Gray snob or Color nazi?

[TRI]

. . . I grew up playing with crow quills and and little bottles of India ink, and was taught to read from the Alice books with the John Tenniel illustrations. . . .

Hey, so did I. Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice, to be specific.
I loved Teniel's illustrations and for a long time my art was largely black and white with lots crosshatching.

Strangely 'though, that didn't lead to me being very good at it.

Now I prefer to use color because it looks so much better (I think) than my black and white art, but am doing the majority of my strips in grayscale just to save time.

[Moonshadow]

I started out on greyscale and moved into using halftone patterns, in part because I wanted the experience, and doing a comic forces me to work at things like that. ^^ I was using color initially just to draw attention to particular elements, and I'm going to keep with the bw/color combination so I can keep doing that, but I'm also changing the dreamworld-type area to be in color too (for various reasons), so I can keep up my color practise and not get lazy in that area.

I think the page I did not too long ago that combined softer colors with halftone patterns actually came out pretty interesting looking, I'm looking forward to doing it again.

[Jackhass]

I find colour often distracts from the line-work and drawing, paritcularly if it's just slapped on and not thoughfully done.

My ears are burning...

You're colour ain't that bad actually...it's has quite a few muted more natural tones used and it generally looks pretty decent.

Unfortunately web comic artists all too often have a habit of using nothing but blindingly bright clashing colours (lots of bright pink, purple, green, red and so on stuck right beside each other).

[Dr Neo Lao]

I love it how some people said "if it's good, then it looks good, but when it's done badly, it looks bad so those people shouldn't do it" (when talking about either B+W or colour).

My favourite b&w comic is ZebraGirl.
My favourite colour comic is Schlock Mercenary.

I think that this is the best panel I've done, but I spent too much attention on the centre panel to the excusion of the other two which didn't come out so well... better keep practicing.

[Garneta]

When the story plays out in my head it's in color. So I color and shade it. It's just as well; my inking is too shaky to stand out on it's own, and I suck at doing black and white or greyscale anyway.

[Slightlyskewed]

My most worked-on comic is black, grey and white with reds, nothing else. I didn't want to be bland with only black and white and no color to pop out, but I was too lazy to do full color, so there you have it. I think it turned out perfectly well though, some people don't even notice that the only color is red. I also do full color strips on the occasion though, just for fun.

I've got another I do in full color and take great lengths with detail in that color and make sure it's rich and well-shaded and um.. pretty. Though I have a hard time doing that and that comic is updated real slow because of it.

I don't care whether or not a comic is in color or black and white or drawn with a mouse or a pencil or painted or drawn by shoving an ink pen up a monkey's ass and letting it run around on paper-- okay that's a little gross but still.. I read comics for their writing. If it doesn't have good writing, I won't read it. Regardless of the art. But that's just my opinion. ^^;

[Deaths Head II]

Some people draw so good that they don't need color. I am not one of these people. When I started out, I knew my artstyle wasn't so amazing that it could stand on its own enough to do without color. It was a good choice, because the coloring is probably what I've improved in most, and its what people congratulate me more on.

[Keffria]

I actually prefer black and white to colour in most cases. In fact, at one point, I wanted to do my comic in just black and white - but I seem to be drifting further and further into greys. ;>_>

[Americangothic]

I can do either, but now that my comic is full color, I'm dread to go back to black and white. My fans love the color, I like how it looks too...and besides...it's watercolors. Watercolors are so much fun. They are almost as fun as crayons.

If I ever do go back to black and white, I will do ink washes with diluted india ink instead of Copic grayscale markers. There is just something happy about paintbrushes.

Gothia

[SailorPtah]

When it comes to color, I'm all over the place.

My first and most continuous comic started out with greyscale dailies with lots of tones (heavy manga influence) and Sundays that were anything-goes. I did a few dailies in straight greyscale, as I gradually started to realize that the tones didn't look great.

Now I do color every day, but the Sunday strips have full shading and the dailies have only the skin and white areas shaded. (I read somewhere that the eye is especially sensitive to skin tones, so I figure shading the skin is the most economic way to give a sense of light and depth without spending too much time on it.)

My second comic is, so far, one single self-contained story. I drew the lineart on paper, scanned it, and airbrushed it, so it's mainly in greyscale because it's easier to deal with four shades of grey than however many shades of color would be necessary for all the scenery.

But I did some spot-coloring for atmosphere, and I colored the characters' eyes and hair to help differentiate them, and when they transformed (it's a Sailor Moon fancomic) I colored the uniforms because they're just prettier that way.

My third comic only has one page so far, and that's the frontspiece, so it's in color. The actual pages will be greyscale, again because it's easier to deal with; but I'm trying to apply everything I've learned from the first two to make it really good greyscale. (For instance, moderate use of tones.)

All of this is a long and roundabout way of reiterating what everyone else has said, that the right way to handle color depends on the situation ^_^

[Allan_ecker]

I'm squarely in the "black and white snob" camp, although I'm not exactly *against* color...

Here, let's take a look at what happens when I do black and white:

http://umlauthouse.comicgenesis.com/d/20051213.html

You can see what's going on, you get artwork, you get story. Efficient. Clean. Let's not beat around the bush here, Color still has a cost on the web: TIME. To do correctly, color takes more than three times as long as black and white, because now in addition to lighting and grey choices, you have to think about what colors are going to *mean* in your comic. If you don't, you WILL end up with monstrosities like the following:

http://umlauthouse.comicgenesis.com/d/20050218.html

And keep in mind I was actually doing a little thinking about this one. If you mute your colors you'll probably do better, because a strong color is going to evoke a strong response, and just having lots of strong colors can really distract.

Generally, I find color comics fit into the category of "creator is an artist, not a writer" comics which generally I give up on because no amount of phong shading will get me to read a comic with a weak story. Generally, the people who do black and white are more likely to rest in that "sweet spot" between Writer and Artist, when both artwork and writing are worth getting. Really, really bad artwork CAN kill a story, but I find it takes a lot more suck in the artwork to make me lose interest than in the story...

Lately, I've been doing "partial color" on my comics. Nearly all of it is greyscale, but when I'm portraying a few extremely specific things I use color. The color adds emphasis, but is also having a cumulative story impact in that as more colors are added to the reader's vocabulary, later I'll be able to tell parts of the story in a subtext made out of the colors.

Early on, I have to be fairly blatant; the nanotechnology in the vial is stated as such. This is the first time the reader sees the teal color which will later be associated with ALL nanotechnology, so I have to say it out loud.
http://umlauthouse.comicgenesis.com/d/20060120.html

When we see it again, we've already heard it said that it can "build a fortress", and if there was any doubt, there's the color again:
http://umlauthouse.comicgenesis.com/d/20060127.html

With repeated exposure, along with explicit references to each new technology accompanying color, I'll ultimately end up with a symbolic language that will be able to stand alone without any dialog to back it up.

I HOPE.

[Sincerely]

My original comic was in black and white with grays, my current comic is in color.

I'm trying to tell a visual story with Dissent, whereas Oops was mostly talking heads. Also, Dissent is a fantasy. I do not particularly want to have to do magic effects in black and white, kthx.

I really thought about it before I started Dissent too. I talked to people, considered getting another artist, or at least a colorist. I roped RA into writing a tutorial for me so I could adapt her shading style into my work because without it I would have never got off the ground. And after all of that I considered going back to grayscale because the first handful of pages were taking me 30 plus hours to make, and every time I make a scene change or add another character, the production time jumps back up for a page or two.

In the end, though, I know I made the right choice. Dissent would not work at all in black and white.

If/when I get back to Oops, it'll stay in grayscale, 'cause it's just too verbal to justify all the extra effort and because it looks just fine without color.

[RobertBlake]

I prefer to work mainly in black and white, because I grew up on newspaper comics, and I wanted to emulate that in my own comics. I have experimented with colour, however, only to discover it's not really my cup of tea.

[VinnieD]

To answer the question. Yes an email prompted this post but it wasn't nasty, it was quite positive, regarding my most recent strip.

I use grayscale in my comic. I do this strictly by hand with a vereity of inks and pencils to produce a sense of depth and texture. More recently I've begun experimenting with tiny accents of color, to draw attention to particular details, and it's gotten a good response. In some of the strips I've uploaded later into the story, you'll see whole panels in color, and that color will be an actual plot element in some places. It's my own further attempts at creating an avant-garde comic that stands out artistically as well as intellectually.

For small details I do color digitally with transparent layers. But the later full color panels are done by hand with markers. I'm happy with both methods. While I still describe myself as a gray snob, since I refuse to make a full color comic for its own sake, I'm not opposed to the use of color when it can add to the overall comic.

I suppose I left out a category though. Are there no screentone freaks here?

[Siabur]

COLOR! Is what I would like to do, if I could. My main influence was newspaper strips, 127 rejections later, I decided the web will be good. So for now it's straight b/w line art. All my strips for life Is A SitCom are that way. In the future I may color the characters and use a monotone color for backgrounds. Something I'm tinkering with right now.
My other project, Blue Jersey, was to be a full color update of the 20 year old colored pencil version. I've traced the scanned originals and digitally inked them in Photoshop. Colored them and don't like them. I can't color yet, so right now they are just b/w line. I can't do color correctly without it looking horrible. Yet, my graphics are fine.
My third project is currently in pencil format, my prefered way of drawing. I'm trying various ways of doing it, inking, digital, color, b/w, greyscale, halftones. I don't know yet. It's one of those things I'll figure out as I go along.

[Mvmarcz]

as a follow up to my sucking at B&W

I'm actually trying to see if I could pull my comic off in B&W.....
I have no idea if this will work as I still feel I suck at it.

[Jkandra]

My comic is in the newspaper style so it's B+W for me. I am using shades of gray as well. I've done color in the past and plan to do some in the future, but probably for special events and "Sunday" style strips. I want to get my regular work up to my personal standards before I throw color into the mix.

[Dave Against The Machine]

Use to be, I used color to help my art. It would look like crap even WITH color but ever sore without. No I am noticing it looks good without the color, but I think I am gonna stick with it since I am use to it.

[Jae87]

I use color now that I've learned the basics of photoshop. I found that without it my comics look very bad and 'sketchy'... I use Ink and graphite to shade everything, but once the pages are scanned in, they don't look good unless I photoshop 'em

[Kilre]

I'd say I'm more of a black and white with some gray artist. My first pages are in shades of blue, with some other colors thrown in at random for effects. With those pages, I took the time to shade, highlight, and correct all the mistakes.

My recent comics have been in scratchy black and white with a 23% opacity gray layer. I love the stark contrasts that this new way of doing things brings.

Color...I wouldn't touch the spectrum to my pages because I can't envision the world that way. And I really don't want to add flimsy attempts at coloring to a page that already looks good without it.