Excalibur #6 cover - recoloured

[Ianvincible]

Hi Alan,

The cover of the above comic has bugged me since I first picked it up 24 years ago as everyone's body parts are all the wrong colour. I'm no colourist but I've finally taken it upon myself to see if I could colour it correctly. Please can you let me know if I got it right? I still don't know if that leg at the front is meggan's! Many thanks in advance,

Ian Nicholson

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/170/f/e/excalibur__6_recolour_by_ianvincible-d5421rk.jpg

[Ianvincible]

Does anyone else have any feedback? I really am confused about that leg in the foreground!

[Matt Platis]

I think you are right. The biggest clue to me is the the fishnet stockings which "evil" Meggan wore in Inferno. Good job on the coloring.

[Raj]

I think it's Kitty phasing through Meggan.

[Ianvincible]

That's what I thought at first, but the material seems too shiny for it to be her...

[Alan Davis]

Hi Ian
First I must say you have my admiration and respect for having the courage to actually put thought/comment into action. I’ve tried to start a debate on the Forum about comic colouring in the past but failed to get any serious or intelligent reaction. The main obstacle to discussion about any aspect of illustration is, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words (at the very least). The best way, perhaps the ONLY way, to describe what you envisage is to do it.
Ian your colour job is undoubtedly far superior to the original and pretty close to how I imagined it when I drew the page. I usually have at least a rough idea of how I’d colour the page myself as part of the layout process. There are only three tiny areas where I’d disagree with your colour choices. Left of Nightcrawler’s face—which would be CB’s arm. In between Rachel’s breast and Nightcrawler’s arm—Which would be Kitty’s back/shoulder. Between the top of Kitty’s hair and Meggan’s cheek—which would be Meggan’s hair. The middle one is a perfect example of trying to position the figures so similar costume colours don’t touch/overlap.
This was a complex image that needed intelligent handling to avoid confusion. If I was drawing it today I’d most likely add a lot more shadow to better define the form and neutralise the possibility for error. Since I’ve said I usually have an idea of how the image should be coloured as I pencil it I’ve added a rough indication, over your corrected colour, to show how I’d light/model the image to focus on faces and hands (expression) and add form/recession to the figures. I tend to go with a foreground light-source unless there is a good dramatic reason to do otherwise. http://www.alandavis-comicart.com/Excalibur6.html
The sad truth is, despite how uninspired the colour was on the published version of this cover, I could list many others I consider as bad or worse (in a multitude of different ways)— but even this cover was made to look worse here... http://www.alandavis-comicart.com/images/ZMarvel3.jpg ... You can see why any comic illustrator needs to have a considerable degree of optimism (or stupidity) in order to continue hoping everything could be right next time.
On the positive side. I hope you enjoyed the process for its own end, Ian. I try to encourage anyone who will listen that everyone can learn to draw, ink, colour or paint and its tremendously rewarding. Patience and perseverance is all that’s required... and, just to prove my point, a contribution from my two and a half year old granddaughter. After spending half an hour at her desk with stickers and plasticine she moved onto drawing and entirely on her own initiative produced two small sketches she handed to me saying. ‘I drawed these for you granddad. Is Spiderman and Batman. Spiderman is jumping.’ http://www.alandavis-comicart.com/Spide ... atman.html
All the best

Alan

[Ianvincible]

Hi Alan,

I'd just like to say thank you for taking the time to give me such an in-depth and considered reply. As one of my personal comic book heroes it means a lot to hear your feedback and suggestions. The tips on lighting were extremely helpful and I'll definitely bear this in mind in colouring work in future! Your additions definitely make the image 'pop' more. I really enjoyed the process simply for it's own sake, as someone who has stuck mainly to pencilling in the past it was nice to try and flex my muscles in that area a bit more.

Thanks also for your kind words and I'm glad I managed to (almost) do it the justice it deserved. I'm now intrigued as to which are the covers that you mentioned are your LEAST favourite colour-wise. They must be pretty bad!

And finally, my drawings used to be exactly the same as your grand-daughter, it's all just about how much time you spend practicing and how much you love what you're doing. I hope you're giving her lots of encourageent, Thanks so much for sharing, think you'd better watch your back or she'll be after your job!

Cheers

Ian

[Ilke]

A colorist at Comic Images gave it the ol' college try back in 1989 for the Excalibur trading card set, using the published cover colors as reference...

http://www.comiccollectorlive.com/LiveD ... 5b0a5e5511