Adventures In Comic Book Colouring
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Watchmen (Issue 5, Page 8 detail), Dave Gibbons 1986
Colours by Brad Reid 2005
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Basically, ever since a lack of funds forced me out of my painting studio four years ago, I’ve been racking my brain for some new inlet – economically feasible inlet – back into the full-time creative life. Such was the problem that led me to two or three months this past year during which I did little else with my free time outside of figuring out the new digital methods of comic book colouring.
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I’m sure there was some regression involved here. From the third grade on until I began to favour painting at the age of 22, my whole ambition in life, filled with youthful naivety and a whole-hearted love for comic books, was that I should become the greatest comic book artist that the world had ever known. Yeesh. But still, I must admit, even now, that if some work with comic book colouring were to happen by my way, it would thrill me more than just a little bit.
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Gold Digger (Page 4 detail), Jean “Moebius” Giraud 1987
Colours by Brad Reid 2005
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I’m sure there was some regression involved here. From the third grade on until I began to favour painting at the age of 22, my whole ambition in life, filled with youthful naivety and a whole-hearted love for comic books, was that I should become the greatest comic book artist that the world had ever known. Yeesh. But still, I must admit, even now, that if some work with comic book colouring were to happen by my way, it would thrill me more than just a little bit.
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Gold Digger (Page 4 detail), Jean “Moebius” Giraud 1987
Colours by Brad Reid 2005
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I expect that the methods of digital colouring that I worked out during this period of learning will stick with me and continue to develop throughout the rest of my career. Repeat visitors to this site will see them implemented in upcoming work. A future post just might feature a tutorial on the basics of my approach to digital colouring. Suffice to say, any kind of advanced work is not as straightforward as Photoshop dabblers might guess – my initial efforts were devoid of any real sense of light. One should consider that Photoshop was never intended – at first anyway – as a generator of content, but rather as an editor.
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All of my practice during this period was done with previously published work and the two illustrations featured in this post are among my favourites of what I managed to accomplish. I had to strip the colour from the Watchmen panel, of course, before I reapplied my own, and the Moebius illustration was published in black and white to begin with.
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All of my practice during this period was done with previously published work and the two illustrations featured in this post are among my favourites of what I managed to accomplish. I had to strip the colour from the Watchmen panel, of course, before I reapplied my own, and the Moebius illustration was published in black and white to begin with.
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January 3rd, 2006 at 6:08 am
Keep reading and re-reading Kavalier and Clay! or Neil Gaiman (words OR Graphic novels) and anything else you come across. It seems to me that what is most important is that we make a life, whether it’s an easy living or not. At least you seem to know what you love… It took me 50 years to admit to myself where my passions lie. Do you subscribe to Richard Genn’s newsletter? He’s got lots of resources…
January 3rd, 2006 at 8:18 am
Thanks for the tips, PainterWoman. (Your comments got me digging…) If the Wonderboys movie is any indication of Chabon’s work, then he’s probably somewhat in the John Irving mold, which would be just the sort of thing for me. And Richard Genn, you say…