Oh, the Horror - 64 color palate

Back in May when I was coloring my mock EC cover, I decided I wanted to emulate the look of 1950's color as much as possible. I read up on the limited colors that were available at the time and googled to see if someone had made a photoshop palate of these (64) colors. On that day (Saturday, May 21st) I didn't find what I was looking for, so I decided it would be faster to make one myself. I took a half hour and used this chart as a guide. It worked out fine, but I found the colors a bit too vibrant and wanted to give it an older, yellowed look so I overlay-ed some yellow and was off to the races.

Well - a couple days later (Monday, May 23), I fired up twitter and did a double-take - everywhere I looked someone was retweeting Ed Piskor's post where he presents a 64 color photoshop palate, which he made the exact same way I had! It was very surreal.

His version was much tidier then mine and it's what I've been using since! Thanks for sharing Ed!

Inking struggles

These past couple weeks I've jumped into inking the two new stories I've been working on. Here is a list of my concerns so far:

1. Graphic Design - Within each panel and for the page overall. Keeping the shapes interesting, contrasting, and clear is a real tough battle. I've been experimenting in photoshop with the pencil tool, as it allows me to test out a whole bunch of different relationships between light and dark - also it's easier to work white over black.

2. The tools - I spent a good portion of one session struggling to get my tools working right. My ink had gone watery and I couldn't get a line out of my crow quill without dipping it in water constantly. When the tools don't feel right it's very difficult to concentrate on the lines I want to put down.

3. Vision - I kept leaping into panels without a solid vision of what I wanted them too look like. It's hard to be satisfied when you don't really know what you want.

4. Time - I've already spent hours on these pages and I can't help but feel anxious to see them finished. Also, working in the morning means I always have a deadline , so the ticking clock can stress me out.

5. Inking for color - I find it hard to know what too leave for the coloring stage and what needs to be present in the black and white art. I'd like to try a purely black and white comic soon - and see how I fair without the security blanket color provides.