for comic book guys...

[SpaceBooger]

do you color these using a computer or with ink and then scan them?
if you do them digitally , what program do you use and do you use this pen & tablet thing?
i always wanted to know how they draw these things

it is all adobe photoshop, i never touch a sheet of paper for color work. I use a wacom tablet very seldomly. Mostly just to quickly throw a few shines on the robots. 99% of it is with a mouse. It used to be that a colorist would get pages on this paper that was almost cloth-like. We would then color them using markers, and then send them to a separator who would turn what we did as best as he could into a digital file. That got phased a while back and i think the last books to be done that way were probably 2002 or 2003. And even then it was only a handful still like that. Old pros still making it work. Now it is all digital.

It goes down something like this: Matt wrote the script. Andy drew thumbnails for the pages a little bigger than postage stamp size, then blew them up to 11x17ish and finally printed them out as a very dull dull gray . Then Andy went in and inked them. He scanned them. After that he sends his digital files to marvel. They then shrink them down to the proper comic size and lay them out for the printer with guides. The letterer and I both get these properly sized black and white digital files. He letters, i color. Sometimes i color before he letters, and sometimes we work at the same time depending on the deadline. I don't ever actually see the originals unless I am hanging out with andy or something like that.

I am pretty fluent with Photoshop, but one thing I could never figure out is how to create a separate black layer from a BW image to color beneath. What do you recommend to create a black only layer?

[nickfil]

I am pretty fluent with Photoshop, but one thing I could never figure out is how to create a separate black layer from a BW image to color beneath. What do you recommend to create a black only layer?

oh i don't' work in layers that much. When comics go to print they print in 4 colors. Cyan Magenta Yellow and blacK so i work in CMYK mode. Most people who work for stuff on the web, or are just starting out and pulling pics off the net to color make the mistake of working in RGB mode.

With CMYK it is pretty easy. All you do is go into the channels pallet, hold shift and click the 'K' or 'black' channel. That will leave the black unselected. It'll make the black and white lineart look gray. Click the eyeball next to the black channel and you will be viewing the black, but not working on it. Color away. The blacks are untouched.

[SpaceBooger]

I am pretty fluent with Photoshop, but one thing I could never figure out is how to create a separate black layer from a BW image to color beneath. What do you recommend to create a black only layer?

oh i don't' work in layers that much. When comics go to print they print in 4 colors. Cyan Magenta Yellow and blacK so i work in CMYK mode. Most people who work for stuff on the web, or are just starting out and pulling pics off the net to color make the mistake of working in RGB mode.

With CMYK it is pretty easy. All you do is go into the channels pallet, hold shift and click the 'K' or 'black' channel. That will leave the black unselected. It'll make the black and white lineart look gray. Click the eyeball next to the black channel and you will be viewing the black, but not working on it. Color away. The blacks are untouched.

So do you color like painting, or do you use the polygonal lasso to color chunks at a time?

[nickfil]

So do you color like painting, or do you use the polygonal lasso to color chunks at a time?

eh- a little bit of both depending on what suits the art. There is a lot of on the fly stuff that i try out. Some of it is painting. Some of it is polygon... ya never really know. You know- keeping me interested and on my toes.

[marurun]

So do you do any of the print stuff for Marvel or just their digital web content?

[nickfil]

So do you do any of the print stuff for Marvel or just their digital web content?

i did a 6 issue limited called foolkiller: white angels. That was the first thing i've done for marvel and that was pretty recent. I have 2 more projects in the works that should run around the same time.

oh! and i did one issue of punisher war journal. Plus, i color powers which.... is 'marvel icon' so i don't know if that counts.

[RCBH928]

Where can I get BW comic images, I want to try coloring them
I know some photoshop

[nickfil]

Where can I get BW comic images, I want to try coloring them
I know some photoshop

There arn't a ton of black/white pages in print, but there are a few. DC published two volumes of batman black and white, and there are a handful of indy books that are black and white that boarder on mainstream work. Dusty star, bone, Scud the disposable assassin, creature tech, murder me dead, and stray bullets spring to mind. Plus there is always classics. Marvel and DC both publish huge tombs of golden age work. Classic kirby always looks good.

Baring scanning them on your own, the best thing to do though is to find web sites of pros that you like and get in touch with them to find out if they have pages you can work on. Some are iffy about it, but others freely give away pages to learn on. I would give you pages myself, but i don't know the feelings of each person i work with. Some don't like to have their work all over the net.

I think the best advice i can give you when starting is to always always work with people who are pro. Like really really pro. It is easier to get a pro page to look good because the drawing is good. And to always work on comic pages, not single images like covers. There are a whole mess of problems you have to solve when making comics that you don't have to when you work with a single image. Editors and artists know this. No one would hire you for anything steady based on pin-ups alone, so why bother ya know?

/rant

[GSZX1337]

Damn, The Chameleon could've been President.

[Ack]

So how about a writer? How do they get started in comic book land? Every site I've ever looked at always seem to tell me that the writers always got the short end of the stick.