Intro

Coloring comics can be a long, daunting process. Originally, I wanted to put my best effort into every panel for a comic. However, that approach made me burn out quickly.

Once, someone told me that comic artists typically draw at 30% full power for comics so that they can draw many pictures without exhausting themselves.

Therefore, I now try to simplify my process and drawings as much as possible to make coloring faster. I'm still trying to find that happy medium. This tutorial covers what I use to color in my comics.

Color Select

When coloring a comic, you're going to be creating the same character over and over again, which means you'll be using the same colors many times over. The first step, then, is to pre-select which colors you will use for your characters.

I typically try to keep my color count to 6 colors or less per character for the initial concept. I usually decide on full outfit colors later. Of course, there's no problem with doing more! Just remember that the more colors you have the longer it will take to color.

Color Pre-sets

After choosing your colors, you can then save them for easy access in a color preset. You can find color presets by clicking on the third tab above the color wheel.

Clicking on the long bar with up/down arrows will open up all of your current color presets.

Select the wrench icon next to the bar in order to bring up the settings window.

You can then add new settings. You can also duplicate a set that you like but want to tweak.

It will then ask you to name your color set. If one character has many colors, you may want to name the set the name of the character. However, since my characters have very few colors and I want to put multiple character colors into one set, I'm going to name the set an abbreviation for the series.

You can then use the eyedropper tool to select character colors. Add them to the pallet by selecting the icon to the left of the trashcan.

I like to put a space between character colors so I can easily see where one character color pallet ends and a new one begins. To do this, I select the most left color in the pallet, then the empty grid, and then add color.

With a pallet of three characters, my preset pallet looks like this:

By now, I've already added pants, backpack, and shoe colors for the first character in the pallet. However, these are temporary colors. If the characters change outfits in future episodes, I can add or subtract colors. For this reason, it helps to add your initial colors first and have the extra colors grouped together in each character area.

Layers and Loading

I work in a lot of layers, so I've found that sometimes the program has trouble loading if I make all the panels in one file. To work around this, I sketch in my web-comic file then color the line-art and colors in a separate file. When I finish, I merge the layers and put them in my comic file. I make a sub-folder of panels and number the panels in the order in which they appear. This allows me to move them easily if I decide to rearrange anything due to text layout.

Typically, I keep separate folders for sound effects (sfx), text, the title, and the panels.

Coloring Line-art

Prep for coloring begins on how you arrange your layers for line-art. I personally make sure to connect all my lines so that I can use the paint-bucket tool for base coloring.

Because I use the paint-bucket tool, I keep small details, such as the character's face, in a separate layer. I turn off visibility for this layer in the initial coloring phase.

Now I'm going to skip ahead a moment. I usually add color to my lines last, but you could do this in the beginning as well. Or you can choose to skip this step entirely.

I copy my line folder, merge the layers, and then command-select the layer. You can also select Layer -> Selection from Layer -> Create Selection to do this as well. This will highlight your selection.

I then use the soft airbrush to color over the lines and change the color for certain parts.

Here, I've changed the color of the lines around the character's skin and hair to an orange:

I usually don't try to be too precise with this, especially if it's not an important moment in the comic. Likely, people will not spend too much time looking at this picture as they scroll through the comic.

Base Coloring

This is where you add the colors that you have saved in your presets, as well as color-in any other objects that may be in the drawing.

I use the paint-bucket to fill in my base colors. For each color, I make a different layer. Here, I've made a separate layer for the skin, hair, and jacket.

After this step, I can return visibility to the face layer.

Shading

To add shading, I command-select one of my base color layers and create a new layer above it. Again, this can also by achieved by select Layer -> Selection from Layer -> Create Selection.

For the hair in most of my drawings, I add a second color by command select and then using the soft air brush to add the new color.

For things such as the skin, after making the layer selection, I then pick my shadow color. I draw lines where I want the shadows to be with this shadow color.

I can then easily add the shadows by using the paint-bucket to fill these selected spaces.

Because my character's eyes are messy and not closed off, I use the fill-in-mono pen setting from the marker's tab in order to color this part in.

This is also when you could add an optional blush with the airbrush tool.

Depending on how detailed you want to make a scene, you could also add shadows in this way to clothes. If you want to add some interesting textures or designs, you can create a layer mask in a similar way. Simply command-select (Layer -> Selection from Layer -> Create Selection) the color layer for the outfit. Then drag your pattern or texture onto the canvas. This will automatically create a layer mask!

You can then adjust opacity of the layer so you'll have the texture in your pre-selected color.

Backgrounds and Panel Borders

If you are working in a single file, I would suggest making your borders first and creating a mask from inside the selection before drawing and coloring. However, being that I am making my panels in a separate file, I add my borders near the end of my drawing.

If I'm hand-drawing a background, I usually go for a sketchy style, for which I use a pen and watercolor brush. I will do this before creating a border.

When I am finished with a drawing, I add the border with the rectangle tool in a new layer above everything else.

I then take the magic-wand selection tool and make sure the selection is set to "refer edited layer only to select". Then I select inside of my square.

After this, I put all my layers, except the top layer, into a single folder. I copy and paste this folder and turn off visibility. This will ensure that everything I've drawn is contained inside the border.

I can then add an extra layer in-between the folder and border, keeping the selection, to add extra touches and shading if I haven't already done so.

Finally, I merge the copied folder with the border layer (any any extra touch-up layers). This creates a simple image layer that I can then copy, paste, and resize in my comic file.

If I'm adding a background with an image or pattern, I first add the border in similar fashion, but the folder of layers only contains the character. I then make a new folder under the character folder copy.

I can then draw in this new layer while keeping the selection. If I decide to add a pattern instead, I simply drop the pattern in to create the mask. You can then edit the pattern however you like.

Similarly, if adding a photo background, you can use the same magic-wand select feature to either mask or copy-paste your desired selection.

Closing

Using this method, it usually takes me 10-30 minutes to line-art and color a panel, depending on the complexity or detail of the image/ how many characters are in it.

You can then arrange panels, add sound effects, and add text in the main comic file.

Hope this was helpful and have fun making comics!

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