[Seraphire]

http://www.geocities.com/seraphirecafe/color/msh.jpg

Large file.

There are some issues that I'm not sure about. I'd like to see if they are picked up on by anyone.

The result was too dark again. You can barely see the stars. So I will need to mess around with it a bit.


p.s. I plan to give feedback on some of the other comic coloring threads, soon. Chapel, Scoop, etc...

p.s.s. Liquid, if you read this. Are you the one doing, Mad's TMNT pinup? If so, can we get a preview?

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The Groove is in the Heart!

Seraphire
Michael Jon Birkhofer
Seraphire's Cafe/The Monochrome

[Seraphire]

I don't use black. Anywere, except for the space background.

Wolvies costume, I used a dark, almost olive yellow. Against the bright yellow of his basic color, it may be causing it to appear a solid black. Perhaps I'll try a brown, instead.

And with Blackheart. I wanted him to be look really dark, and not just purple, representing black.

Some of the problem, is the PS outputing darker than I intend. So the dark colors are comeing out even darker.

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The Groove is in the Heart!

Seraphire
Michael Jon Birkhofer
Seraphire's Cafe/The Monochrome

[Seraphire]

I messed with the gamma correction a bit.

The link now is a little brighter.

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The Groove is in the Heart!

Seraphire
Michael Jon Birkhofer
Seraphire's Cafe/The Monochrome

[]Aratex[]

I never got to see the first one that people were crit-ing, but the new one is beautiful... Especially that foxy lady with the purple hair and lips... I'm noticing a slight trend towards purple lips on this board and I think we should keep it up! Anyway, I love your style.. Great job. :-)

[CapnPyro]

The brush strokes are waaay to obvious. Also, there isnt much color seperation. Most of the people are single color, lightened or darkened. Spiderman is the only one you started to take a chance on. Maybe do something to distinguish the foreground characters from the middleground, and background.

-Capn

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http://home1.gte.net/capnpyro

[Liquid!]

quote:

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Originally posted by Seraphire:

p.s.s. Liquid, if you read this. Are you the one doing, Mad's TMNT pinup? If so, can we get a preview?

---

Sorry, I can't post that for the same reasons, that Joe can't post the pencils/inks...

-c

[Rinaldo]

The problems I have with it are mostly the contrast in rendering. You are not controlling your soft and hard edges. There is also not much difference in the materials you're creating. You can change the feel of something by altering the shininess, perfection of gradient etc. as is everything looks to be made of the same stuff. Which is not that important seeing as a lot of colourists do this. but some variation in specularity is needed I feel.
There is also no overall change in value/hue. You are rendering every thing as separate, like good old hulk for instance; you have the same values for light and dark all over him. I would tend to put a gradient up from the bottom making the top lighter. Then using this as a base go into rendering. This will give the figure a greater sense of cohesion as opposed to simply looking two dimensional and bumpy.
Pretty much all your colours are very saturated. As a result nothing is really pushed back into the distance there is no eye flow (not that a whole lot was possible in this pic in the first place, but there should be a focus). The whole pic isn't working in the large scale IMHO. One needs to think of everything as a whole not every little muscle as a different entity. Colouring is not much different to painting really, start off with a rough sketch setting out the basic colour scheme, then do the very broad rendering getting all the major tonal shifts down. Then when you go into the detailing you can worry less about the whole picture if you work with the already established colours/values.

I don't really understand why you are painting with the brush here if you want a gradient use the gradient tool or a big airbrush, this is what I mean by not controlling your edges and transitions. Something�s break up smoothly others have hard-defined edges. It depends on what kind of light is hitting the subject and what king of surface properties it has. Avoid making things look dirty as is happening in places, especially wolverine�s legs.


[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited October 22, 2000).]

[Sc00p]

Very nice coloring job, just one minor thing; you should stay away from shading darker tones by using black. Instead, use a darker version of the color underneath (or better yet, start dark, and build up midtones/highlights). When you color black over other colors, you usually end up with a messy, gross looking color (ie: wolvie's costume). I do like the style of coloring here, its very different, and would be hard to tell it was comic coloring at all if it weren't on top of comic lineart. Good job.

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Rene Antunes
www.nytro.org
[email protected]

[Chapel]

I agree with Sc00p on using blacks. I'm still learning too, but I don't use any black when I color. Also, when you are coloring characters that are supposed to black or a dark color you don't necessarily have to choose the darkest shade of that color. In this pic the inker too care of most of the blacks you needed.

[Chapel]

Also, along with what Rinaldo said. You want to color the pic to the penciler's strength. Joe MaD! uses nice smooth lines and almost a cartoony style. So, you wouldn't want to go in and try to make it look like a painting by showing brush strokes. If this is the style you want to use then you should find a penciler along the same lines. Like John Romita Jr. would probably look better with brush strokes.

[Seraphire]

I did lose control of the brush at some points. The brush strokes are far more visible than I intended, at times.

I also noticed the lack of an overall tone and movement. I was hoping the use of the yellow highlight would hold it together a bit. But I don't think it was enough.

Rinaldo, You think there isn't any variation in textures? I guess I missed the mark on that then. While most characters have cloth, which I did the same, I did do skin, cloth, metal, scales, etc. differant in an attempt to get differant textures.

Saturated colors... I like vibrant things. I don't color pale. Though part of this is, the light is from behind, so the fronts of the characters are dark.


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

Seraphire
Michael Jon Birkhofer
Seraphire's Cafe/The Monochrome

[Seraphire]

Oh, I forgot to say it...

Thanks for the feedback!

I redid Woverine. Used a basic brown.


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The Groove is in the Heart!

Seraphire
Michael Jon Birkhofer
Seraphire's Cafe/The Monochrome

[Rinaldo]

While you can say that you colour pale there are basic Design principals that you are breaking. if you want to create "art" for art's sake then fine but if you want to get a job in a visuial industry you must understand the basic principals. if your colours confuse the viewer by not showing eye flow then you have failed. There are certian times where your viewer comes before youre particular preferance. Comic books tell a story, they need to be comprehensable or else the message simply won't work. you need to have a focus, not everything can be in super day-glow colours. Their is simply too much competing for attention. This would go hand in hand with colour theory and composition (colour will effect your composition/eye flow).You are throwing away a huge amount of emotive power by using only bright colours.
It is vital to understand that the colour you use is going to create emotion in the viewer, be it on a very blatent or subliminal scale. if one is not aware of the effect a colour will have then the message of the original writer/penciler/inker is going to be lost.
When you say the light is behind the characters I don't understand. I am refering to saturation as opposed to value/tone. one can have dark colours that are bright or more towards the grey/black. the value scale you are using on the characters is more of a light side as opposed to dark.

Light from behind (depending on what kind of light) would cause maybe a rim light and the fronts of the charaters to be in shaddow.

Maybe scan in a good comic book page (or a good painting) and run an eye dropper over it have a look (using the HSB sliders) at what is happening to the saturation and balance.