Nectar of the Gods_Commission

Yep, that is four total minds driving the creation of this image. This is an image that was several years in the making. It originally started as a sketch from 2008. It then got its inking treatment in 2009. Now, 2010, I was commissioned to bring some colors to it.

Pretty interesting developments around this one. The original sketch was a brilliant piece of work that experienced a lot of "changes" when another inker cleaned it up. Some details were lost, while others were added. For instance, the girl in the bottom-right corner had on a thong in the sketch, but they vanished in the inks, resulting in her giving the viewer a fine "well how'dya'do darlin" pose. Another example is the girl in the upper-right was wearing a helmet in the sketch, but the inker drew a full face there instead.

So what does this mean for me? It means I just got my inkers merit badge. I got to re-ink a few parts of this image. But let's hold that thought for a moment, because inking is not a new thing to me. I have practiced it a lot in the past, and while my hand isn't nearly steady enough to do justice for the line artists I work for, I developed my proficiency elsewhere. You see, I don't ink by hand. I use vector paths. When I ink my own stuff, I actually ink it in Flash. Or if I have to ink only certain parts of an existing image, I will use the Photoshop pen tool.

I get questions every now and then from people asking for tips on coloring, and I'm notoriously unhelpful. "Practice!" I proclaim, as if making some profound statement they have never heard a jillion times before. "And work hard at it!" My feedback is for the most part completely worthless regarding tutorials and teaching the craft, mostly attributed to my belief that there is no magic spell to artwork, it's a discipline that cannot be summed up in a single manuscript.

So I'll buck the trend, and say something useful for becoming a better color artist. Learn how to ink.

You need to learn how to integrate the psychology and intent of your previous inker into your own coloring. Oh, what's a good example, hmm. Cooking. It's like getting the best ingredients for a pizza, the top quality cheese, sauce, and meat, and not knowing how these ingredients even work together to make a great pie. Sure, you may know how the oven works, how to get it the perfect golden brown, and how to plate it exquisitely. But if you don't understand the principles of your very ingredients, the work and intent of their creators, your pizza won't be as good.

Coloring is very similar. You have to understand what the inker was trying to accomplish, and simply take over from where they left off with the same psychology they left in the lines. I find what they thought the light sources were coming from, which parts they wanted to be the focal points, where they were trying to convey motion, and I have the coloring reflect accordingly.

Also, if you have inking skills, you'll be able to make fixes to the lines before you even get started on them. If there are errors in the inks, you as the color artist will actually detriment the piece if you try to fix them in the coloring stage. That's because you're not getting into the motives and psychology of the inker like I describe above. You're fighting their psychology. So by changing the inks before coloring, you may see it as also fighting the inker, too, but I just see it as going back in time.

Working on this image was also pretty tight. It may seem complex with multiple characters, but one of the things I like about nude models (aside from the thought NAKED LADIES OH YES!) is that they're pretty easy to shade. Oh, of course you need to know your anatomy and physical construction of the character, but that's the thing. I've practiced anatomy for years now, and if the character is nude, there isn't anything there to "re-learn." Plus, the body is so intricately, beautifully composed. It's a marvel of engineering. Every interlocking component follows the same flow, the same rules, so as long as the lines have it down right, the color artist just has to follow the lines' lead and go through the usual motions. It just makes the image easier to do, it's a lot less overwhelming.

So it feels good to be able to submit something after what seems like a near eternity of dA inactivity. Which is weird, I've been quite active the last week, and unfortunately can't show anything for it except this one. So I hope you guys like it, and there'll be more submissions to come I assure you.