Soon, my pretties, soon....
Meanwhile.
As I was filing papers, I found some pieces I thought long lost. The first of these was a tryout page from the early 2000s. I thought I'd posted this ages ago, but a search of the blog says otherwise. Friend and sister Venus de Mars approached me and a few other folks to join a team of Photoshop colorists. The project was recoloring pages for DC's Archives series. I was given pages of Supergirl to recolor, along with scans of the original page for reference and a shared swatch palette. I completed three pages, but only this one survived in print, and that computer is long gone!
The process is pretty straightforward.
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| First, isolate the black in a separate channel. Also isolate in a separate layer. Use as baseline for making coloring selections. |
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| Then go layer by layer, adding basic color. Go from large areas to specific. Keep effects to a minimum. You're duplicating an existing color scheme, not making a new one! Flatten colors to one layer when complete, but save other layers until the page is approved, to make changes easier. The process for flattening: make a new layer and press Command-Option-Shift-E to merge visible. Be sure the black layer is not visible when you do this step! |
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| Turn the black layer (line art) back on, do another Merge Visible and a Save As... Final. Send to the boss and receive your accolades! |
While the whole team worked very hard on these tryout pages and did some great work, ultimately DC gave the job to a different team. Still, a great experience, and it honed my Photoshop coloring skills (not to mention my attention to detail) a great deal.
Next: who knows? I'd love to get back to the Cowgirls, if I can get enough time off work! If not, I have more of these newly discovered backup pieces for your reading pleasure...
