Thursday, December 17, 2009

Colored girls


It's always a good idea to preserve continuity with color comps. If you're going to paint in watercolors, you should always do your comps in watercolors. This makes it much easier to match your colors on the finished painting. It's even better to write down color formulas or combinations used to achieve specific colors. The reflective and translucent quality of different mediums can wreck havoc with colors and perception, and this goes double for the computer. You throw in the differences between reflected and projected colors and you're begging for a headache.

So, I did this comp on the computer with a sweet Japanese ink and paint program called SAI Paint Tool. It was fast and so convenient, and it's a great program for tablet PCs. The only real drawback was trying to match colors on the finished piece, and that was a real headache. I wonder why?

The colors needed to be bright but just south of psychedelic. I always thought the 60s made it okay to use bright colors, but when we got to the 80s it had spun out of control. The 70s got it just right, and that was the feeling I wanted. Laura "Colorista” Martin works across the hall from me here at the studio, so I called her in for a second opinion, and after a bit of tweaking you could actually hear the colors sing.

7 comments:

Jake Ekiss said...

Mmm, that's some sweet sweet music too. Always love seeing your color process, makes me more thoughtful on mine. I presume with interior pages you've got to work a bit looser than you would on commissions given time constraints, but what would be the difference, if any, in process? Just wondering.

brian said...

Jake: I never do a color cop for interior pages, but my layouts are a little more elaborate.
With interior colors I just pick my subject color, establish a dominant color for the page,and then build a color range around it. The whip crack of time doesn't allow much more planning than that.

Héctor Barros said...

Recently I´ve found a color management software, Color Schemer, still learning how to use it, but it seems pretty usefull (it allows the user to export the color swatches and selections to Photoshop or Corel)


Every pic you upload is amazing... and inspiring, too, anytime I visit your blog, I remember why I want to be an illustrator

Attila said...

I scanned in the Nikki piece you did for me at Megacon. If you would like for me to email a copy to you, let me know.
-CA

Anonymous said...

Hi, Brian,
I enjoyed talking to you at Wizard World in Atlanta, wrote about it my blog: http://julianadeflorey.livejournal.com/7263.html

best, Julia Scott

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