[Liquid!]

Someone mentioned this piece a little while back. So here it is.

This piece was done as a cover to PSM Magazine when Legacy of Kain came out. It was drawn by none other than Joe Madureira, inked by Tom McWeeney, and colored by us. I posted the image we received in B/W too, so there really wasn't any 'drawing' done by us.

I don't think this necessarily belongs here, but I hope you like it anyways...

-chris

The colored version


What it looked like before.

[dorfie]

*drool*

---- www.nopurpose.net

[surferboi]

i think its totally amazing how much u improved on a already spectacular drawing

[CapnPyro]

Uhh.. oh damn.

[N Pak]

Oh wow... I want one!

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"Worthless advice is worth thrice the price."

[Chate Noire]

Dear God. Your coloring work is absolutely stunning. Liquid, my dear, You think you could give poor ol' me any tips? What program/technique do you guys use?

[nova]

*abandons al hope*

wowow.. that's my poster!

thanks for posting my favorite image (of yours) of all time.. now i can die in peace. i wish i had shiny blue skin like that



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* * * ** Nova
!

[nova]

*abandons all hope*

wowow.. that's my poster!

thanks for posting my favorite image (of yours) of all time.. now i can die in peace. i wish i had shiny blue skin like that



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* * * ** Nova
!

[Matt Elder]

That is really cool ... love the image and the colours. how long does it take to colour something like this?!

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See ya on da flip side
Matt
http://www.mattelder.com

[Ko]

That's some groovy colouring, excellente!

What resolution was it done in originally??

Ko

[Rinaldo]

Joe Mad, McWeeny, and Liquid!.....Doesn't get much better than that


Are you guys going to be colouring Battle Chasers again?
What other posters have you done with Joe. I've got the Eve one up above my monitor, But I want more!

And yeah how long? how many books are you people doing at one time.

Maybe instead of a tutorial you could colour something and then let us have a look at the photoshop file. (just s thought, not sure how appropriate or useful it would be)

[nil900]

OOOOoooohhhhh........

[Liquid!]

Wow! First off, thanks for all the kind words, but its easy to make something look good when the art is so well done.

Let me try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

CHATE: If I recall correctly this was mostly done in PShop. However, as a rule of thumb I think you should use whatever gives you the look you're after.

MATT: Don't remember exactly how long this took, because we had a fairly lax deadline, and I was doing other work inbetween. But it was more than usual. The work itself wasn't terribly complex, we just were playing with different tools and methods, so there was alot of trial and error. You could call it sort of a R&D project. A luxury we generally don't have.

Ko: I think it was done at 600 DPI at the original publication size.

RINALDO: Yes we're doing Battlechasers. Don't know when its due, but Joe is almost done with it, and we have a substantial amount of the inks in already. From what I've seen its looking really great! If you're a fan of Joe's you're in for a treat! Thanks for getting the EVE poster... actually I just send some to Joe and he told me that its his favorite poster! I'm sure he was just being nice...

Considering the file sizes, I don't think that's really feasible, not to mention that I don't think you'd really get anything more useful out of it, than what you get from looking at it in its published format.


Phew. Again, hope that answers all the questions. Thanks for the kind comments!

-chris

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Liquid!

[Rinaldo]

Chris-
Yay I was afraid that your creator owned books would stop you from doing BC. I saw the cover for BC7 on the Joe Mad site and I would have to congratulate all involved. Looks insane

On the PS file thing. It wouldn't have to be huge. and could also be a crop. I't would just be nice to see how someone else does it (or did it on one particular occasion).
But if you're sayin "no friken way" nicely then I understand .
Feasability is an interesting thing. when you know how, it all seems easy but When you're starting out it's nice to have some sort of referance to work with instead of recreating the wheel from scratch. In the end it's not going to help much and is just going to make anyone who learns from it a Liquid! Hack. but if used as a proper referance it could be useful. The main thing I am interestd in is getting some more ideas about how to order and use the layers.
But anyway I'm just babbling because I have a backlog of Qs to ask you going back about two years

"mostly done in Pshop" eh...what kinda secret weapons you guys packin'


(sorry I'm kind reverting to fanboy mode of late, feel free to ignore me)


[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited September 28, 2000).]

[Chapel]

Just my opinion but, don't bug Liquid! for their files. Try and figure it out on your own. You all will be better off. Since this is Liquid!'s main profession I think it would be better having them critique our stuff instead of telling us how to do it their way.

By the way, I went to the comic store yesterday to pick up issues of Battle Chasers and SoulSaga. I think I just helped finance Liquid!'s next series.

[Rinaldo]

Chapel-
Yeah I guess it does sound like Bugging. I was just suggesting an alternative to a tutorial. I know it sounds like hack stuff but from seeing some of Spooge's stuff in full res I learnt a LOT. If the files hold the secret of how to become as good as Liquid! then there is a lot less skill involved in the art of colouring than I thought. If you go to learn Oils then you don't go and learn it all from scratch. There are a huge number of resources on different techniques. This isn't the artistic side of things. it's the technical side.
It's just like "hey I never thought of doing it that way". The creative stuff I could probably only get from a proper tut that went through the process from start to finish. I mean how does asking for a file differ from asking for a tutorial. Sure it's "inapropriate" to a degree and is pretty afronting. But if I'm gonna learn it from scratch then lock me up in a cold dark room with no outside contact. I mean I understand why asking for files is taboo but IMHO it's only a surface thing. What am I gonna get from a file that�s going to make me more of a hack that from a tutorial.

I understand the issue of not leaning on someone else, but that�s not what I�m on about. I�m interested in the workflow. Layer organisation. I mean I�m baffled at how pro colourists do the volume of books that you see. If I spend years doing something that takes me an hour but could have been done in ten minutes then sure I�ve been a noble innovator and not stolen ideas from others but I�ve also wasted a shit load of my time.
I usually can�t be bothered hacking someone else�s style. I do it from time to time but it takes me ages and I never have fun. The sort of Questions I have are boring technical ones. I just thought that most could be answered this way instead of a lengthy explanation that no one has the time for.
I�m interested in he artistic side of colouring. Finding different ways of doing things, mixing it up. That is precisely why I don�t want to do everything from scratch. I�ll spend hours upon hours of working it out for myself. I�ll have fun sure. It�ll be rewarding. But no one is going to recognise it as an achievement. Other people have been there, done that. If people did everything from scratch we wouldn�t be here today. We�d be doing cave paintings. That�s why we have anatomy books. Colour theory, Composition rules etc. Sure a file is a lot more specific than these things but the theory is the same. People ask me how I do something and I explain. It�s just my technique; they can take it and play with it, squeeze all they want out of it. Chuck it away and take what they like. If this is wrong then I�ve not heard any complaints so far. People do it all the time. If I ask someone to crit my work then it�s going to be based on their understanding and experience.
Hell I probably won�t get any more out of it than the printed page, I�ve always wondered that�s all.

(Chris -Sorry if what I asked for was improper or affronting, as I said I�ve just always been curious)


Errr....smilie anyone....

[Chapel]

I didn't mean that to accuse you of anything Rinaldo. I mean I've asked Dhabih for his psds and micke for his psds and they've given me stuff to look at. But they both have very unique painting styles that are pretty hard to figure out. I just think (and don't take offense to this Liquid!) that comic coloring is not as hard as everyone is making it out to be. However, it does take talent to get the desired look, and that just isn't something your going to learn by looking at a psd. Eh, maybe I just felt like causing a stir. I mean.. if he sends you the file I want to look at it too. hehe

[Rinaldo]

The actuial base act of colouring a bit of line art is relativly simple (with a huge amount of room for playing around with different things). I'd imagine Colouring 2 books a month plus a healthy number of covers and other cool things is not.

[Sergenth]

Yummy!

This image looks better than a 3d rendering in some ways I think it'd take a Final Fantasy Movie caliber artist 50+ hours to get THIS type of effect in a 3d program.

I was wondering what makes this image better than the best 3d to my mind. Maybe it's because the Reaver's claws only count as one light source on his legs... what I mean, there aren't two specular highlights on the surfaces... just one average specular highlight. Does artistic license like that make the pic sweeter in some ways?

Maybe it's the implied movement of the figure and the dank background... the way I see the air shake around him? hehe

Either way, totally faboo pic. Thanks for posting!

[Francis]

Very very nice. I remember seeing this in print. Did you approach this one the same way, i.e. prepare a hand colored guide in advance, or was this more spontaneous? I remember seeing that you treated this more as a R&D project. And on that subject, how much input does the artist normally have in terms of adding the color rendering stuff?

Cool.

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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[A.Buttle]

Question: What the hell did you need an inker for? You just painted over all of his pretty lines....

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I wanna get with you, girl!...
And your sister, I think her name's Debra....

Joe Dillingham

[email protected]
Three Times A Day

[Superbug]

I love that picture liquid. Is there any way to get a good size poster of that??

[Spitfire]

Oh. my. god.

That's so fucking awesome. I WANT a poster of that. If it's 600dpi A4 format then it can easily be turned into an A3 or perhaps A2 format 150dpi print Send me one! yay!

I think its great *drool*

And im not even a Soul Reaver fan. Hate 3rd person games.

[Dean Welsh]

I think It lost a little of the expression. Check out his eyes. I get a totally different impression from the colored version.

Otherwise that's fantstic! Good decision on Ignoring a lot of the Inks. it Seriously improves the depth of the picture.

ah if only I could do so well... one day... One day...

Hey I'm in the right place to learn am I not?

[The Dude]

Awesome colors and textures, wonderful color
job.

That's a fun game to play too....

Post more plz, more more more more....

| The.Dude |

[Liquid!]

Just wanted to post real quick to let everyone know that I've been meaning to respond, however, I have to finish my deadlines first.

Should be able to post later next week...

-chris

[Liquid!]

Ok, I'm not quite done with my deadlines, but I thought I would just take some time to answer all the questions...

CHAPEL: Actually I think I agree with you. I'd rather critique work, than have people follow a 'recipe'. This way you get more specific information regarding your own work, plus it encourages to experiment and try new things. Unfortunately, many people are quickly to assume that there is only one way of doing things, and then end up getting stuck in a rut [sp?]. Thanks for picking up the books - the support is much appreciated!

RINALDO: I'll try to hunt down the file on backup, but my files look the same up close as they do from far away. I hardly have the skills that Spooge has, so there really is no difference from the file to what you see in print. I have the 'printed' cover of the Raziel here in front of me and [PSM Playstation Magazine, MAR 99 ISSUE 19 VOL.3], and everything you see on paper is what you would see on file. I'll try to back that up with an actual crop, but I'll have to look through the tapes for this thing. The reason for this is that I usually keep .jpgs for reference, but delete the actual files once the job is done. That's just a necessity with the amount of work we do. As far as the work is concerned, there aren't really any shortcuts I know of. I work about 12-16hrs. a day for 7 days a week [no I don't get 'weekends' off - I've had about 2 weeks off the last year]. So if you find a magic bullet, please let me know about it!


SERGENTH: I think there are definitely differences between 2D/3D. The main ones that come to mind are the little cheats you can do when doing 2D. You can draw something in 2D, or cast shadows in ways that don't really work in a true 3-dimensional space, but you think enhance the visuals themselves. I constantly cast 'impossible' shadows. Not because I don't know any better, but because I think it might enhance the image or clarity of what you're looking at.

FRANCIS: I don't do any color guides for my own work. The process of color guiding is done generally when you're having 'computer colorists' interpret your coloring on the computer. I color directly on the screen and just start doing my thing. Input varies from artist to artist. In this particular case I just asked Joe if it would be cool to take certain liberties with his lines, and he didn't seem to have any problem with it.

ABUTTLE: We didn't plan on doing this ahead of time, but ink helps to clarify the pencils.

SUPERBUG: There was a poster of it made that was published by PSM. As mentioned previously I'm not sure I still have the full image, but even if I can find it I couldn't give it out. We don't own the copyright for it.

Hope that answers all the questions. Again, thanks!

-chris

[Gigabyte]

DAMN YOU LIQUID! I hate you guys! I mean that in a good way of course You guys's stuff makes mine look like crap (not just any crap, but the skuishy doggy poop kind ). I love the contrast, palette, effects, everything!!! I'd have to say Liquid is #1 for my favorite colorists!

I do have a question though. Layers, channels, or both? What do you use? I use layers, but I've caught hell for it before.

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Website | Message Board

[Liquid!]

quote:

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Originally posted by Gigabyte:
DAMN YOU LIQUID! I hate you guys! I mean that in a good way of course You guys's stuff makes mine look like crap (not just any crap, but the skuishy doggy poop kind ). I love the contrast, palette, effects, everything!!! I'd have to say Liquid is #1 for my favorite colorists!

I do have a question though. Layers, channels, or both? What do you use? I use layers, but I've caught hell for it before.

---

Thanks for being so nice. I've used both, and really don't see a difference. The end effect is the exact same. Guess it comes down to personal preference.

-c

[burn0ut]

hey liquid, i was wondering do you have any traditional work you might scan and show some nice details?