#colorist for hire

[kirnet]

estherrrrr <3 (+amara)

[gouinisme]

wasted my talents by going into stem. they should hire me for lighting and set design. disregard the fact that i've got no film or art education whatsoever

[maggotwithanf]

i try not to talk about Day Job too much on here but like 999999999999% of Day Job is convincing my students/assorted newer comics colleagues that the art advice their high school teacher/business advice their parents gave them is Wrong

[soul-sparx]

i need to get, like, an art partner.

[avasdemon]

UPDATE || Thursday April 25th || 2024

--Current readers, click *here* for the update--

* NEW READERS || PATREON || TWITTER || INSTAGRAM *

A new store has been opened! The proceeds of which fund my new OFFICIALLY hired colorist @barbelzoa, please check it out!

[danielaeditsthings]

Put a finger down if you worked with a composer friend for several months to create a Bridgerton-inspired cover of "That Way." Then you hired musicians to play it for you. Then you spent another month doing research, asked several friends to help you translate, designed some 3D audio, and hired your colorist friend so your neurodivergent brain could "feel" the character's emotions more... And you did this all for an edit. Because you are insane and can't ever make anything simple..... Oh just me..... Damn.

This edit was created before S3 PT2. So it is Polin's story up until S3 PT1.

[colleendoran]

If you have Twitter, this nice person did a recap of my IneffableCon Zoom appearance.

One small caveat is I've done the majority of the color on the GN, but did hire help on the latter portions of the book. I do color design on those pages, hand it over to a colorist, then when it comes back - if I'm lucky - I don't have to do more than tweak it. If not lucky, 1-3 hours of repaints. So thanks to Sean Lee, Logan and Lisa Lubrera, and Daniel Junior, co-colorists.

Also, amazing lettering by Lois Buhalis. I'm doing the hand lettering and some of the medieval lettering, Lois is doing the heavy lifting. Looks AMAZEBALLS.

[attila-werther]

watching 2pm videos restored my hit points enough to where I started doing a more painted rendering style than I usually do without thinking about it, and now I have to keep it up for like. six more panels

okay. okay. we can do it. we can get this comic finished. we can! it's almost (starts to render the colors beyond flats and a single multiply layer) oh no

[jesncin]

Hi there!! I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what the process of being published was like for Lunar Boy? Were there any struggles you faced trying to get it seen? Any tips for others trying to get their work published? Thank you in advance and I love your work! :)

Hullo there! Sure! Unfortunately things have changed a lot since I pitched years ago so I don't know how replicable my publishing journey is nowadays. But I'm willing to share!

So! I always knew I wanted to write for kids, but in art school we were trained to be cape comic artists. Back then (if you can believe it), making middle grade comics was considered something that would sink your career. At that point in history, American comics was trying so hard to prove "we're not for kids!" that they left a chasm in the market for children's comics. Then Raina Telgemeier's bestselling books proved there was a hungry readership of kids and suddenly the trad pub industry is excitedly picking up middle grade graphic novel pitches (ironically, including cape comics).

I was studying my Masters in the US as this was all happening, and decided to use my time in the program to generate as many middle grade pitches as possible! The first one I made was Lunar Boy, but the story was so well received that it ended up being the one we pushed forward as a pitch and develop the most across classes. On Twitter there was this event: #DVPit, which is a pitching event for marginalized authors looking to seek editor interest on their pitches but also! To get agented. In its heyday (before Melon Husk ruined everything. This event is no longer on twidder sadly. Many pitching events have ceased to happen or are on hiatus from how unusable that platform is now) it was a fantastic event. I got agented on my 2nd try of the event, and it got the industry an early look at Lunar Boy and made them excited to see it out on submission.

My agent, Britt Siess, was extremely helpful with giving us feedback on how to refine our pitch. Not only did she give us story feedback, but I was surprised also by her comics feedback- that was more nuanced than I expected (little did I know that she's a huge comics nerd). She had connections to all the editors I was interested in pitching Lunar Boy to, and we were out on submissions right as we graduated with our Masters degree (during the start of the pandemic lmao).

I already had early editor interest in Lunar Boy which I think helped a lot with getting it picked up. I've been told that it helps to meet editors in person and get chummy with them before pitching to heighten your chances, but that wasn't really the case for me. I've never met my editor (Carolina Ortiz, I love her she's amazing) in person, but she did actually reach out to me long before we went out to pitch- on a Simu Liu tweet trend of all things lmao.

(I didn't end up looking like evil boy band members in pastel clothes in the final book, I went for cultural clothes instead which I think is the more bespoke choice haha) Carolina reached out to me from this tweet and we actually talked back and forth about Lunar Boy, refining the pitch. I felt like she understood the story despite asking for big changes. I don't think she'd do something like this anymore, but I really appreciated it at the time (I wasn't even agented yet). All the editors I met in person for events like Editor's Day at school liked my art (and would even hire me for colorist work and the like) but they weren't interested in Lunar Boy. This was reflected when we finally went on submissions too.

We got a lot of rejections, vague language like "we don't know how to edit this" or "we already have a book like this" (??? press X to doubt). Compounded with all my interactions with editors in person, I felt like I was "marketable" as an artist but not as a storyteller because our stories were so unapologetically QPOC- with culturally specific queer identities to an already underrepresented identity. The editors that were interested in Lunar Boy had personal connection to the story (they were either also from blended families or QPOC themselves). But hey, you only need one yes to get a book deal. We ended up with Carolina as our editor and she's been our rock and champion for this book since the beginning. We were out of submissions in just a week (which is really fast in the industry).

My big tip for getting into the trad pub graphic novel industry is to study the market. A lot of people mistaken publishing as a vessel or platform for their untold story, when really it's a business we compromise with. Pay attention to trends, book deals, shifts in the industry, read your peers' books, everything. Research is key with getting your foot in. Lunar Boy may look like an out-there book, but at its heart it's a story about culture shock, trying to fit in, along with family and friendship problems. In trad pub especially, locking in to sellable tropes and trends is key. Find clever ways to innovate and work within those limitations at the same time. Be open to feedback and changes. I know so many people are held back from getting book deals because they're too attached to their story. It helps not to be phased by rejection and or take things personally. I've been very desensitized to talking about books like a business, since that's what it took for someone like me to make it out there.

I hope that was helpful!

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Though I think Meghan first acknowledged her heritage publicly was in 2013, when there was a huge uproar in the Suits community when they cast Wendell Pierce to play Rachel Zane’s father. Meghan had to clarify to fans wasn’t clickbait casting. But yes, 2016 (more specifically, 2016-post relationship reveal) was when Meghan first really began to self-identify as a woman of color.

RTA, there was no reason for the unknown aspiring actress, Meghan Markle, to acknowledge her heritage publicly before 2013. She was a nobody to the general public, therefore no reason to issue a public statement. Even the 2013 Suits casting of Pierce/Markle was a nothingburger to the greater public, which didn’t watch, or care, about a middling show on a minor cable network. It was only when she forced the public acknowledgement of her relationship with Harry (the Love Shield statement) that her ethnicity came into greater public awareness.

But we only have to look at the numerous pics of her as a child - from both sides of her family, Markle and Ragland - to see that she was well aware, painfully aware imo, from childhood that she was a poc. She has stated this, too (comments about her hair, not fitting in at school, etc). And she clearly looked biracial as a child (still does, too, despite her massive cosmetic alterations to erase her African features). Imo, child Meghan was deeply jealous of her older half-sister Samantha’s youthful beauty and whiteness. I’m not buying Meghan’s revisionist claims that she didn’t see herself as a person of color until Harry and life in the UK. She’s in denial, or lying. She wanted to believe that she wasn’t seen as biracial in the US, but that simply wasn’t true. She aspired/aspires to be seen as white, thus the hair straightening, rhinoplasty, cosmetic dentistry, etc. Not to mention her joining a white sorority, when poc sororities were an option at NU, and exclusively dating and marrying white men. Or her intrepid PR quest to associate her “roots,” and therefore herself in public perception, with Mediterranean places such as Italy and Malta (since refuted). So…

What do you make of the rumors that Meghan is colorist or that Meghan herself is the racist royal?

Yes (again imho…“what do you make”), Meghan is definitely colorist. She was angry and insulted that the BRF and the UK even acknowledged/“saw” her biracialness. She wanted to be seen as white. Period. Like Diana and Kate. She was insulted that Charles enlisted the poc Episcopalian Bishop and hired the gospel choir for the wedding. (M had/has zero affiliation with the Episcopalian Church or with AA church rituals like gospel choirs.) She was insulted that QEII offered her personal poc equerry to be Meghan’s assistant, thus emphasizing her biracialness. She was insulted that the issue of race was ever attached to her at all, that is until the ra ce card proved to be a useful tool for her (Love Shield, Archie’s expedited Prince title, securitayyyy, etc). The racist royals are Meghan and Harry (a whole other can of worms).

(PS: Speaking of royal diversity, let’s not forget that Diana’s DNA, and therefore William’s, Harry’s, and G/C/L’s, includes Southeast Asian/Indian, and that Kate’s DNA, and therefore G/C/L’s, includes Jewish. js. And no, Queen Charlotte’s DNA, and therefore QEII, KC3, W, H, et al, didn’t include Moorish black. That also has been refuted. I haven’t included Archie and Lili here because I am not personally convinced yet of the DNA, if any, that they share with H and/or M. That remains to be revealed imo.)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Is it just me or has the card illustrations (specifically the groovy) been kinda bad lately? Like don't get me wrong most of the pre groovy are absolute bangers, but the groovies? Not so much. But lately there has been an obvious decrease in quality with anatomy, and even 😐 a whitewashing problem.

Take Lilia's dorm groovy for example— the piece is gorgeous, but whenever I zoom into his face the way they draw his face looks so off.

As for the whitewashing issue, I've noticed that Leona's beastly garb groovy had him very ashy looking (but some may argue that it's just the lighting casted on him)

Right now though the one that's been bothering me the most is the obvious whitwashing on Kalim's tsum groovy. We really can't argue that it's a lighting issue there, cause Jamil's firework card had a similar setting and he didn't look that light.

Personally, I think TWST’s Groovy illustrations have always been hit or miss since the beginning. I have similar issues with the faces in Lilia and Leona’s Dorm Uniform Groovies, and the anatomy seemed slightly off in a few others. I can’t find the original post anymore (I think OP didn’t tag it??), but I clearly recall an artist having spoken about how the pose in Epel’s initial Dorm Uniform art looked weird; they included drawings of how Epel’s spine and limbs looked vs how they should look to illustrate what they meant. Those are just a few examples of then and now though, and we have to keep in mind that if we include ALL available cards then the funky faces and weird posing/proportions only make up a very small percentage of what’s out there.

The more important issue at the moment is the coloring choices that were made for a few recent SSR event Groovies: Beastly Garb Leona and Tsumsted Kalim. They are pictured below with a few other card illustrations I pulled that have similar lighting (or as similar as I could find). You’ll notice (especially for Tsumsted Kalim’s Groovy) that the characters’ skin colors are much lighter than they should be.

Now I’ll be honest here 💦 I actually can’t tell (even when eyedropping the colors to compare; I don't even know if eyedropping is an accurate way to compare colors since the lighting and environment in every illustration is never EXACTLY the same) if Leona’s Beastly Garb Groovy is just the strong sunlight or if it has been whitewashed. I don’t have enough knowledge and/or experience with color theory and in real life to know for certain. However, as the Anon has said, that same argument cannot be made for the Scarabia duo. It’s particularly bad for Tsumsted Kalim because Yasmina Silk Jamil also had fireworks in the background, and his skin color is fine there. Sometimes artists purposefully use an altered color palate to achieve a different feeling in their pieces (for example, pastel colors for a soft, soothing look). I don’t think that was the case for Tsumsted Kalim because everything else in the Groovy art looks pretty true to color for the lighting (but again, I'm not an expert in coloring so I could be wrong). When taken in conjunction with Leona’s Beastly Garb… it could indicate a troubling pattern.

There’s been a lot of speculation going around for why this has happened, chief among that speculation being the TWST team has likely hired new staff and/or colorists (and Japan, being Japan, is pretty homogenous; it may be difficult to find artists with an understanding of how to color and shade darker skin tones). Again, these are just guesses circulating in the fandom. Nothing is confirmed, and nor does this excuse what has happened.

This has, very understandably, caused a lot of hurt and upset in the TWST fandom and community. So now the question is…

What can we do about it?

You can communicate your feelings to the TWST team! They have a form to collect thoughts and opinions from the playerbase, which can be accessed here.

PLEASE NOTE:

Be polite and professional. Nothing good comes out of anger, especially if the anger is directed at others; if you are rude and/or curse at the staff, they will be much less likely to hear you out.

Communicate in Japanese. The staff you are sending your complaint to are Japanese, and the game itself is Japanese (Beastly Garb Leona and Tsumsted Kalim are not yet out in the EN server, which is staffed by totally different people).

If you don’t know how to write in Japanese, this Twitter user has created polite templates to communicate our concerns with the whitewashing. (Their whole thread is great; please reference it if you need additional assistance!!) I would not recommend adding extra text, especially if you would be relying on a translation program to do so. Speaking in broken Japanese can be perceived as rude and will only detract from your message.

A similar situation to this occurred during the initial run of Fairy Gala; TWST had used “exotic” in its text, and after receiving an influx of feedback from the players, the devs went in and changed the dialogue to no longer use the term. It’s possible to make the change we want to see a reality if we respectfully make our thoughts known.

[ferronickel]

Hail, flatter! This one, who is a layperson of the arts and comixcraft, has a query for you:

So like, what is flatting?

I've seen your flats in Wifwulf, and I've read about the flats in Looking Glasses, and generally get that it results in an image with similarly coloured areas sharing the same false-colour.

But like, how is it then used? The final images seem to contain more colours and shading, so why not just go straight to this? Why do false colours get used instead of the real ones? How do you pick the colours and how many get used?

How come this is a thing that a whole other person can do separately? I guess that's because it's time consuming - so it saves time somehow?

Thank you! I come in the spirit of humility wishing to relieve my ignorance of your noble craft!

OHOHOHO!!! You've activated my trap card and now I get to ramble about comics craft! And in my area of professional expertise, too! Be prepared for a long post

I'm going to start with the last part of your question:

How come this is a thing that a whole other person can do separately? I guess that's because it's time consuming - so it saves time somehow?

So the thing about comics is that it is one of the most intensely time consuming mediums to create. One person can make comics on their own fairly easily, but it takes forever to produce. Consider that I've been working on Looking Glasses for 18-19 months and have drawn about 87 pages. Now, the western comics industry expects issues to be produced monthly, generally 24 pages in length. It's very difficult for a single person to work at this rate, so the labor of producing comics has been divided. Generally these jobs become:

Writer (writes the script)

Editor (edits the script)

Artist (draws the lineart)

Colorist (colors and renders the art)

Letterer (adds balloons, dialog, and sfx)

Flatter (sometimes 'color assistant' they take the art and prepare it for coloring)

This isn't comprehensive though, there are a bunch of other jobs, like designers and layout artists. Occasionally the artist job gets broken into Pencilers (who sketch the art) and Inkers (who ink the sketch). Basically, by splitting the work amongst a number of people you can produce comics much faster. Not all of these jobs are required, and creator-owed books might have artists do their own coloring and lettering, while big work-for-hire books might have twice as many people working so they can pump out a spider-man book every other week.

Okay, so why Flatters?

Flatting at it's most basic level is just coloring inside the lines. You take a black and white page of art, and you have to fill in every part of the page that will eventually be colored. It's a pretty time consuming task depending on how involved your lineart is.

Flatting a page of Looking Glasses doesn't take me all that long, usually less than a half hour, which is pretty quick. Looking Glasses pages tend to be... optimized for flatting though. There are only ever a few characters and there aren't a ton of background details.

You mentioned Wifwulf (created by my longtime friend and collaborator Dailen Ogden), here's one of it's pages:

Basically everything that's a different base color, (every tree, plant, bit of moss, character, etc.) needed to be picked out separately. Each page of Wifwulf took me a few hours to flat. If Dailen had been doing that themself, those hours would have really added up, but instead they could spend that time drawing and coloring. Now, that said, these pages have a lot of texture, so it's hard to see exactly what I did.

Here's an example from a comic I worked on early in my career. (Lineart by Patrick Custodio)

The writer for this comic loved to put in these incredibly complex crowd scenes, which is something the artist excelled at drawing. I was coloring and flatting at this point on the book, and before I could even start coloring properly, I would need to flat for like eight hours. (I have a much more efficient method these days) It was frustrating because I just wanted to work on the actually creative part, but the majority of my time was spent on something monotonous. As soon as I got the writer to hire a flatter for me, coloring a page would take me only one or two hours, not nine or ten.

So that's why flatters exist, mainly to ease the workload on colorists.

But like, how is it then used? The final images seem to contain more colours and shading, so why not just go straight to this?

Flatting serves a couple of purposes. It's main function, like I said above, is just coloring in the lines. After finishing your lineart it has to get colored in, so in a layer below the lines, you add colors.

The secondary function is preservation. I like to work in a way that is non-destructive, basically, at any point in the process I can restore an earlier version of the drawing if I make a mistake or don't like something. Flats are integral to this.

In digital art, there's this thing called anti-aliasing, where the edges of a line or shape have a drop off of pixel color or opacity. It makes the edges look smoother or blurrier. The three dots on the left are Anti-Aliased, while the one on the right is Aliased, there's no drop off, just hard pixels.

Anti-aliasing is fine until you need to change the color using the paint bucket, or select using the magic wand...

See how the anti-aliased art doesn't play well with these tools, but the aliased art does? So with something like Wifwulf, the final art is going to be full of texture that makes it impossible to select anything again once it's painted. By having a dedicated aliased flats layer under the rest of the artwork, you can always re-select any part of the image you want.

I always leave my flats layer alone, and do any detail work in layers above. For example when I was painting this, it really helped to be able to select just the titan so I could work on those paints without worrying about brushstrokes overlapping the rest of the characters.

One of the other things you can do with flats is quickly selecting certain elements. On most pages, I flat my panels, figures, and background elements separately. Later, with a single button press, I can select just the characters in the scene, or entire panels at a time, which makes things like shading a whole lot easier.

Why do false colours get used instead of the real ones?

If you're flatting for other people you often don't know what the final colors are going to be, so you just pick random ones. Garish colors can be helpful because it makes it obvious that they're not the final colors. Why don't I use the correct colors on my own pages when I'm flatting? Habit, mostly. It's also faster to grab random colors than to track down the correct ones. Sometimes two different things will have the same final color but I like to flat them with different colors so I can select them individually if I need to.

You can see the process a bit here. In my flats, Lancer's spade (eye? eyes? thing) is a different color from his tongue, even if they end up being the same white in the final image. This would help if I ever needed to select just his eyes for some reason. You can also see how I select his body fur color and then add details on top, like his colored fingers and the grey on his arm. Those elements have blurry anti-aliased edges, and it would be impossible to re-select them without flats.

How do you pick the colours and how many get used?

I use the default "additional color set" palette in clip studio and just work my way through it. I pick row and work my way down (for a change of pace I vary which row I start with). How many is mostly dependent on the artwork. You just keep going until you run out of individual objects to color. I have worked on pages where I've run out of colors on this palette and had to start making up more. Typically a page of Looking Glasses only needs around 20-30, though.

So! That's flatting! It's a little known job, and it's how I got started with my comics career, so I have a lot of thoughts on it. I was trying to be concise (lol), so I hope this all makes sense, but I'd be happy to clarify or answer any other questions about this process. I know I didn't really go into how I flat my work, so I can make that post if anyone is interested.

[screentones-webcomicresources]

Do you have any material on artist/writer collaborations - either on the collaboration process, or on how to find a collaborator to begin with?

This is a great question, and not always one with a straight-forward answer! While many webcomic projects are solo projects for long-term logistics reasons, some webcomics follow a split of roles between writers and artists (or maybe further split for inkers/flatters/colorists/letterers). Collaborative teams like this can form in many ways, both formally or informally:

Comic creators may find more members for their team to hire from boards like Reedsy, communities like @cartoonistcoop, or hashtags events like PortfolioDay on social media

Writing and comic Discord servers can be good gathering places to make friends, learn about other peoples' projects, and get recommendations when someone has availability and interest for a collab. (Note that most creators you meet in these place will have their own projects, though, so don't go in expecting folks to immediately invest time in your work! Be respectful of their time and show interest/help out with their work too!)

RP or fan groups can be hotbeds for learning the storytelling styles of other people, and that may take comic form somewhere down the road!

Events with a deadline like anthology projects, NaNoWriMo, or Itch.io Game Jams, which often host forum and community spaces where creators can connect and collaborate for a short time and be done if it doesn't work out

Friends, spouses, and siblings often team up when they're into the same things

Some things that factor into whether or not potential collaborators will want to work with you on your comic project:

The scope of the project. Comic projects can take years, and short, deadline-driven projects can be easier to commit to than long-term ones.

Your experience. If you haven't ever finished a comic, collaborators may be cautious to work with you if they can't see concrete proof of what you're bringing to the table, or if they suspect they're going to be doing most of the work. For writers, be sure to have your ideas fairly fleshed out, and your plans as clear as possible. For artists, keep samples and portfolio pieces handy of comic work, not just illustrations. Show you know what your part entails and that you've done it before!

How compatible you are. Many great collaborations come from folks who know each other, enjoy each others' ideas, and work in a compatible way.

How much of a role they have in the creative process. Are you just looking for someone to draw your ideas? Or give you ideas to draw? Or are you interested in building something together?

Money! (though this isn't always a guarantee that the creators you talk to will have time, even if offered financial compensation)

Our best recommendation if you want more collaboration opportunities to come into your life is to see who's vibing with what you're doing in your circles, and see if there are small ways you can collaborate to test the compatibility of your work styles and get experience communicating with each other. Keep expectations clear, be ready to offer your labor to help others, and be flexible with adapting to others, adjusting your plans, or possibly contributing to projects that don't take off.

We also highly recommend this blog post of questions to ask when reaching out to hire someone. While this advice is written specifically about letterers, a lot of it applies to any member of a comic creator team!

And for more of our thoughts about the roles of Writing and Art in webcomics, check out our Jam Session podcast episode about Artists vs. Writers!

[jonathan-samuel-smith]

BoSS Dami is like the same character but rather than serious and grumpy they play up his arrogance into him being boastful and cocky and I love it. He's having so much fun in the film, he loves fighting. He's bloodthirsty in a way that makes the audience happy for him which is pretty funny. I love the way they animate his facial expressions it's so good, and I love his voice. It's a little bit serious and broody while still being arrogant and youthful it's great. Jon sounds a little too old to be ten but I like his voice other than that. I love how Jon thinks he's cool and how quickly they bond despite clashing early on. And they're so cute. So. Cute.

The colorism thing is a big problem and it's par the course for Damian, when given the full range of color options for a character of his heritage they will always choose the lightest unless they're actively fighting their subconscious racism and colorism.

I went off on a rant on DC colorists colorism under the cut this post really got away from me, but READ THIS IF YOU DRAW DAMIAN!!↓

I get that you draw what you see and if you see a lot of white and lightskinned people you end up getting good at only drawing white people, and light skin has been purposely highlighted in visual media for centuries in this country, but USE GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH GOD DAMNIT, FOLLOW POC ON SOCIAL MEDIA, HIRE POC. Go out of your damn way to learn this shit. If you can't do it good now, learn!

I went through this with homestuck, all the human characters have #00000 skin so you're free to have whatever race headcanons you want of them, but that's not actually representation. I was influenced by this style because coloring skin is hard so I just shaded it with my pencil and left it uncolored but then I realized by refusing to color the melanin in someone's skin, that's colorism. Fuck that. So I decided to learn, and mess up a lot of otherwise pretty works, because it would be worth it in the end. I'm still learning but I've learned so much already.

For example a lot of colorist societies draw pale skin far too desaturated. If you compare actual skin to the skin in anime, nearly all Asians that aren't photoshopped or wearing make up/bleaching look so much darker. Bleached paper being what we draw on and light skin being the presumed default in our culture has made white people (and others) way too comfortable doing the bare minimum in coloring skin. You don't still use the yellow crayon for blonde hair so why do you still use the very light peach/tan as the default skin tone? You're not even coloring light skin right let alone approaching properly drawing dark skin right.

I'm so fucking tired of every company doing this when I learned how to do better in middle school. Get out of your fucking comfort zone and draw diversely, or you're a coward and you're not doing anything to combat your culturally inherited racism.

Most DC artists are good at drawing 1 or 2 skin tones, maybe 3. There are so many more undertones and shades than that. I'm not counting rainbow colors. If you want Damian to be paler than his mother to reflect his mixed heritage that's totally fine! But it should be darker than Bruce's and Jon's. I've compared them and paid attention to the shadows being cast and he's really not darker than Jon and only rarely darker than Bruce because they drew Bruce especially pale.

I want you to understand that removing melanin from a character is erasure of their identity and actively harmful. There's a broad range of skin tones that the son of Talia and Bruce might have but choosing the lightest possible option is favoring white skin over dark skin, not realism. Just because you've seen more light skinned mixed kids doesn't mean there aren't darker skinned ones. The light skinned ones get more attention on social media and commercially because of social bias + algorithms + intentional racism. Most people who are colorist think that they're not racist because they're representing nonwhite people not bothering to notice that the people they represent have the most european features and light skin in their group. Yes those people are oppressed too but you're not fixing anything by only showing racially ambiguous people.

Mariner on star trek is a relevant example from animation. Both her parents have dark skin but she has much lighter skin because she's a main character. Stop it. Stop it. Don't think just because you see something highlighted a lot that it's the most common thing that's so dumb. How many mixed people do you think you see that you assume aren't mixed? There's confirmation bias at play.

I just wish I could beam this message into everyone's thick fucking skulls. Dark skin is beautiful. My number one coloring tip for any artist is this: don't be afraid to go too dark. You'll ruin the contrast and legibility and dynamic if you keep everything light and mid tones.

If you go too dark, you can filter it later.

I hate the argument "there are plenty of mixed people who dadadadada" stop. there are such a variety of people in numbers you literally cannot fathom with your human brain. You cannot picture all of the people that look exactly like whatever it is you're saying is more uncommon. Race is made the fuck up but its impact and cultural significance is real as hell. Genetics are so fucking diverse. I know a biologically related pair of siblings, one super tall dark skinned black dude and one super short freckled white girl, they have the same parents you cannot tell that they are related if you're thinking that mixed race children are like taking the skin tones and mixing them like paint.

Colorism is physically dangerous. People will assume that a mixed race child is being kidnapped by their parent because they so look different to them.

Damian could look the spitting image of Talia, I can tell you that with 100% certainty. He also could look the spitting image of Bruce, or Thomas Wayne, or Martha, or Ra's. All we know is that he's Arab, Chinese and white, he has black hair and green eyes, and he's short and good looking. Taking that and making the most european looking version of that guy as possible is fucking racist. I'm so serious.

If you want to do your part to combat racism and make a society where everyone can get attention and be seen as beautiful regardless of skin tone, then draw Damian with dark skin.

If you don't want to do that.... I don't understand you. Learn empathy, it will be useful to you.

[bess3714]

Nightwing #111

Comic Series: Nightwing (2016)

Issue Number: 111

Title: Nightwing / The Son of Gray, Part 1 of 2

Writer(s): Tom Taylor

Artist(s): Sami Basri

Inker(s): Vicente Cifuentes

Colorist(s): Adriano Lucas

Letterer(s): Wes Abbott

Taylor’s Batman is a nice guy who doesn’t have control issues and lets Dick take the lead. This Batman isn’t the Batman who lost his mind and went on half a rampage against Catwoman in the Gotham War arc. If you read at least two DC comics with Bruce in it it’s like a whole new character every time. I am on my hands a knees begging for DC to hire more editors so we can at least get a Batman who is at least a little bit consistent.

But I digress! This is supposed to be a comic review, not a complaint of DC overall. Here’s what I thought of this issue: Meh. Like I said, I didn’t care for Bruce’s characterization. The dialogue between Bruce and Dick felt really stilted, and the flashback panels felt like filler. I wasn’t a fan of the pacing and layout either, it just didn’t flow well.

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that once again, Dick’s tragic backstory was the catalyst for someone else’s backstory. This kid is a Chekhov’s gun, right? I’d bet he’s supposed to be the big bad, Heartless, or something, or maybe it’s Gerald who will turn out to be Heartless.

My complaints aside, I do like the copycat murderer story. Those are always fun in procedural dramas! The backup story for this issue was okay. The story had potential, and I liked the art style enough to want to see a conclusion.

Why You Should Read This:

If you’re a fan of supportive Bruce, check it out!

[avasdemon]

UPDATE || Thursday March 7th || 2024

--Current readers, click *here* for the update--

* NEW READERS || PATREON || TWITTER || INSTAGRAM *

A new store has been opened! The proceeds of which fund my new OFFICIALLY hired colorist @barbelzoa, please check it out! Thank you so much @barbelzoa !!!

I also stream on Twitch