A new color direction(update page 2)

[fearlessfosdick]

Hey everybody!

I'm experimenting with color style for Much book 3. I'm getting Alberto Ruiz to produce it and he recommended that I do at least part of the book in color. I'm going for something a bit unusual. I want to emulate this sort of thing: http://whadiwannablogfor.blogspot.com/2010/07/strange-adventures-of-duck-alfred-jkwak.html
http://whadiwannablogfor.blogspot.com/2010/07/atlas-axis.html

Any suggestions?

Steve

[Crazyfoxmachine]

Absolutely gorgeous. Sorry I don't have anything more constructive.

[Ryan]

You could overlay a texture of watercolor or painted canvas on top of your finished rendering to fake the naturalistic media. Try overlay, soft light or vivid light and lower the opacity.

There are some illegal colors in the sky and the torchlight you might want to watch out for. A more muted palette may have a more watercolor feel like in the examples posted on your blog.

[peruzzo]

Hey Ryan- What did the source texture look like before overlaid it on the art? I really like how that turned out. Could you post the texture image?

[Ryan]

Peruzzo,

I used a combination of different textures, I think they're all from these three locations:

http://dezignus.com/painting-textures/

http://sadmonkeydesign.wordpress.com/20 ... xtures-ii/

http://lostandtaken.com/blog/2009/1/22/ ... tures.html

There's no tried and true setting, just experiment with different layers set to overlay, soft light or vivid light on low opacity. Desaturate the texture if you don't want it to effect your color palette.

Hope that helps.

[peruzzo]

Yeah I use overlay, soft light, etc. a lot, just wondering about the textures. thanks for the links. Some interesting stuff there.

[fearlessfosdick]

@Ryan. That's a pretty big departure from what I'm trying to achieve, but I'm sure those textures will come in handy. Thanks for the help!

I have to make up for lost time because of Comic-Con, so it may be a few days before I can take another crack at this. I'll post the results when I can. Thanks again.

[MBirkhofer]

Hmm, really Steve?
I thought Ryan's was right in line with what I was saying on DA.

[fearlessfosdick]

Hmm, really Steve?
I thought Ryan's was right in line with what I was saying on DA.

Here's what you said on DA:

Yeah, its not bad Steve. I definitely like the blue outside, to warmer inside. overall I think the highlights are working. I think I would like to see a few sharper here and there.

The purple strikes me as a bit too saturated. It draws my attention against the blue and yellow too much. My eyes are drawn to those shadow areas. Lower the bg sat, and raise the sheriff's lightness a tick.

--
MBirkhofer.com
[link]

All of which I agree with. I think the pronounced texture and saturated warm colors in Ryan's are what's throwing me. Hmmm, I dunno. Maybe if I keep the texture a little more subtle and fiddle around with the color scheme it might work. My first impression of Ryan's was that it didn't look anything like the Hans Bacher pictures, but maybe I'm being too hasty.

[fearlessfosdick]

Alright so here's another shot at it. I did use one of the watercolor textures Ryan recommended. I'm trying out two different lighting styles in panels 3 and 4. I might want a slightly more vibrant background color for the interiors. What do you guys think?

[MBirkhofer]

I really like the redone clouds/moon Steve.
I also think the textures make the colors fit better with the fairly rough inks.

The monochrome of the old pages works pretty well. But on this page, panel 3 is working far better then panel 4.
And yeah, you might have greyed out the interiors a bit too much.

[Stephanie Jones]

The last panel would probably stand against the next to it better if you added some yellow edging to the effect that has him falling through the trap door. The wooshy-thing, for lack of a technical term. The other 3 interior panels all have cuts or bright edges or more contrast and shapes to them that are defining them. The last one is just kind of ... there.

Otherwise, in agreement with Birkhofer, in general. You could color up the interior a bit more. I'd love to see you try a more orange-tinted torchlight, I think it would warm the bottom panels up some and set them apart from your top one. Just my opinion though.

I can't get enough of that re-done top panel. It's awesome!

[Braxton]

Panel 3 and Panel 4 have a bit of a disconnect from each other. I do like the look of the redone page than the first. Also, big thanks to Ryan for posting those links to the textures.

[fearlessfosdick]

How does this look?

[Braxton]

The panels are certainly completely now and connect. That is a funny scene.