Coloring/Lettering

[PatrickG]

Well, I'm about to get inked pages back on my comic and WOW.

There's a lot of coloring/lettering talent out there.

And WOW. Silly me. I wasn't budgeting what I needed to for everything. Might set me back a few weeks.

But I'm committed to doing my comic RIGHT.

So...

I just wanted to drop some feelers out there for what people like in terms of coloring/lettering, the underappreciated arts.

Do you prefer flat colors? Rendered colors? Colors with "animated" shading style? Fully painted stuff?

Personally, I like the "look" of painted stuff but I'm not so big on painted interiors because it can make things look stuff. Do you guys prefer painted covers?

What about lettering? I LOVE Richard Starking's work, personally. But what are you into? Less is more? More is more?

One sample of someone's lettering that I looked at had a "Trip" sound effect for someone who tripped on a rock. Didn't work for me.

What are some of your favorite books out there color wise? Letter wise? Logo wise?

These are the things a lot of us never talk about but working on my own comic has forced me to really start thinking about.

Love to hear what everyone's tastes are!

[titanfan]

Colors: It really depends on what kind of book it is. The best colorists uses a scheme that matches a book. I personally like flat colors and agree with you about painted interiors. I don't like painted covers personally, but I think people use them because it stands out on the rack. I know a lot of people have done marketing research on the best types of covers, so you'd probably have to defer to those studies...I generally know what I'm buying in advance based on solicitations and rarely buy on cover.

My favorite letterer is John Costanza. I love onomatapoeia personally, so I'd say that more is more, but again it depends on the tone of your book. That said, if you get a letterer that letters via computer instead of by hand, you should be able to try a variety of different styles....

Logos: Should be very easy to read from a distance. There are a lot of times a cover catches my eye from the comic book rack, but I can't make out the logo to see what it is....

[Ponda]

Although it's slowly improved over the past decade, I still dislike the "standard" style of computer coloring... a bunch of oddly placed gradients and highlights.
I much prefer something like:
1. What Dreamwave did, especially on their early books (Dark Minds vol. 1, etc.).
2. Christina Strain's style on Mary Jane.
3. Snakebite's digital painting on Red Star
4. Guy Major's flat coloring (with colored lines) for Oni covers.

If you could find a subtle watercolorist, that would be awesome too, though probably more expensive.

As far as lettering goes, I don't really care so long as it's legible.

Those're my tastes.

[TCJohnson]

You might want to ask questions about coloring here: http://www.comixtreme.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=69

Chris Sotomayer is a fantasic colorist and is very big about educationg people on what a colorist really does.

[PatrickG]

I love watercolors.

But in this case, I also have to worry about the penciller's style.

Watercolors tend to work with more... deco art. Frank Miller. Tim Sale.

The artist I have, well... I'd say he occupies a space somewhere between Wally Wood and Steranko. (He's actually friends with Steranko and took the comparison as a compliment.) I'll have to see the finished art but I'm looking for something that augments his style.

I'm leaning towards fairly flat, bold colors but with something that makes judicious use of SFX (like subtle motion blurs).

I'd love to land somebody like Paul Mounts or the Hories. They use color pretty boldly and add dimension without overdoing it, IMO.

IMO, the real test of a colorist is how they make a sunset look. :) It can be done very simply or with a very complex approach and yet, either way, a good colorist really brings the mood home in a nice sunset shot.

I also came to realize that my script is lacking in sound effects, something I want to build in organically once the art once it's in hand. Not that this is a story that demands many but there are a few places where it would work well.