Thursday, September 24, 2009

Coloring progress!

Hey, Rachel here!

It's been a long time since this blog has been updated! Mainly that's because of my time being strained with school, along with a huge overhaul on the art for this project.

One of the most difficult (and fun!) part of drawing a comic is when it comes to the coloring stage. Here is where a lot of the mood of your comic gets established - is it cartoony? Realistic? Sad? Intense? Dramatic? Silly and lighthearted?

We'd tried a coloring pass on one of our finished pages earlier this year, with these results:


At the time, I thought it was looking pretty sweet. Overwhelmingly Crayola Green color scheme for the forest, soft shading, an attempt at lighting... of course right now I can't find much good to say about it! It's very flat and boring, and one of the professionals we went to for feedback told me so (a shout-out to David Petersen: thanks a ton!).

I went on with drawing and fixing pages, and in my personal work, looked for opportunities to practice my digital coloring. Getting good color schemes, making believable lighting, improving my painting style - the sort of things that were lacking.

Here is the new and improved color pass:


I managed to find a way to make light more luminous, and in general got a better grasp on how to work with color. In half a year I don't know where I'll be or how much further I will have improved, but this felt like a big step forward. And the best part is it'll make this comic that much easier on the eyes for all y'all! :)