hi! I’m new to your blog so I’m sorry if these are stupid questions. First off, I noticed that the colors you use for your comics aren’t overly saturated but not washed out either. How do you accomplish that? Second question is how do you come up with a good panel format for your comics?
Hi hi! No such thing as stupid questions, in my opinion!
1.) How do I accomplish my colours?
I wish I had a better answer for you because, honestly, I still struggle with colour a lot! What I can say is that I tone my canvas. In other words, I put down a layer of flat colour that reflects how warm or cool I want the overall palette to be. I also don't hesitate to use tools like hue/saturation adjustment, tonal correction, level correction, and gradient maps.
I also, whenever possible, limit my colour palette. Limitation breeds creativity, and keeping your palette to a minimum a.) makes you be more creative with placement and b.) lends better to a cohesive palette.
I think the LAST major thing is consistency in my logic. If I'm going to use bright colours, I gotta commit. Same with pale colours. Do I want cool colours to be less saturated and warm colours to be more saturated? Commit. In this comic panel, my characters stay more saturated than the environment, and the overall palette leans warmer. I have now created a logic.
My biggest inspirations for colour lately have been Taylor Robin (who goes by ohcorny on Tumblr), Bowen McCurdy (bonesbunns, an acquaintance/colleague of mine), and Emily Xu (emilamiao on Insta and whose work has been a big inspo for YEARS). Taylor especially has tutorials/advice on his colouring techniques that I reference a lot.
This is Taylor's tag for that stuff: https://ohcorny.tumblr.com/tagged/im%20teacher
2.) How do I come up with good panel formats for my comics?
Okay, this is gonna sound a little... pretentious? But paneling is almost always intuitive for me. It's one of the things I can do better than I know how to explain to others. That said, I'll give it a go!
This page I did recently for a zine demonstrate my thinking well. When I panel my comic pages, I'm thinking about how the eye follows the panels and word balloons in tandem. On the left-hand page, the balloons pull the eye to the left to right, top to bottom.
This comic from 2024 is more artistic with my layout, where I use graphic design some to move the viewer's eye around. The blue tape on my glasses arm is, in and of itself, kind of a panel, and it adds movement to an otherwise very still page. I have, since then, gotten new glasses, lol.
From a defunct graphic novel pitch page. Last thing about paneling is composition. Your panel shapes, sizes, etc. influence composition (the way elements are placed in an image). Composition influences what information is revealed, what imagery or themes get implied, and also what kind of tone you have. I use the small, tall panel in the top right-hand corner to portray Vicky's house on the beach and how, even though it's so small and behind her, it's always in the back of her mind. Her home and the footsteps leading to it in the sand are stuck with her.
I hope this helped some! And please don't hesitate to ask more questions. If you're ever interested in learning comics 1 on 1 with me, I have tutoring available via my pinned post. :D
