I colored this story in the benefit book Where We Live. It's an anthology of stories discussing gun control and gun violence. All proceeds go to survivors of the Las Vegas shootings last year.

Some pages from a comic that I'm coloring.

This is from the InSpectres, a comic that I am coloring.

Sandman: Overture

Neil Gaiman's Sandman: Overture is probably the coolest comic that I've ever gotten the opportunity to work on. I've only assisted with the coloring on some of the pages in the series, but I wanted to share this spread in particular because it was pretty intensive. But as you'll see the printed artwork shows it was worth the extra effort.

The first image you see here is the black and white ink-washes, beautifully rendered by J. H. Williams. Then I lay down the flat colors, but just on the inset panels and the rocky terrain. The entire background in the story is composed of a city made of stars, so my next job was to color the actual ink-washes, to give the drawings of the city a lighter feel. Finally, my boss Dave Stewart paints the finished colors on, adding depth to the rocks and illuminating the star city and the story's Chapter Four title.

And it looks perfect!

 

Color holds/Color lines process

Another step by step, since I've started assisting with a different aspect of the coloring. I'm still helping the award winning Dave Stewart color his comics. This black and white artwork is by the amazing, one of a kind Geof Darrow. This is Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot from Dark Horse Presents vol. 4 issue 1. Click here to see the B/W Full size, to see just how nutty the detail is. And click the captions beneath the other pics to get the full sizes of those.

 

My first step, the flat colors. Darrow is probably one of the most incredibly detailed comic artists in the world, so flatting his stuff is very difficult. And I have to make sure every detail is colored separately. Because we want the artwork to look that much more amazing in color.

This step of the process is new to me and I'm very excited about it! Beyond just the flatting I've started assisting Dave with line art coloring. If you look closely here you will see that all the water, blood, smoke, tattoos, and some other stuff has been colored.  In the finished product below you will see the depth this adds to the art. These are called color holds. Again, this is pretty demanding what with Darrow's detailed fine line-work.

And finally here we have the finished colored page. Really stunning. In spite of the fact that my contributions are somewhat invisible in the final piece, I'm honored and humbled to be helping guys like this create such beautiful stuff.

Another step by step

I wanted to do another step by step to illustrate exactly what I do when I flat, and further illustrate how much more work is done by my boss, Dave Stewart, when he colors the books. I would never want anyone to think I contributed to the coloring more than the flatting. Dave is a brilliant artist and I'm lucky to get to contribute to these comics in any way. The black and white artwork here is by Tonci Zonjic. The book is Lobster Johnson: Caput Mortuum, published by Dark Horse.

 

Every colorist has his own process and different specifications for how they like their flats to look. Dave only asks that I isolate every piece that will have its own color. That's why there are random colors. Color choice is not essential to my part. 

Step by Step

So I decided to show a step by step for what I actually do.

First I get the original black & white artwork. The art here is by the brilliant J.H.Williams, from Batwoman # 12, published by DC comics.

Then I put in the basic flat colors. Every little piece that will be colored independent of each other must be separated. My boss, Dave Stewart prefers that I use colors that are not related to what he will end up using because that makes it easier for him. Thus the blue skin tone.

Finally there is the finished piece with full colors by Dave. You will see that it is completely different from the basic colors that I put in. Also the colors are painted and modeled and look really beautiful.

Goon Covers

These are some covers I flatted for The Goon from Dark Horse Comics, drawn and created by Eric Powell. He's an amazing artist who almost always works in ink wash. I find that some colorists these days, when coloring ink wash, rely on the gray scaled art to do the job. It kind of makes sense because the artist is doing some of the work that usually is done by the colorist, the tones and whatnot.

But these examples illustrate just how much the colorist adds to the artwork. The colorist here being Dave Stewart. The covers looks cool with my primitive flat colors because the drawings are so good. But you can really see how much Dave adds to the whole package with the finished pieces, especially on the second one here, the closeup of the Goon.

Rocketeer Adventures

This was another fun job. I got to color Darwyn Cooke's rendition of the Rocketeer. One of my favorite comics. From Rocketeer Adventures #2 published by IDW. Finished colors by my boss Dave Stewart.

Daytripper

This is from a comic that I flatted called Daytripper. Written and drawn by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon, colored by Dave Stewart, published by DC/Vertigo. It's a really amazing comic and I highly recommend it. No superheroes or vampires, just regular people. 

Slim Goodbody Sapien

Here's a cool anatomy style cover for BPRD: Hell On Earth: Gods #1, drawn by Guy Davis. The making of this one can be seen at the Dark Horse site. This is just a little part of it. Finished colors by Dave Stewart.