How to Improve Readibility

Composition Tips by Jihoon Kim

Usage in a logo

Creative professionals frequently ask “Can I use this font in a logo?” and “What license is needed for usage in a logo?” These are fair and ethical questions, but finding a clear and concise answer can seem tough. We thought we’d take a minute to translate commonly-seen desktop license legalese to make your shopping experience that much easier.

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Using 2 Ink Colors as Photoshop Separations...

REPOSED FROM MY BLOG

click any image to enlarge Above is a scan of my original line art. I use black and red ink, so I can more easily separate out the line. I then use the selective color palette to change the red line work to magenta, make the white pure white and the black pure black. I will usually need to repeat this step four or five times to make sure the line work has been converted to pure colors. (It is imprtant to do this when your document is in CMYK mode) After I have my pure colors, I use the channel mixer to separate out the magenta and black line work. I then have 2 documents that I convert to pure black lines by making the document a bitmapped document… black magenta I paste both documents into my template before I resize them (I select both layers and scale them down, as I do my inks at about 200% of final size). I still will use the pencil tool to color linework on the black and magenta layers, but doing the inks in two colors makes separating out those lines easier. The white on both of those line layers has been deleted and the lines filled with black/magenta by the paint bucket tool. I use a 50% grey background so it is easier to see what lines I am coloring. I will often change those colors later, right now I’m concerned with getting all of the colors seperated out. Above is the the coloring in progress. I use the pencil tool to fill out my flats because it makes for a harder edge than any paintbrush tool. Above is the final art with tones and basic gradients added in. You can read Power Puff Go! at drunkduck.com.

Awesome Tutorial!

Theory: Frank Miller's recent work is good, but DC have no idea what to do with it

Above: I recoloured that recent Wonder Woman cover Frank Miller did for DC last week. Mine on the left, DC’s on the right. I did this to demonstrate a theory I have that despite the general critical consensus, there’s actually nothing wrong with Frank Miller’s recent art- it’s just that DC don’t know how to treat it.

In January of this year I tried out to be a colourist for Frank Miller at DC. Not because being a colourist for the comics has always been my dream, or because I’m the world’s biggest Frank Miller fan, but because I kept seeing some pretty awesome drawings of his being critically savaged. He’s a good artist, but people were talking as if these recent drawings were the scrawlings of a lunatic. I felt like I needed to step in.

Below is one of the Miller covers I recoloured for DC. My colours on the top, and DC’s original on the bottom. Here you can see the discrepancy between the potential I saw in these drawings, and what was actually being published.

I spoke to a couple of editors at DC and the consensus seemed to be that they loved what he was turning in. So why did every blog I read think it was the worst work he’d ever done? I believed I had the answer: that the colour treatment DC was giving to his art was in no way flattering to the type of work he was doing.

My friend Julian Dassai said it best: “His work is dynamic and, in some cases, verging on abstract. Trying to color his stuff with representational lighting and rendering is pointless, whereas a flat, graphic approach (or just leaving it in b&w) allows the energy to jump off the page.” My colour job, followed by what DC actually published:

Frank is an artist who is constantly evolving, and his new work seems to be somewhere between Jim Mahfood, Sergio Aragonez and Ralph Steadman. It doesn’t make sense to colour him as if he’s an Image comics artist from the 90’s, all gradients, shadows and shiny metallic finish.  

Here’s another one. Again: my work on the top, DC’s on the bottom.

All these images I’ve posted so far have two things in common- they were all widely dunked on and derided when they first went online, and they all prompted responses of “WHOA, COOL!” and “I LOVE THIS!” after I recoloured them and circulated them amongst my friends. So what happened here is ol’ Frank became the butt of everyone’s joke when actually, there was nothing wrong with his drawings.

So how did this happen?

Well, check out Frank’s work in the Sin City comics. When Frank works in black and white, he’s a one-man band. But when he works in colour, he hangs back and gives the colourist a lot of space. He knows that colours and inks are two halves of a whole.

Above is a page from 1986’s The Dark Knight Returns. You can see just how much trust Frank placed in his colourist, Lynn Varley, to finish his work. As you can see, some of those panels aren’t even THERE in the original inks. Panel 6 is just an empty box. 

This approach has been proven to work very well, but the problem is it places the burden of the image’s success or failure squarely on the colourist’s shoulders. And if the colourist and Frank aren’t on the same page, we end up with terrible covers that are the laughing stock of the whole internet.

It’s funny- even Lynn Varley could screw up colouring for Frank. Two years after their critically acclaimed work 300, they made their most widely panned book of all.

Lynn’s computer colouring on Dark Knight Strikes Again has all the invention and nuance of her colouring on Frank’s earlier work. However, her experimental digital art just isn’t a good fit for Frank’s traditional, brusque inkwork. The artwork in the book suffered a generally poor reception from fans and critics alike.

I took a pass at colouring DK2, too. I include this not to throw shade on Lynn’s work, or to say that I’m a better colourist (I’m not), but just to support my claim that there’s nothing wrong with Frank’s pencils and inks in even the book that was generally regarded to be his worst. His lines have character and energy and do everything they need to do to tell the story, and with the right treatment would have looked pretty great.

We can apply the same lessons to Frank’s most recent work. I’d read a whole comic that looked like either of the recoloured images below.

DC liked my stuff, but they’re happy with the guy they already have colouring Frank’s work, and so my experiment has to run its course. Still, I want to believe that there’s something in here that we can all learn from.

It’s important to pick the right team, and to utilise a stylistic approach that’s harmonious with what the rest of the group are doing. If you don’t, you might just end up with something terrible even though you worked your butt off. As we’ve seen, it can even happen to an exceptional talent like Frank. That’s a scary thought.

This is incredible and really proves that a hyper rendered color style doesn't work with everything

My life in a box.

Welcome! This is one of my many attempts at blogging. I’ve always loved writing but somehow have always fallen out of it or gotten discouraged  when I get no readers. This time, however, I am determined to continue even without readership. I believe writing is my last hope at recovering my sanity in this chaotic universe. Someone once said to me if you want to feel time, write it. And my poetry teacher always told me to write what I know. As an artist, I have always had a yearning and an urge to share my life. I thrive in open spaces. I flourish and shine where there are no secrets, no shadows, no hiding. And I, like most human beings suffer in silence. So as my very first blogpost in my journey towards recovery, I think it is important that I gather enough courage to be vulnerable and raw and open with the world. I’m constantly reminded of the risks of making my life so accessible for everyone. But everything is a double edged sword and while there are risks to being open, there are also benefits, primarily this huge freedom that comes with sharing everything with everyone.

I, like everyone else is plagued with demons. But these demons thrive in silence and secrets and coveting. They have prevented my art career from flourishing and prevented me from accomplishing a lot of my dreams. It would be the understatement of the year to say that these past few years have been a hellish crucible for me.

I’ve been able to recover enough mental health to gain some clarity and come up with a plan to rid myself of these demons. Part of that plan includes establishing my identity as more than just my issues and to do that I have to satisfy my need to share my experiences through writing, through collaboration and uncensored art expression (within the realms of political correctness) via this platform.

I hope you all can enjoy some of the things I will share here and I hope that this blog can be a place of growth for all journeys that lead to it.

Stay true and beautiful as you have always been.

Love,

Crystal

:)

I’ve had people insist that I used 3d an photos, despite my assertion that I haven’t. You can see the thread here http://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/2ag3ku/this_is_a_painting_iron_man_by_ryan_lang/ But this isn’t for them. This is for people that like to see the process of an illustration. I tried to break it down, but if there are any questions, please ask. I have no problem with artists using photos or 3d in their digital work, so when I say I didn’t use photos or 3d for this image, it was that I wanted to see what I could accomplish on my own (with a couple of filters at the end). And if after this process post people still refuse to believe that I didn’t use photos or 3d….. I will take that as a compliment.

This is incredible!