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Gravity in Progress:Learning to edit and color a comic book. Part One

     So, I've been doing some research on how to color a comic book in Photoshop and boy is it tougher than I originally thought. But on the other hand, some of it is surprisingly simple. I'm working on editing some of Patrick McBride's  amazing concept sketches for different characters. This one is Dr. Gravity, beloved scientist.

     I've never done a Photoshop tutorial before...Well actually this is less a Photoshop tutorial and more "This is what I'm doing, Does anyone have any suggestions" type thingy. So this is the general process I've been going through so far.

     I must start with a disclaimer. I realize that the most important step in preparing your work for coloring is what is known as Flatting. Seeing as how I am still trying to learn the best way to do this, I'm not including that step in this tutorial. So far, the best tutorial I've found on Flatting is Here. This page I found on the web comic site of one of my favorite comic artists right now, Jason Brubaker. His book reMIND is amazing and his site has a great wealth of knowledge for some like me and Patrick, trying to do something we never dreamed we would do. I'll have to do a review on reMIND sometime, but for now, back to the other side of that creek I jumped.

     At some point, I hope to master Flatting and then I will post what I have learned based on all my research. But for now, I'm just working on colors, shading, and textures.

     First, I open the original scanned artwork. Patrick would want me to note that this sketch is nowhere near the quality of a finished penciled drawing, and I would have to agree. His work is impressive. I'm luck to have such a talented friend/best man. I scanned this at 300dpi, which I found out is too small if I ever want to print it in a large size, so I'll have to rescan everything at some point. But for now it'll have to do.

     The very next thing always do when working in Photoshop is make a copy of the background layer. It is  frustrating getting to a point where you can't undo anymore and you have to close the file and reopen it. This is an important thing to keep in mind when working in Photoshop. If you're not 100 percent sure you want to keep a change, then put it on a new layer. You can always merge the layer later on.

     I also De-saturate the image(Shift+Ctrl+U in Windows) to remove any color information. This will make it easier to clean it up and make the lines bolder.

Next, I adjust the levels so I get nice dark, bold lines. This also automatically cleans up some of your image for you.

Once I get my levels where I want them, I cheat a little bit. I like to play around with the cutout filter some. I usually keep the settings pretty low. This effect further cleans up the lines and sort of flattens any values or shading into easier to select shapes. I don't use this filter all the time, and as I get better at this I may abandon it altogether, but it's quick, it's easy, and it works.

Alright, I'm not sure if this next step is necessary or not, but I like to have a separate layer with just the line work on it so I can more easily manipulate it later on, e.g.- I may want to change the background color or texture or so on. The first thing I do to achieve this is grab the magic wand tool and make sure the "Contiguous" option is unchecked. This will allow the magic wand to select all the white areas in the image.

With the magic wand tool, click on any white area and it will select all the white. I want to select the lines, however, so I simply right-click and choose "Select Inverse." This then selects anything that wasn't selected before you inverted it. In my case, that's the black lines. 

Lastly, I right-click again and choose "Layer via Copy" and voila i now have a separate layer with only lines.

Now if I want to I can simply create a new layer below it and have fun with the background color or gradients or whatever i choose.

That's all the time I have for now. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this tutorial and we'll look at where to go from here.

Here is some new artwork to whet your appetites.

A Mysterious Character Enters the Scene and Saves the Day.

 The Opoponax is not to be trifled with.


 
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