Panel Breakdown: PG 133 (Patreon)

Here’s a panel breakdown/WIP from an upcoming page— no spoilers!

 This first .GIF shows the progression from the original sketch to the line art and flat colors. 

In this one, first I fill in the characters’ markings. I use some overlays to globally adjust the tones to match the background. There’s lots of ways to do this in Photoshop— with masks, adjusting curves, or having separate color sheets/color keys. I’ve tried a handful of methods throughout the comic— Just the night/rain section from page 16 or so went through the whole gambit of curve adjustments and overlays, then pages 27-30 were a separate color key for Rask’s “night colors”.

For this scene, I’ve settled on creating a custom action which adds a multiplied layer (with a dark blue) and a low opacity color overlay. 

This way, I can just draw everyone with their “true” colors, make whatever color adjustments I want for the scene, then create a Photoshop action to replicate the changes for every panel. 

I did this method on page 103+ for the “morning” colors, as another example of the same idea. It’s an easy way to keep scene colors consistent but still really malleable. 

The difference is subtle, but it helps the characters fit into the background environment a bit more!