I Hated To Color When I Was A Kid

The title says it all. I hated have crayolas in my hand and coloring pictures all throughout elementary school. I had even gotten poor grades on assignments that required coloring. I just didn't like it. The only art activity I tolerated during elementary school was sketching. We had a real good art teacher to think for that.

During middle school I doodled in on my class notes but avoided coloring like the plague.

This isn't adding up, right? It wasn't until high school that I got into graphic design class. And even then it was a bit afterward that I discovered using Photoshop to color. I was more interested in editing photos and making cool designs. Coloring wasn't taught within the class, but I completed assignments quickly, so my teacher allowed me to do research over elements that I was interested in.

I'm mostly self-taught in coloring. I found a tutorial during high school that gave me the basics, but I didn't really catch on for another year or so. My early comics on The Duck and works of art I did on the side look like cave paintings to me in comparison to what I can do now. I was able to fill in a portion with color but I lacked an effective way to shade. It took me way to long to color because I made separate line art and separate color for each element of picture. I didn't know how use the "multiply" blend option or "clipping masks" and I couldn't use levels effectively. This all started to change with pastel. I saw some of her coloring before and asked her how it was done. Instead of just telling me, she also sent me a picture she had colored in Photoshop document. I could see what techniques she had used and even reverse engineer into my own style. I still keep the pictures for reference.

Since then, I learned new techniques and gained more confidence. I even started coloring for free during the summer to hone my skills and became quite well known for it. There were several people that wanted me to color their comics for them, but I didn't feel like doing something that long term.

Look at me now. Not only am I coloring full comic, but I 'm also inking it as well (something I would never dream of doing in the past).  It is my goal to make it the best superhero comic on The Duck. And I can't wait to unveil it in two weeks. Even if all that will be seen will be the cover.

I have also stopped coloring people's line art for free because of the time consuming nature of school and inking and coloring a comic. I offer my services on Fiverr instead.

Project Status:
Pages 1-6: Complete
Page 7: In Coloring Phase
Page 8: Inked
Page 9: With Me
Pages 10 - 13: With RPG
Page 14: Drafted but not sent