Today, Multiversity’s going to be providing readers an inside look on the world of comic coloring, and it all starts with an interview and process piece with colorist Marissa Louise on “Robocop” #1 from Boom! Studios. Louise is a fantastic talent who is an up-and-comer in the world of coloring (other credits include the upcoming “Dark Horse Presents” #4 and “Exit Generation”), and our friends at Boom! provided the opportunity to get insight into how a colorist brings a page to life with colors. It’s simple for them, but it’s a complicated artistry that Louise helps us understand as she walks us through a step-by-step process below.
Thanks to Marissa for talking with us, and stay tuned as our day looking into color art continues with a longform piece pulling back the curtain on the lives of today’s comic colorists, and then Multiversity’s staff shares some of their favorite colorists in comics today. Hopefully by the end of the day, pieces like these will help you understand the art of comic colorists a little bit more.
What program do you use for your color work?
Marissa Louise: I color in Photoshop now. I just moved over to Photoshop CC so I sort of need to relearn the program. Other colorists use Manga Studio or GIMP. Each has its own benefits!
ML: First, I get in the line art and plan my attack.
I’ll either send it to a flatter or flat it myself. I prefer to receive rainbow flats (no color relationship to what I’m actually doing) if I don’t have a plan or if I sent it off. This was flatted by Jesse Dewyer who I’ve trained to flat and who will hopefully flower into a colorist.
For those that aren’t familiar with the terminology, what are flats for a colorist?
ML: This is a common question. The easiest way I’ve found to explain it is to imagine the drawing on a piece of tracing paper over another piece of paper. The flats are like cutting out the bottom piece of paper so the colorist can grab just that piece. This prevents the file from printing poorly or having stray pixel or taking a bunch of time to clean up. Basically a good flatter is the secret hero of the comic book industry.
Why do you prefer rainbow flats when it comes to flatting if someone else is doing it, and what other varieties of flats do you tend to use?
ML: I prefer rainbow flats because I’m a control freak, haha,and because I developed a very systematic way of flatting to not repeat colors on different objects. This really stream lines the process for me and for my flatter.
Above is a video Marissa made on how to flat a comic.
Other colorists can use what I call “Ready To Render” flats. Basically a lot of the fussy work is done by giving the flatter a palette, aka list of exact colors, for the characters clothes or skin or specific spaces. Some colorists will even use color assistants so that they really just need to do the rendering and polish.
ML: With a big complicated page like this, I need to split up the area to give it depth and clarity and to wrap my brain around the objects. Doing this also helps for large scale edits.
First, big shapes.
ML: Then break it down a little more.
For both the big shapes and breaking it down pages, are those different layers, or what exactly are you doing there? Is that giving you the ability to impact the colors on multiple levels to give it that depth and clarity you’re referring to?
ML: This break down is on one layer and it usually get disposed of pretty quickly. What I am doing is trying to group objects to create maximum clarity (Editor’s Note: Marissa sent a link where Jesse Hamm clarifies what she was talking about with grouping). Sometimes if I sense multiple edits incoming, I will keep this layer just so I am prepared to make large scale changes.
Continued belowBetween those two variations of the pages there are a lot of elements that are shared. Do both exist as you move along, or was the big shapes page a breakdown that preceded the more detailed page that followed?
ML: It’s a good idea in the arts to work from the big to the small. The shared elements are because I think: Background-> Foreground on the big shapes layer then I think Background -> Middle Ground -> Foreground (this break down is missing) then I think Middle Ground farthest back -> Middle ground middle -> Middle Ground furthest foreground -> Foreground furthest back -> Foreground furthest forward. Then I think about what is the most important object in the image and how to get the eye to go there. In this case it was Robocop and I did that by having the viewer look past the whole of the foreground and creating a contrasting element directly behind Robocop. This all sounds terribly complicated, but it happens extremely quickly. That whole breakdown takes about half an hour at most.
ML: Now that I know how the space is split up I can do color holds to clarify further.
When you’re talking about color holds, is that you defining the spaces for certain colors? What are you doing in that process to be specific?
ML: Hmm. This is a difficult question for me to answer, because even in my fine arts days I was using lines against fields of color to play with space. It’s very instinctual for me.
But for this I was thinking about a few main things:
1. Creating depth with atmospheric perspective
2. Make explosions/gunshots glow
3. Make Robocop the most solid
For a master of atmospheric perspective look at my incredible mentor Bill Crabtree. Atmospheric perspective is decreasing contrast as things move further away. If you look closely at those holds you’ll see the building line art is very close in color to the color. The cars are a lighter sort of blue grey. The closest foreground is a dark blue grey & Robocop is black.
There are lots of different ways to color hold, but I do my line art on a separate layer with transparency lock then lasso it.
ML: Color holds are done with lasso. I draw tight contours in the line art for clean and clear separation.
Then render.
For the laymen, what is the rendering process all about? I believe it’s related to defining light sources, but what does this part of your process help bring to your color?
ML: Rendering is a lot about panache and understanding light and form. And really, genuinely, if you let me go off on this will talk your ear off. Seriously, I invite anyone who happens to be at the same con as me to invite the offer. There are lots of ways to render, sculptural light, rim lighting, stage lighting, soft light, spot light, fill light, hard light, cell cuts, gradients, haha. It’s AMAZING! But all of this is to clarify the mood and form. For instance, if I had used a spot light on Robocop this scene would have looked way bananas. But there is a scene in issue #2 that necessitates spot light. This is where the colorist’s thinking process really shines clearly. You’ll always be able to recognize Dean White coloring because of his white hatching. You’ll recognize Dave Stewart‘s form turning with temperature shifts. Shari Chankhamma‘s really precise cuts. Bill Crabtree’s excellent sculptural light.
ML: Then SFX and edits. Then the final is resized and finalized.
For SFX, on this page, what elements on this page would you be breaking down during that section?
ML: This section is not my fanciest aspect, my other mentor Nolan Woodward, is really fabulous at SFX. I did some things with gun trails glowing & siren lights glowing. Just general spit and polish here.
