

------------------
The Groove is in the Heart!

Seraphire
Michael Jon Birkhofer
Seraphire's Cafe/Digital Evolution

[Chapel]

I did my very first attempt at comic colors on September 7, 2000. It was in one of Rinaldo's threads.

[eetu]

seraphire, sorry for the simplistic question, but what do you actually mean by "color within the lines" ?

do you just mean to avoid spilling color or something more profound ?

[Shadowman]

This looks like a coloring book. You realy have to learn about about light and shadow.
I agree that this neads a background. Also the skin tone looks merky. Don't try to paint as if you are using skin tone number 5. Human flesh has many different hues and color in it.
Another suggestion I could make is get rid of the black lines. That is why it looks like a coloring book.
You also should study how light reflex off of metal. Metal is never actualy gray. It is the color of everything around reflectiong onto the metal.