My Comic Book: Coloring Issue #4, Page 1

    Here are the final colors for the first page of issue 4. And just like that, I feel like the fourth issue is already well under way. As long as I play mind games on myself to keep moving one 'foot' in front of the other, I am hoping to keep up a steady output of pages until I'm done.

     The page is all in monochrome; so the main thing I do is make the focus have the lightest shade. Sometimes, the lightest shade is all around the panels, but for the most part it seems to be working. So panels 1 and 2 is on the dollar sign. 3 and 4 go to some of the dollar sign, but also the face and the hands holding the bag and gun. Panel 5 is mostly on the gunshots. And lastly, panel 6 is mainly on the 'radio signal' coming from the walkie-talkie.

    I like blocking out large amounts of blacks in my work to direct the eye and to make my compositions, especially in the inking stage. I don't think I primarily think in color when I'm making my art (at least not nowadays). So I make sure that everything looks good and is working at the black and white stage. By the time I'm coloring, it can still kinda work without too much color or rendering going on.

    For the Bomb Squad comics, the colors are very simple, but I to use it to direct the reader's eye to what I want them to focus on. Because it's simpler, I'm also able to move a little faster in finishing off pages. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to noodle the page too much. Because adding more colors might actually work against the simple style that's already been set.

    If you want to see more details on a part of the process, here's the Comix Rant YouTube episode:

    That's it for this post. Page 1 is in the bag!