A Pro’s Guide to Digital Comic Book Coloring

Learn the entire process start to finish in Photoshop. Coloring is so much more than just staying inside the lines.

Created by: Kurt Michael Russell
Professional colorist & art instructor

What Will I Learn?

• Learn everything from the very basics of layering to finishing pages with special effects.
• Understand color theory as it applies to comic art.
• Master the art of storytelling as you learn about plane separation, strategic rendering, and the importance of value and contrast in your pages.
• Learn effective techniques for adding color to line art in different styles from traditional lasso "cut and grad" style and more.
• Learn which layer modes work best for different effects.
• Learn tips on portfolio building, finding work as a colorist, and collaborating with other creators.
• Save time with tons of tips, tricks, and shortcuts that are critical to working in production of comic art.
• Students will be more confident in their coloring abilities and have a solid understanding of what color in comics really is.
• Students will understand how pro colorists think about color in comics and sequential art.

Requirements

• Photoshop is used throughout this course. These techniques can generally be applied to other apps such as Clip Studio in most cases.
• Graphics tablet (strongly recommended). Coloring is possible with a mouse, but it's harder.
• The provided Tool Presets for brushes, lasso and bucket settings require Photoshop CS6 or higher, but I also provide the manual settings if you use an older version of Photoshop. There are no presets for older versions or other applications.
• Be ready to learn a lot!

Target audience

• Beginner comic colorists looking to learn the entire process from start to finish all in one place..
• Students looking to break into comics as a colorist.
• Students looking to understand why storytelling is the most important thing in comic coloring.
• Anyone who thinks that colorists just need to add color, light, and shadow to the line art.
• Students who want to learn a professional's workflow.