How do you color?

[kokoroinc]

I'm wondering what methods other artists here use to color. I'm not very tech savvy so I don't have a clue about digital methods. I very rusty at it, but I like watercolors with pen and ink.
Recently, to create black and white comic art, I've been using india ink, sharpies and grey artist's markers. The markers are really giving me the subtle greys I've been going for. I'll have some stuff up in a bit.

[cn3wton]

I generaly use pencil. I have 144 copic sketch markers that I use for color. Haven't really done any digital stuff recently, but I have a tablet and want to get back into it. I used to use GIMP (free program).

[Shadow Major]

I used to shade my drawings, and in fact I still do, it's one of my preferred methods, but I also like using watercolour to colour my drawings. I find it better than using coloured pencils because it doesn't leave those tiny white spaces like most colouring pencils do. I do however used coloured pencils after doing watercolour to add final touches, like more shadow in an area, etc.

[PJCzar]

I do mostly cell shading in my digital work. Its similar to paint by numbers you just have to be the one deciding the borders. Then I would to another layer on top that's lighting effects, which is basically cell shading again but more blurred and with out defined borders. For physical mediums I don't usually color, but do shade, mostly crosshatching.

[Caliber Mengsk]

I tend to use photoshop and cellshade. I also use the layered method (solid color with a layer above for shadows). Instead of rastered, I tend to use the pen tool as it gets really good curves and such, plus then if I need to distort it, it can be easier to work with. I also think it works with flash if I ever need it to.

Sometimes I use softshading by using different brushes, dodge/burn tool, etc. It can get great results, but isn't very alterable.

My Cell Shading:
fc09.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/328/2/b/Fanart__Arithus_of_Rona_by_Caliber_Mengsk.png

My Smooth Shading:
fc04.deviantart.net/fs47/f/2009/233/4/d/Terratoss___Star_Craft_Fan_Art_by_Caliber_Mengsk.png

[kokoroinc]

I'm thinking for now that I'm going to do black and white comics, I have a cool grey and a brownish grey artist marker. I'm going to use pen/ink with watercolors for special pictures. That one coloring video by Mark gave me many pointers.

[dvandom]

I start with Prismacolor markers, and then use Prismacolor pencils for shading sometimes. I use a white gel pen to clean up any places where I went outside the lines.

---Dave

[kokoroinc]

Gel pen, good idea. White out is too messy.

[cn3wton]

Ive had good luck with white poster board markers for highlighting/covering stray marks. But it does take a few coats for covering dark colors. I will have to try out a white gel pen at some point.

[kokoroinc]

I'm considering just creating grey tones in photoshop. I love watercolors and I may do large projects with watercolor/pen-ink mixes. I'm not much of a fan of digital coloring for my stuff.

[leucome]

I am not really traditional media guy .. i began to do artistic things in 3d for game mod first. So when i wished to make drawing i tried some traditianal way and .. finally i went back to my comp .. lol
To color ,digital methods, i use cell shading over the base color and an other layer of white for highlight (I done it with photoshop maga studio and gimp)

Base color
I usualy paint inside a selection so I make my drawing with closed line select expand selection and paint inside . (i expand selection to be sure that color overlap line and avoid white hole) I use a brush with low opacity when i want to do something like watercolor. Sometime i just paint bucket or fill with a gradient .


Cell
I usualy create a other layer and i draw the outline off cell and after i select and or paint bucket .. Finaly i hide the layer i created with the cell outline and just kepp the painted cell. Often my cell are black and i change the opacity of the layer so i can adjust darkness and also keep the detail or variation of the base color layer.

Highlight
I paint in white with brush or with cell ..


There one that is cell over base color done with gradient for character and background i used a brush for tree . I also used a messy noisy transparant cloud over gradient to get it look more natural but it's just my own taste. And this one is done with Manga studio.

Attachments:

[kokoroinc]

Nice, my brother (my writer) likes my first page with the artist markers, but I don't like how it covers so unevenly. I prefer an organic look with my inking, and I may use thin brushes and ink, but I'm going to learn digital black and grey tones. I'm still a watercolor artist, so I'm going to have some color pics for my comic in watercolor. I don't think I like digital color. Only the black and grey stuff.

[cn3wton]

Artist markers cover unevenly (streaky) when you do not color fast enough, do not use the correct paper, or do not saturate the right paper with enough ink. Its difficult to get used to them, but when you do the amount of streaking decreases by quite a bit.

[Shadow Major]

That's why I prefer watercolour most of the time. You can keep that same tone without getting any "streaks", and it's pretty easy to paint in shady bits as well.

[kokoroinc]

Thanks Shadow Major. I'm thinking that I'll go with your recommendation. I just bought several shades of grey prismacolors, which give a gritty feel to everything. I attempted to digitally do the grey tones, but it's kind of a pain for me. I don't like spending countless hours going over every little detail in photoshop.
I grew up taking private watercolor courses so I'm very familiar with that media.