[ShadowBlade2525]

I am looking into getting into the comic colourist field and am almost finished my protfolio I plan to send out. However I wanted to get some more information on the field so I have a few questions that I hope can prepare me for any interviews i hope I will land.

1) How fast are you expected to colour the pages?

2) Can you be hired just to colour covers?

3) What is the usual or average rate of pay? I know this varies on experience, but if I am asked how much I want, considering I am not experienced, what should I ask for?

Any help would be apreiciated.

Thank you,

Mike Hearn

[Jami Noguchi]

> 1) How fast are you expected to colour
> the pages?

A page a day at least. Most often this will include changes and corrections.

> 2) Can you be hired just to colour
> covers?

Indeed. But you'd probably want to be a cover illustrator like Kaare Andrews, Greg Horn, Joe Jusko or the like in order to make a living. Page rates for colorists aren't enough to get by on cover colors alone. that's why I have a day job.

> 3) What is the usual or average rate of
> pay? I know this varies on experience,
> but if I am asked how much I want,
> considering I am not experienced, what
> should I ask for?

Anywhere from $100 - $300 per page. I've heard as low as $80 for colorists starting out.

[Soak]

hm i mean ok 100-200 $ per page is well paid hm?

[bld]

Its usually $75-85 per page starting.

Covers are a different science all together. If cover is going to be of higher quality than normal page it would usually go for 1.5-2x the normal page amount.

If it is same quality artwork of normal page than it usually pays like a normal page.

About a page a day, so one issue a month.
Some places require you to do your own color flats (which can take more time than the actual coloring on some pages).

Different companies pay differently.

$125 per page is the average from what I hear (could be wrong), this fluctuates with popularity of book and such. When CG coloring first started $300 a page was more common (comics also sold ALOT better too).

[AliasMoze]

Jeepers Creepers (pardon my french)! How do you guys make it on that money? I guess $125 per day isn't BAD, but...

Maybe comics will catch on bigger, and the pay will go up.

I have a follow-up question. What do comic writers get? I don't mean Frank Miller. What's typical?

[Gort]

Pat Duke has done coloring - I believe; he's a member here.

The Art of Pat Duke

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: Tom Carter ]

[Pat]

Yeah, I'm working on a Spiderman book for Marvel right now. I haven't been posting a whole lot because deadlines are eating my free time.

Basically, I'm expected to color one to two pages a day. Rates typically peak out at about $135 a page at Marvel, though certain exceptions are made for talent or technique. In my case, since I'm more of a painter than a colorist and my work requires a lot of digital painting I get paid a little more. Covers, as bld pointed out, pay rate and a half. It's different with other companies, but at Marvel covers are often times handled by other creative teams. On our series I got to work on 2 of the 5 covers and consider myself quite fortunate. Covers are, by nature, high profile assignments so there's a lot of competition to land them.

Coloring comics is a lot of fun, but also very frustrating at times. As with any collabrative medium, there are significant artistic compromises which must be made. I can't tell you how many times I've had to make seemingly idiotic or random changes. But it's all part of the process. If you can't be a team player don't even bother with the job. Additionally, time is a serious factor. You're constantly rushed; this can cause you to make personal compromises in your work. This can be the most difficult challenge of all because it means your standards have to be flexible based on the amount of time you are alloted. If you're a perfectionist who's used to squandering whatever amount of time is needed to "nail" your piece, you're probably going to be extremely frustrated by the normally frantic pace.

Best of luck,

-Pat

[Jami Noguchi]

Ouchy! Two pages a day. And I bet you have to flat them yourself too.

How long did it take you to get established, Pat? I'm currently coloring the Spider-Grrl covers, but that's all I've gotten so far.

[Socar J. MYLES]

Dumbass question: What are colour flats?

[Jami Noguchi]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Socar J. MYLES:
Dumbass question: What are colour flats?

---

not a dumb question at all. flatting is when you lay down flat colors to seperate objects from eachother. once you flat your page, you can concentrate on rendering up isolated portions of the page by selecting the color and working that object. it's more anal than just painting the whole thing at once and not worrying about the lineart, but it saves a lot of time once you get it done right.

though i suppose you could do without flatting and just jump right into the page. it all depends on what helps you work faster. flatting does help streamline the coloring process.

not sure if that explanation makes much sense.

[Pat]

Jami, I'm not sure I'm really "established". I'm one of those guys who was using Photoshop before comics were being colored by computer. So as the change spread across the industry, I was in a good position to get work because I had a rare skill --I knew how to do it. If you do a good job on each project it leads to good references for future work. I think it's a lot harder to break in now, but the more pieces you have published the more likely you'll get work in the future. It's really true what they say: it's as much about who you know as what you can do. I've been doing this for 10 years, so I know a lot of people.

I prefer to concentrate on running my own company and doing my personal art, so my occasional color gigs are for kicks and extra cash. If you're not getting enough work, try attacking the problem from the other side. Instead of soliciting editors for work, try hooking up with the artists (or vice versa). Lead artists have a lot of discretion about who colors their work --they can often convince editors to use you if they feel your look is important to the project. I get most of my work this way. Conversely, editors --especially at DC and Marvel-- can hook you up with a lot of work. Just make sure to work both sides of the equation.

Oh, and yeah... I have to flat all my own work.

-Pat

[ShadowBlade2525]

WOW!! Thanks for all the help guys!

[Jami Noguchi]

quote:

---

Originally posted by AliasMoze:
Jeepers Creepers (pardon my french)! How do you guys make it on that money? I guess $125 per day isn't BAD, but...

Maybe comics will catch on bigger, and the pay will go up.

I have a follow-up question. What do comic writers get? I don't mean Frank Miller. What's typical?

---

Oy, if that was all I had to live on, I'd be in my parents' basement eating ramen. Thankfully, I have a day job which affords me the opportunity to do comics. i hope to one day do it full time though. And yes, 125 a is kinda bad. But it depends. If you can knock out two pages a day, that bumps it up to 250 which is 1250 a week if you take weekends off. That's not too bad. And once you get into the swing of things, you can know out at least a page and a half a day. Add into that any covers or special projects and you might get yourself some decent scratch. Course, you gotta get to that point first and the day job helps.

Not sure what writing rates are these days. Some writers get page rates in terms of how many comic pages they write, not script pages. Some writers get paid per project. I guess it all depends. I think writers have it tough. In some ways, it's easier to make a living at writing since writers can take on many projects as once, whereas artists are lucky to be able to finish one project per month. But breaking into the writing biz is so much harder than as an artist. So it's a catch 22.

[AliasMoze]

Thanks, Jami. You've answered questions I've had for years.

[B0b]

took me 2hrs to colour an old 2000AD judge dredd page in trying to look for it i thought that was a long time (this was back in the days of a 33mhz Quadra 950, 24Mb RAM), but a page a day, wow

[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: B0b ]

[Rinaldo]

I'ts not uncommon for someone to do quite a few pages per day, 4+ if you really know your stuff and can pump it out, (prolly need to have someone flat for you tho) I've heard a lot of people have to do this to counter the low page rate that you get when you are starting out (or even if you are just not a name and/or don't have contacts) it really depends on the complexity of the page and how much you care about the job I suppose ;X
I would aim to be able to do 2 pages per day, cos quite often the colourist doesn't get the pages till late in the month. and you gotta crunch.

It's still way underrated in comics. colouring makes or breaks a book IMHO. and still no front page credits=/

[Jami Noguchi]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rinaldo:
It's still way underrated in comics. colouring makes or breaks a book IMHO. and still no front page credits=/

---

yeah, that can be a bit frustrating. one thing i noticed is that Kaare Andrews and a few others have been putting their website url instead of a sig so that people know who did it. i should start doing that

[Chris Chuckry]

You can earn a decent living as a colorist, but it's tough to break in. I've found that rates for DC and Marvel range from $114 to $130/pg, depending on the project. Covers are $200 @ DC and $155 @ Marvel (all $US). Smaller publishers, and indies will pay less ($100, and less).

I do anywhere from 4 to 6 pgs/day on average, from flats. I've been doing this for 12 years now, so my technique has picked up speed over the years. Currently, I color New Xmen and Soldier X, for Marvel, and mini-series and one-shots for others, including DC.

A lot of colorists use flatters, as it allows them to do more work. I hear that the range for flatters is $10 to $20/pg. Most flatters seem to work @ it part time.

Turnaround times on books depend on the publisher,and schedule, but 2 weeks for 22pgs, and 3 weeks for 48pgs is expected.

If you haven't already, check out www.comiccolors.com. They've got some good resources.

-chris

[liv the fish]

Jami,

Here's a quick tip to speed up your method of placing line-art only on its own layer.

After you do your mode conversions and with the background (line-art) layer selected, goto Select>Color Range. In the Color Range's window, click on the drop menu and pick Shadows. Hit ok. Your black lines should only be selected now. Now press Apple(Cmd)+J. This will promote your selected pixels (the black lines) to a new layer. You can then fill your background layer with white, create a new Flats layer or whatever you do after you usually finish making the line-art layer. You're done.

This method is a bit faster unless you need an Alpha Channel of your line art. Even if you do need an Alpha Channel, you can do the method above, reselect your line art (Apple/Cmd+click the new line are layer), create a new Alpha Channel, and with White as background color, press delete.

Hope this helps out. It should shave a little bit off your production time. Then again, if you already have an action set up, I suppose it doesn't matter too much

later,
Brian aka l.t.f.

[ October 21, 2002: Message edited by: liv the fish ]

[Jami Noguchi]

Hey Brian! Excellent tip! That saves some time. Consider it added to me workflow.

[Jami Noguchi]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chris Chuckry:
I do anywhere from 4 to 6 pgs/day on average, from flats. I've been doing this for 12 years now, so my technique has picked up speed over the years. Currently, I color New Xmen and Soldier X, for Marvel, and mini-series and one-shots for others, including DC.

---

wow! New Xmen! great stuff man. Any other comic colorists hanging out here?

[B0b]

quote:

---

Originally posted by liv the fish:
(Apple/Cmd+click the new line are layer),

---

thas (cmd(Apple key)/Ctrl + click)

[liv the fish]

Thanks BOb. I have to work with both PCs and Macs so most times I fingers know which keys to push but I have a tough time remembering the names of which ones to puch

later,
Brian

[Jami Noguchi]

thanks again. Updated my tutorial here

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Jami Noguchi ]

[B0b]

[liv the fish]

Bob, I use an old G3 at work. I'll mail you mine

Brian
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[B0b]

i've still got my Quadra 950 under my desk with apple extended keyboard

should switch her on and see whats still on the 250Mb HDD

[Tommy Patterson]

I got a bid from Hi-Fi Color for 10 inch by 7.5 inch panels 24 of them and they wanted 400$ a page...I laughed so hard...I can color it myself if they want that much.

[Socar MYLES]

I have a question to add to this thread. What's the usual going rate for painted comic-book backgrounds (not colouring--just background painting)? I've been doing some lately and just taking what's offered...but for future jobs, it would be good to know what other people are getting, and what is usual.

Also, if you have a set page rate for cover or pin-up backgrounds, is it usual to get the same for interior backgrounds, or less?
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