Before we jump head first into this tutorial I suggest skimming Part 2 – How I use Flats, because this goes hand in hand with it.

Also some of the things I do require Photoshop CS2 or greater (I think).

Okay, so lets look at where we left off. We have our “lines” layer on the top of everything and set to Multiply. Under the lines we have our “flats” layer with the opacity turned down to zero so that it’s invisible and it’s locked. We can still select from it though. Then we have our “colors” layer that is adjusted to our liking. Below that I always put a solid white layer. This is what it looks like.

Now lets pick one of our textures that we made back in Part 4 – Creating Your Own Texture Library and drag it into our file. It will look something like this. Make sure your texture layer is above the colors layer.

Rename the texture layer by double clicking on the layer name. I just name all my textures “texture”. Call me crazy.

While you have your texture layer highlighted, hit Apple+G (mac) or Ctrl+G (pc) to create a group/folder and whatever layers you have selected will automatically be moved into your new group/folder.

This may seem trivial but it really makes it easier later on when you have a bunch of textures. Now, lets rename the group “Textures”.

Now the magic starts to happen. Click back on your texture layer (not the group) and change the layer mode to Darken.

Now click on your Textures FOLDER and change the folder mode to Overlay.

Now things are starting to take shape. Notice how anything that was white stays white even though there is a texture over it. Any of our painted colors suddenly have textures affecting the color. If you don’t want your texture color changing any of the colors you adjusted, then try turning your texture to black and white. I like keeping most of the color from the texture intact though because it adds to the hand painted look and sometimes it creates strange subtile color combinations that look really great.

Now take some time to slide around your texture so that it works with your art. I’ve used the edge of the texture with the edge of the lighthouse to give it the impression that it’s hit by light on the left side. This is where you need to start designing how your page will look and feel.

You can also duplicate your texture and slide the duplicate to fill another part of your image. Since your first texture mode was on Darken already, your duplicate will also be on Darken. This is perfect for making these texture blend together so you don’t see where one ends and another begins. But since all these textures are inside your folder that is set to Overlay, Overlay is the only thing that is affecting the rest of your image. (I believe this is only possible with some of the newer versions of Photoshop like CS2 and above.)

Transform. Rotate and scale.

By hitting Apple+T (Mac) or Ctrl+T (pc) while on a texture layer, you can freely transform it however you please. I would avoid streaching or skewing textures. Try to keep it mainly to rotation and scale to avoid it looking “photoshopped”.

If your textures are too saturated or full of contrast you can always adjust the Hue/Saturation of each texture. On this page I decided to use colorize to convert my texture to a monotone texture so I could control it a bit more. I usually don’t do this because you loose lots of good color information when you hit “colorize.”  Once again, Apple+U or Ctrl+U for Hue/Saturation.

After Colorizing my textures (very rare), I duplicated the texture again to finish filling in the gaps. Now I have three texture layers all on Darken inside a folder set to Overlay.

NOTE: If you have an older version of Photoshop that doesn’t allow this then you can always cover your page with textures set to Darken without them being in a folder. Once you have all your textures positioned then merge them all together and change the mode to Overlay for your flattened texture layer. To merge your layers together, hit Apple+E (Mac) or Ctrl+E (PC).

Now we can close our texture folder to keep it all out of the way.

From here on, we just continue to do the same process that we did in Part 2 by selecting from our flats and adjusting our color layers until we get the color we like. But now that we have textures affecting our colors, we might need to push the color layers even further to get the colors we want. I try to avoid adjusting the textures themselves unless they are really bright and affecting my color layer too much.

Keep adjusting your color layer while selecting from your flats layer until you are happy with it. If you don’t like the texture anymore then drag a new one in and see what happens.

Here’s what my page looks like after adjusting.

The only thing left is to add some shadows and lighting.

But we can save that for another time.

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Coloring a Graphic Novel Series (How I color reMIND)

Part 1 – Multiply and Flatting

Part 2 – How I use Flats

Part 3 – Textures – Art Directing your Graphic Novel

Part 4 – Creating your own Texture Library

Part 5 – Adding Textures to your Flatted Page (You are here)

Part 6 – Masking and Applying Gradients

Part 7 – Light Source and Shadows

Part 8 – Dialing it all Together

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Aside from spending late nights working on my pages, I’ve been doing research on writing press releases, PR, marketing and distribution.  It’s a ton of stuff to take in. In my search for information I’ve come across a few sites that might be useful to anyone who is making their own graphic novel. Happy trolling! Is that an oxymoron?

Great Self-Publishing articles

This one was emailed to me.  It’s a series of four articles written about self-publishing an anthology comic by Sam Costello called Split Lip.

Sam Costello – On My Own in Independent Comics

Next, I found Lars Martinson, a Xeric Grant winner who wrote some interesting posts on self-publishing. He wrote and drew a graphic novel called Tonoharu: Part One. Here’s his series on How he self-published his graphic novel:

Lars Martinson – How I Self-Published a Graphic Novel

Third, I’ve been reading all kinds of articles written on Midwestbookreview.com. There is a huge resource for self-publishers talking about everything from distribution to marketing your book. Here is a link to the giant list of informative articles:

Advice for Writers & Publishers

Hopefully that can tide you over until I can get around to finishing my next coloring tutorial. Sorry to dash your hopes against the pavement.

- Jason

P.S. Please keep sending in your pin-ups. I’ve received some great ones already that I can’t wait to share here.

P.P.S. Remember, Ian, who wrote a guest post for reMINDblog.com about finding artists for your comic? Well, he started a kickstarter campaign and he needs to raise $500 in order to get the funding for his book. This book prooves that he knows what he’s talking about because he has some great artists in it. Go over to kickstarter and check it out.

P.P.P.S. If anyone wants to join the reMIND monthly mailing list to get your name added to the random drawings, receive email updates, special offers and news, then opt in by clicking below and filling out the form. This is the best way for me to keep in contact with you so please take a moment to join. No spam. I promise! Unsubscribe at any time.

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So here is the hero shot of Victuals in his robot suit! I hope you like it because it’s not changing. Hahaha.

I understand that getting a cat to stand on it’s hind legs would be impossible in real life. I also understand that transplanting a lizard man’s brain into a cat body is impossible. In addition, getting a cat into a robot suit designed for humans is impossible. But that’s what I like about it, plus, I sure do think it’s cool!

Kickstarter Update

If you haven’t noticed, we just crossed $8,000 in pledges on the Kickstarter.com campaign and ALL of the openings to get your name in the book are taken now. Sorry if you were planning on getting one last minute, maybe you can get a spot in the second book, or you could always pledge $500 to get a prime spot in the book above everyone else’s name. I’m sure there are some movie stars out there who can afford to skip their haircut this week to make a small $500 pledge. Anyone? Does anyone know Will Smith or his son? They might like my book. I loved the new Karate Kid movie by the way. Okay, this is turning into a journal instead of a blog, so let me switch gears.

Please keep spreading the word about reMIND and Kickstarter. The more pledges I can get before it closes, the more additional products I’ll be able to make as well as covering convention costs for next year. Pledging for a book is about as helpful as you can be towards my goals. Thanks again for everyone who has pledged so far. You guys are the best. High five’s all around!

T-shirts

If you haven’t noticed the poll happening on the left side of the blog, please vote now. Last week a few people suggested that I make a t-shirt or hoodie just like the one in page 74 that says, “I’ve seen the lizard man”. If I gets enough votes, I’ll make a mock up and start a pre-order for it. If only 20 people want one then I might have to wait a bit longer to bring the printing price down a bit. I think it’s a great idea.

I’ve had people mention several on-demand t-shirt printing companies, but I don’t really want to go that method because the base price for each shirt is really high and I’d have to charge like $25 a piece to make a few bucks profit. If I were to make a hoodie, the price would be ridiculous! Plus, there is no way to control the quality. I would  just have to hope the shirt looks the way I said it would. I would rather print 100 shirts and have the first 35 pre-orders pay for the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect to make much money from shirts yet, but any little amount will help. I just think it’s bad business to give all your profits to the printer so you don’t have to worry about shipping or quality control.

You’re pin-up in reMIND?

This is a bit early to announce but I’m too excited about it to hold it in any longer. I’m going to launch a pin-up contest this Thursday. Anyone can enter their depiction of Victuals, Sonja or the Lizard-man and it will go live on reMINDblog.com between the 2nd and 3rd Chapters of reMIND plus the winner will be printed in the physical book along side a pin-up by Sam Kieth as well as other amazing artists! I’ll give you all the details this Thursday, so come back in a few days for the proper announcement.

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I hope you’re not saddened that some of the mystery is gone. In fact, next week a few more secrets are revealed which change the course of Victuals’ future like nothing before.

I might be, ever so slightly, updating the reMIND font/logo after next weeks spread. It occurred to me that I might want to do more than use a common font like Impact for my logo. I did widen it a bit and trace over it so it had a more unique feel but it’s still just the Impact font.

I know there are many of you who just visit on Monday’s when a new spread is up, which is totally fine and I appreciate anyone spending any amount of time here at all, but some things have happened since last Monday that you might want to know about before it’s too late.

On Thursday I announced a Kickstarter.com pledge campaign for reMIND with a goal of $3000 to cover the rest of the printing costs. Less than 48 hours after the pledge drive launched, we exceeded the goal! I was completely blown away with all the support and still can hardly believe so many of you are willing to throw down money so far in advance to help this project out.

Even though we reached the 3k goal, there is still a second goal that I think is obtainable. If we can reach $6000, I can print reMIND with a nice cloth binding hardcover like in the image below. Anything over $6000 will allow me to print more books too. Most of the big rewards are already taken but upon this writing, there is still one $99 pledge that allows you to claim an original Victuals painting. I’m sure it will go fast so jump on it if you really want it.  [EDIT] The last $99 pledge is taken, sorry. You can even get your name printed in the book itself for a pledge of $39 or more, but only a limited number of slots are available. I still need someone to contact Bill Gates to take me up on my $500 pledge incentive.

Anyway, here’s a link to the site that has a video I made explaining everything as well as all the pledge incentives.

Kickstarter has been a real eye opener for me. I plan on writing an article about what I think works best and what I think doesn’t. Although there are lots of pieces to the puzzle, I have a few ideas, many of which I’ve implemented into my own campaign.

One more quick announcement. I’ll be at Comic Con this year walking around aimlessly wearing my reMIND t-shirt. If you see me, please stop me and say hi. I’m just going to be handing out free reMIND fliers and visiting all the friends I’ve made here over the last 8 months. It’s great to see so many webcomic artists attending with booths of their own. Next year, 2011, will be my big booth year. Hopefully if all goes well, I will be able to actually make a convention schedule to peddle reMIND merchandise.

Oh yeah, if anyone is going to the Con and has a reMIND T-shirt, please wear it!!! In fact, if you wear it and snap a picture of yourself wearing it while at the con and email it to me, I’ll send you a free original drawing of Victuals as a big THANK YOU!

That reMINDs me, for those of you on my mailing list, I usually try to give away free stuff every now and then. I promised that I’d randomly pick two names from the list and send them a free drawing of Victuals. So here are the two lucky subscribers:

• Ivan Murillo
• Christopher Wrann

If you two could email me your address, I’ll send off your drawings as soon as I get them finished. Thanks for being apart of reMIND guys!

If anyone wants to join the reMIND monthly mailing list to get your name added to the random drawings, receive email updates, special offers and news, then opt in by clicking below and filling out the form. This is the best way for me to keep in contact with you so please take a moment to join. No spam. I promise! Unsubscribe at any time.

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