
Master advanced comic coloring by exploring rendering, light and shadow, and material techniques while reinforcing foundation in color theory to guide the reader's eye and storytelling.
Learn the instructor's journey from starting coloring in 2011 to teaching storytelling-focused color work on YouTube, with a portfolio including glitter bomb and Hack/Slash.
Break complex comic forms into cylinders and spheres to master lighting placement. Learn how light direction, distance, and 3-D space shape shading and specular highlights in rendering.
Discover subtractive rendering in digital comic coloring using a multiply solid color layer. Paint on the layer’s mask with black to shape shadows and refine shading.
Compare two digital coloring methods: a simple single-layer approach and a flexible multilayer workflow using adjustment layers and masks for nondestructive rendering.
Explore three planes of the face and how lighting from front, inside, or below reveals features like the eyebrows, nose, and jaw, using a flat planar head for practice.
Explore rendering metal and chrome with specular highlights and reflections, using color dodge and hard light on layered parts to simulate a top-right light source.
Learn to create glinting reflections and glares by building a black-filled layer set to screen, shaping light with a polygonal lasso, and layering bright yellows and whites in hard light.
Learn to choose base colors and adjust hue, saturation, and value to create believable light and shadow. Compare correct and incorrect methods using multiply layers to simulate colored light.
Learn to design minimal palettes by limiting colors, tuning saturation, and using color wheel relationships and complementary schemes to create cohesive comic pages.
Explore how color psychology guides advanced digital comic coloring, mapping hues from yellow to blue to red to green with the color wheel, mood, symbolism, and storytelling impact.
Explore how value and contrast, along with color, drive storytelling in comics by using lighting, hue, and saturation to guide the reader's eye across panels.
Apply nonrealistic lighting and selective color to serve the story, guiding the reader's eye and creating a strong focal point over strict realism.
Master multiply mode for fast shadows using bright colors, unify your palette, and apply subtractive rendering with selections and adjustment layers.
Explore overlay mode to quickly add warmth or coolness and unify a color palette across a page. Use regular or overlay layers, plus masking, for precise, flexible color adjustments.
Apply solid color adjustment layers to selectively affect image areas using masks. Learn to isolate the background from line art, adjust opacity, and explore blend modes for non-destructive edits.
Master a new method for cleaning up line art with levels, hue/saturation, and the dodge and burn tools to remove noise and protect tones.
Boost colors selectively with vibrance rather than hue/saturation to avoid oversaturating already vivid areas. Use color look up presets and gradient maps, masked and fine-tuned, to shape mood and tones.
Apply final color correction with top-layer adjustments to tune levels and balance. Use solid color layers in color mode with low opacity and masks to protect inks and panel areas.
Pick up practical guidance on desktop hardware for digital coloring, emphasizing abundant RAM and SSD storage. Learn that Photoshop uses the graphics card but a high-end GPU isn't necessary.
learn how to break in as a colorist through networking and indie projects. explore typical pay ranges, back-in deals, flatters, turnaround times, and submission tips.
Advanced Digital Comic Coloring Concepts & Techniques is the follow-up to my course "A Pro's Guide to Comic Book Coloring." This course will teach you new skills and further expand on your knowledge of sequential comic book coloring in Photoshop, and is not designed for beginners to coloring.
My name is K. Michael Russell, and I've been published in over 70 comics as a colorist for companies like DC Comics, Image Comics, IDW, Top Cow, Oni Press, and more. I've taught thousands of students worldwide about how to think as a colorist. Coloring can be a fun hobby, a part-time side hustle, or even a career. It all depends on the work you put in.
This course covers a wealth a material on a variety of subjects with lots of practical examples. "There are as many ways to color as there are colorists," a colorist friend of mine said recently. Here, I'll show you a few different methods for layering, lighting and shading techniques, how to color different surfaces like glass, metal, hair, and skin.
I'll cover some of the quirks of color theory and color relativity and explain why color can be so scary! I'll teach you how to take advantage of Photoshop's adjustment layers, masks, and color modes to get a great final product.
Enroll, and you’ll gain instant access to the entire course. Each lesson is easy to follow, step by step, and in real-time. There are 1000's of tutorials out there, but most show different methods that aren't related. These lessons build on each other - a real coloring curriculum and the most comprehensive available anywhere.
Here’s what you get!
You’ll get access to over six hours of real-time, easy-to-follow video lessons on a wide variety of topics.
The course starts with going over a few different layering and rendering techniques. There are a lot of ways to color in Photoshop.
You'll learn about how to think in three dimensions instead of just two! I'll cover my techniques for coloring a variety of surfaces and special effects techniques.
We'll go in-depth on choosing colors, minimal palettes, color blending, and color psychology.
The basics of color theory are covered along with instructions for overcoming challenges unique to color in comics.
We'll cover more of the most important aspect of coloring - storytelling... along with lessons on why realism can be a bad thing!
I'll teach you my thought process on matching coloring styles with line art styles as well as more details on blending modes.
We'll go through rendering with adjustment layers - a new technique for this course, RGB vs CMYK, and color corrections.
I'll provide tips on getting faster and teach you lots of shortcuts and things that will save you time - which is crucial in a production environment like comics.
I'll also go over my thoughts on hardware and software, and industry FAQ on rates and professional expectations.
What else will you get?
Lifetime access to course materials
A deeper understanding of sequential coloring.
Downloadable Photoshop Tool Presets (CS6+ required), Photoshop Actions
A selection of professionally-drawn line art from some penciller friends of mine and projects I've worked on.
A big collection of pre-flatted pages from actual projects.
Full-issue breakdowns where I'll explain my thought process on coloring a project.
All of this... right here in one place. So stop wandering around the internet trying to figure this stuff out on your own! I hope to see you inside! :)
KMR
NOTE: This course is not a beginner course. If you do not have some familiarity with Photoshop tools and coloring basics, please check out my other coloring course - "A Pro's Guide to Digital Comic Book Coloring."