Color Flatting
So I mentioned that I'm on Twitter now.. interestingly enough, I only know about 10 of the people I follow. The rest (besides a couple of random celebrities) are art/comics industry professionals. Robert Kirkman (writer for "Invincible"), for example, is on there. So is Jim Lee (one of my favorite . And a lot of these people know each other, so they post each others' tips and other "breaking into comics" advice for us newbies. In real-time - very cool. :D
Joe Keatinge (the marketing guy at Image), last weekend, posted a bunch of advice, and I found some of it very interesting. Some of his suggestions - If you want to write superheroes, read Joseph Campbell's Hero of A Thousand Faces. [I'd heard of this book and author from other resources, but never read it. But I found it for cheap on Amazon, and it's in the mail.] If you want to write romance, get your heart broken. If you want to draw, find out who inspired the people whose work you like, and take a fine art class. Your comics will start out pretty bad, just keep going.
On getting your foot in the door, he said to take any crap job that you can. Recommended: become a color flatter.
I wasn't familiar with that position (though it's plain enough what they do), so I followed his links and did a little research. Here's the link he gave, and here's that poster's tutorial page. (The one called "Comic Book Flatting Tutorial" is what I'm pointing to, but he has some other helpful and interesting articles, too.) Apparently flatting pays $10-15 a page, generally, and only requires a lasso, a paint bucket, and a lot of patience.
Here's an interesting tool that I came across.. I did a little poking around to see what the industry thought of it, and it looks like people agree that it doesn't replace an actual person doing the flatting. Most people said that it takes as much time, if not more, to fix the little things this tool leaves as to just flat by hand, and it particularly doesn't work with sketchy lineart. I say, why not figure out what way works best for you and the style of lineart you're working with, and use that in your flatting? Your colorist probably doesn't care how you do the flatting, as long as you deliver what he needs and when he needs it.
Here are a couple of comic-making communities (Gutter Zombie and Digital Webbing) that I've been meaning to search through for tips.. I could also probably look there to see about getting flatting work. I'm new to this, and I haven't done much research beyond "what’s flatting, and how do you do it?" so I haven't done that part yet.
But the real question is.. if I'm spending 2-3 hours a night flatting someone else's work, I might get my foot in the door... but my story wouldn't get anywhere. So it comes down to the question - do I want to do my own work, or do I want to get into the comics industry? How serious am I about comics? Part of me wants to pursue it, just because I know I'm capable of it (and I could use the extra money), and part of me says I should be spending my time on Muse. I wonder if I could dip my foot in the pool without having to go all the way in?
Joe Keatinge (the marketing guy at Image), last weekend, posted a bunch of advice, and I found some of it very interesting. Some of his suggestions - If you want to write superheroes, read Joseph Campbell's Hero of A Thousand Faces. [I'd heard of this book and author from other resources, but never read it. But I found it for cheap on Amazon, and it's in the mail.] If you want to write romance, get your heart broken. If you want to draw, find out who inspired the people whose work you like, and take a fine art class. Your comics will start out pretty bad, just keep going.
On getting your foot in the door, he said to take any crap job that you can. Recommended: become a color flatter.
I wasn't familiar with that position (though it's plain enough what they do), so I followed his links and did a little research. Here's the link he gave, and here's that poster's tutorial page. (The one called "Comic Book Flatting Tutorial" is what I'm pointing to, but he has some other helpful and interesting articles, too.) Apparently flatting pays $10-15 a page, generally, and only requires a lasso, a paint bucket, and a lot of patience.
Here's an interesting tool that I came across.. I did a little poking around to see what the industry thought of it, and it looks like people agree that it doesn't replace an actual person doing the flatting. Most people said that it takes as much time, if not more, to fix the little things this tool leaves as to just flat by hand, and it particularly doesn't work with sketchy lineart. I say, why not figure out what way works best for you and the style of lineart you're working with, and use that in your flatting? Your colorist probably doesn't care how you do the flatting, as long as you deliver what he needs and when he needs it.
Here are a couple of comic-making communities (Gutter Zombie and Digital Webbing) that I've been meaning to search through for tips.. I could also probably look there to see about getting flatting work. I'm new to this, and I haven't done much research beyond "what’s flatting, and how do you do it?" so I haven't done that part yet.
But the real question is.. if I'm spending 2-3 hours a night flatting someone else's work, I might get my foot in the door... but my story wouldn't get anywhere. So it comes down to the question - do I want to do my own work, or do I want to get into the comics industry? How serious am I about comics? Part of me wants to pursue it, just because I know I'm capable of it (and I could use the extra money), and part of me says I should be spending my time on Muse. I wonder if I could dip my foot in the pool without having to go all the way in?