Sometimes, when I make the effort, I practice coloring over different artists. Sometimes it’s just an image I love and I want to color it, and sometimes it looks like a fun challenge and a way to push myself a bit. This was both.
This illustration by Olivier Copiel is astounding. I’m always floored by his work and I knew it would be an interesting challenge. I usually have a very simple system I use when coloring. Flat colors, shadows, highlights, special effects/color holds. Pretty basic stuff. But on this, that wouldn’t really work without making the inks looks darker and harder, and I wanted to keep this very soft. Bright, but underwhelming, to let the grey wash shine through.
First, I laid down some basic flat colors, leaving the lower part of the drawing blank, knowing that the glow later on would fill that space. Then I put some atmospheric color over the image, since the values were already established, I just wanted to give it a sense of space. A warm version here would imply daytime, this cool green color gives it a sense of evening. The last two steps are to lightly put in some shadows (very faint), and highlights. I like how it’s understated and the color is secondary to the illustration. The glow from his fists should outshine the rest of the color. Overall, I’m pretty happy with this and I really had fun working on it.
#staticshock #dccomics #milestonecomics #oliviercopiel