So simple.

Today I was wondering how does a colourist for Tim Sale bring colour to his grey ink wash images and seemingly replacing the grey with the colour without losing the texture. Well today I found out the answer and a rather simple one at that. Essentially all you need is a new layer in photoshop with either the color or overlay blend and then go crazy on it and then rocket, parmesan, done. I experimented with a page from my 'The Big Sleep' adaptation and compared it to how I orginally altered the inkwash colour. Now originally I made the inkwash into a solid new colour, wiping out any brush texture that was there originally and quite frankly it took a long time to do (I am sure there was a quicker way to achieve this).
With the experiment that I did today it only took a couple of seconds and it still looks great, so I feel had I known this other method I could have saved myself a lot of grief and time. Though I have to say I like both versions for their own merits but it will be interesting to try an inkwash image and then to render the colour digitally.

Thunder Xmas.

Hey people, been experimenting with my art of late particularly with colour. When it comes to colour I normally go for the one colour approach, something I picked up from with reading old comic strips. In the past I would have done a full coloured image but I was never that good or at least I didn't think it was, but now I have been having a stab at it by practicing and here above is the finished article.  

I am pleased with the result but I am well aware that there is still room for improvement, something that will come with continued practice. I also decided to do the same image but finished in the usual one colour tone. I do still like one colour tones and I will still keep using because I feel it is integral to the style of my work but I am hoping that having a better understanding of colouring that it may better inform my work when I do use one tone colouring. Hope you all enjoy the pieces.

Romanian Girl.

I initially did this drawing of Diana from our trip to Romania this summer. This was practice to see if I could draw someone but rendered in my own visual style, and I felt that is had its successes. Then an idea struck me. Bruce Timm is one of my major sources of visual inspiration especially his women and he often does images where he has a black and white visual that he then makes a fully coloured version. So I figured it might be an interesting experiment to try out.

Here is the result of my experiment. The scan does not do the original justice and even with the tweaks from Photoshop it is still an imperfect reproduction. This version is completed mostly with a combination of watercolour pencils and markers. Bruce Timm's colouring has that film noir poster flavour to it, which I did not successfully replicate. Instead I went for a more painterly approach utilizing my old life drawing class techniques. The end result I am particularly pleased with and I will be very open to trying this out again.

Finally I did a quick little additional experiment by overlaying the two images just to see what the outcome would be. Again I think this is another success and perhaps maybe stick to traditional methods for perhaps a full colour comic.