Hi-fi Color for Comics

[Fade2Black]

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/2651/hificolor2pj3.png
I recently discovered a wonderful book which I highly recommend for any aspiring comic book artist. The book, titled "Hi-fi Color for Comics", is written by professional colorist Brian Miller and his wife Kristy. The book was specifically written for people who wish to learn how to color comics. It's packaged with a CD ROM containing useful Photoshop plugins, scripts, palettes, brushes, and actions. The CD also includes sample artwork to work with, which was donated by renowned comic book artists such as Terry Moore, Paige Braddock, John Byrne, and many more. It takes a very unassuming approach and is chopped full of tips. There are homework lessons which can be submitted on Brian's online forum for comments, praise, and critique. It retails for $24.99 U.S., and is being released internationally. I don't usually plug stuff like this, but given the number of artists here, I felt it was worth sharing. Currently, the forum is comprised of mostly semi-professional artists, and a few people like myself who just want to learn how it's done.

Here is a link to the forum, where artists can submit their works and share secrets. --> link (http://www.huedoo.com/) <-- The book was just recently released, so not too many people know about it...yet.

[Mike Taylor]

I'll have to pass this along to my buddy Bill Redfern. Maybe some new toys to play with might inspire him to create new stuff for his old webcomic.

[DarkPirateShea]

That sounds cool.
I work at a bookstore, now I've gotta see if we carry this, lol.

[Fade2Black]

I completed one of the book's homework assignments, which was to flat a penciled sketch of Terry Moore's Katachoo using Photoshop. I took some liberties and added some shading (though that wasn't part of the assignment).

The image that I colored is copyrighted. I have been granted permission to color it, but I can legally only post the work on Brian Miller's HueDoo forum. Below is a link to the thread containing my post.

--> link (http://www.thecomicforums.com/forum2//index.php?s=&showtopic=129053&view=findpost&p=799271) <--

[sableagle]

Only shading comments: your right breast shadow overlaps onto right arm, the knuckles don't have individual shadows and the shadows are all symmetrical.

I don't use Adobe-OMG-copyrighted-name Photoshop-and-that's-the-only-way-anyone's-ever-allowed-to-use-that-name-it's-not-a-verb-damn-you-all so I don't know quite how it works there, but in the GIMP you can select an area, run a "circle fuzzy" burn tool along the edge of it, invert the selection and run a smaller "circle fuzzy" burn along it again to get the larger circle's effect on one side and the smaller one's effect on the other. This can be very handy for unevenly concave areas.

Also I'd add a shadow under the open shirt. Again, select the area first, then use a small fuzzy-edged brush and black to draw in the shadow. Give the shadow its own layer and fade it to 10% or 15% or 20% or whatever looks right.

[Fade2Black]

I should have noted that this is not a finished piece, additional elements such as shading, lighting effects and background are introduced in later chapters. Technically, color flats should not have any shading, but like I said, I took some liberties.