2000 AD Online Forum

Hi all i'm new to this site and was wondering if anyone could direct me to where i can request some pages for a colourist submission?? thank you

My understanding is that they are not looking for colourists or letterers as they have these angles boxed off and would tend to ask around if they needed to recruit someone. It doesn't say so on the submissions page (as it focus on what they are looking for - writers and artists) but I seem to recall it has been dealt with in this section.

Your best bet is to show off your colouring samples (here and on DA) and work with artists looking for this and get your name/work out there. Then perhaps have a word with Tharg at a convention and see how the land lies.

Quote from: Emperor on 21 July, 2010, 03:17:03 PM
Your best bet is to show off your colouring samples (here and on DA) and work with artists looking for this and get your name/work out there. Then perhaps have a word with Tharg at a convention and see how the land lies.

A great many colourists start off by 'flatting' for other colourists, and it's entirely possible to make money doing it. Flatting jobs appear on Digital Webbing's Paid Work (http://www.digitalwebbing.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=101) forum, and in Gutterzombie's (http://www.dave-co.com/gutterzombie/) Work for Hire section. Prove yourself to be a reliable, capable flatter and you may well find yourself invited to help out with full colours, or even being recommended for work by the colourists you flat for.

Cheers!

Jim

I thought he was asking for someone to colour for him personally - but those forums look interesting...

Jim, at the risk of sounding like a complete luddite (again), what's flatting exactly?

Quote from: mygrimmbrother on 21 July, 2010, 05:36:34 PM
what's flatting exactly?

Laying down the flat colours, filling it all in - and then the colourist proper shades it up and drops it out and freaks about with it. Assembly-line style.

thank you all for the advice, it's much appreciated, i do acctually have a deviant art so i will show you all some of my clouoring work soon, made a couple a couple of contacts there allready with offers to colour pin ups for some american comics but they are only one off gigs, thank you for the links to those sites i will have a look in to them right now.

Oh and there is some discussion on colouring people's attempts at the sample scripts:
http://www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,28767.0.html

Plus PJ has made some of his actual Dredd art available to colour:
http://www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,25749.0.html

Which are about as close as you'll get to what you are looking for it, it is just that I don't think they are looking for colouring submissions. However, if you did a spectacular job and/or got into a solid partnership with an artist and/or got in via being an artist...

Looking forward to seeing your samples.

Finally, general colouring discussion:
http://www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,25751.0.html

awesome thanks for those links emporor, they will come in useful for sure, here are a couple of samples i have at the moment.The first is all my own work from line art to colours, the second is drawn by my good friend who also want's me to colour his book eventually, and the third is drawn by another friend who works for capstone comics.

(hope these image codes work lol)

lol aaaaaaaaand i failed with the images lol, let's try again...

lol ok i suck, here are just the links to the pictures in my deviantART, surely i can't mess that up lol

http://psychoslaughterman.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2tdcrc (http://psychoslaughterman.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2tdcrc)
http://psychoslaughterman.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2t8nca (http://psychoslaughterman.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2t8nca)
http://psychoslaughterman.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2o0a30 (http://psychoslaughterman.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2o0a30)

Very good - you are working in a tonne of detail (the background to the Freddie Kruger image for example). I look forward to seeing more.

Quote from: CrazyFoxMachine on 21 July, 2010, 06:38:01 PM

Quote from: mygrimmbrother on 21 July, 2010, 05:36:34 PM
what's flatting exactly?

Laying down the flat colours, filling it all in - and then the colourist proper shades it up and drops it out and freaks about with it. Assembly-line style.

Cheers CFM - makes sense really doesn't it?!

I've just been using the Bpelt Multifill and Flatten photoshop plugins to do my flatting. It's not a perfect solution (the resulting flats still need a fair bit of correcting) and it won't work with all art styles, but overall the plugins are an absolute lifesaver!

Quote from: radiator on 22 July, 2010, 12:32:50 PM
I've just been using the Bpelt Multifill and Flatten photoshop plugins to do my flatting. It's not a perfect solution (the resulting flats still need a fair bit of correcting) and it won't work with all art styles, but overall the plugins are an absolute lifesaver!

I tried that on the sample Dredd pages of PJ's that Emperor linked to upthread, and I couldn't find a setting that gave useable results -- I could have manually flatted the pages with the Lasso tool in the time it took me to clean up the BPelt results.

That said, you have a very clean, graphical style, Radiator, so I can see it working a lot better on your stuff.

Cheers!

Jim

I just experimented with different settings until I found a combination that worked.

I'd imagine its not that useful for stuff with a lot of crosshatching and delicate brushwork, but works great for me.

You use lasso tool for flatting? Really? I just go straight in with the brush. Generally I find the lasso tool fiddly and annoying - I use the pen tool for any selections I need.

Quote from: radiator on 22 July, 2010, 12:52:24 PM
You use lasso tool for flatting? Really? I just go straight in with the brush. Generally I find the lasso tool fiddly and annoying - I use the pen tool for any selections I need.

I toyed with the idea of trying to make money from flatting to top my lettering income, which had dried up woefully at the start of the year.

All pro colourists say use the Lasso (with anti-aliasing off) and CMD-Backspace to fill with the FG colour. A great many insist that their flats are done by this method. If you start with the backmost object in a panel and work forwards, it's a fairly efficient process, but I could never get fast enough to make it pay.

Cheers!

Jim

It'd be much simpler to use the pen tool - it's very easy to make mistakes with the lasso - very frustrating when you're trying to trace around a large, complex object. The pen tool is no slower to use, but crucially paths are editable so allows for a far, far greater control - you don't have to redo the whole thing if you make a mistake.

Quote from: radiator on 22 July, 2010, 01:07:10 PM
It'd be much simpler to use the pen tool

Dave McCaig (and a lot of other colourists) says otherwise. If you hold down the ALT key when using the regular lasso, it turns into the polygon lasso, except that you can't close the selection with a double-click -- when you release the ALT key, the selection automatically closes itself.

I have no doubt your way works for you -- TBH, left to my own devices, I'd do flatting in Illustrator for much the same reasons that you outline -- but I was looking into doing this for the production-line method that US comics use, and if there's a way the pros want their flats doing, then seemed like the sensible thing to do...

Cheers!

Jim

Quote
Very good - you are working in a tonne of detail (the background to the Freddie Kruger image for example). I look forward to seeing more.

Thank you very much, yeah i try to add asmuch detail as possible, got a chucky drawing i'm sfinishing up that has the most detail i've ever done. As for the flatting i usually use the pen and fill tool for my flatting, i just trace around the edge of a section with the pen tool and then fill it in with the paint bucket, if you use this way never use the brush tool to do the outline cause it has a feathered edge and creates a gap on between the line and the paint bucket, the laso tool is useful for the flatting too though.