BLAP_0102_wip_72 by threepu, on Flickr

This is a sample page from my graphic novel tentatively titled Baylapay. I have three pages inked and one page half-done. I'd like to get at least 5 pages together coloured and lettered and get it out there to see what I can do with it.

It's about 4 former Delta operators who heist a private bank in Marseilles. They find themselves trapped in the banlieu during an enormous riot and they're hunted by gangs looking for what they've stolen. I want to model it on eighties style actioners (like Golan-Gobus) but essentially I want it to be visually enjoyable--over-the-top action done in a Where's Waldo? type of detail. In my head I just try to think about merging The Warriors with Blackhawk Down. It keeps me on track while I'm writing. I have most of a script done and I'm working on getting my WGA#. I have seen some interest from a movie studio. Problem is I need to get it finished and I always seem stuck and second-guessing myself.

I'd like to post more artwork here and get some honest feedback that will help me push through and finish this.

I really like the linework. I'm looking forward to seeing what the colors look like.

Thanks Arioch--colours are where I'm sort of stuck.

I'm having trouble settling on a palette. I have the pages flatted but every time I open up a page to colour I work until I get stuck with ugly colours then I just get more details in my flats and wait for any distraction to pull me away.

Can you maybe show us a coloured page? Pretty please? Critique is just as useful when you're only half done with something, and it's especially effective with something like color. It's easier to fix or start over (or maybe that's just me). I imagine your pages coloured the way Dave Stewart colors Guy Davis and Richard Corben (and others that I haven't seen him color, probably); I guess you'd call that a "painterly" style, with some textures, with little to no gradients. In my head it looks great, but what do I know.
Your pages look great, by the way! The comic's in French, right? I can't read any of it, I'm afraid.

Thanks a lot iaviv! I'm stuck at work at the moment but I'll post up a page that I've got some colour work on later tonight or tomorrow.

Dave Stewart was exactly what I was thinking. But more like what he did on Joe the Barbarian. I'm a big BPRD fan so I should maybe check out what he was doing there more carefully. What I found was I was getting too drab. I wanted the pages to be more exciting and eclectic like the city of Marseilles is. I 'm just not succeeding with it. I just discovered Nate Simpson and I love his palettes. Also I find a lot of what Dylan McRae used to do really inspiring.

The comic text is in English. It took me a while to do some of the translations with my limited Canadian French--thank God there's the internet! Language barriers are part of the story--to put the characters even more out of their element.

Here's some more b&w pages in the meantime:


BLAP_0106_wip_72 by threepu, on Flickr


BLAP_0112_wip_72 copy by threepu, on Flickr

Here's the colour palette I'm stuck on. This is really just my flats with some colour choices put in. No textures or effects yet. It looks just ugly.


BLAP_0112_colproof72 by threepu, on Flickr

I see. So you're basically can't decide on a palette.
Well, I suppose it has a lot to do with what you want out of a scene. Colors affect the way we perceive things, so it's pretty specific. I wouldn't tell you what to do anyway, but in this case I really can't because I don't know what's going on in the story - but it should have something to do with the colors you pick. Leaving the people blue would be pretty weird though

Too smurfy? I actually got some great help reworking my palette last night and I feel like I've unstuck myself. Made some changes and I'm already feeling better about it. I'll post when I get a chance.

Man, I love your line work! Really nice stuff. It's got a great colour to it even though it's just black and white. Which makes the questions about what to do with the colouring even tougher...

Ok, I read through the comments and I can see what you mean by not really being sure quite what to do with the colours. I actually really like the colour palette that you've started to try out, but I think iaviv is right - the blue people are kind of weird. I think you're losing something in the art when when it's totally coloured. I'm wondering if you can use subtle hits of colour to draw attention to the most important things in the panel or on the page while the rest of the page is pretty toned down (you're pretty close to doing this anyway). I grabbed some screen captures of your stuff and just played around with it in Photoshop to see if I could figure out what I meant. Here's what my messing around produced:

Attempt 1 - pretty much your colours but I added some white back in.


Attempt 2 - slightly warmer colour palette to unify the colours.


There's so much you can do with colours, so I'm not sure if that helps...

Wow these panels look epic! i see your having trouble picking a color palette. What I did was found an artist that had a color palette I enjoyed and went from there, playing around with hue saturation and what not until I found what felt right. I hope that helps!

Thanks for putting so much thought into it! You're right: the colours are tough for me because they are subtle and toned down and the highlights are also subtle. A tough task for me because I'm really not good with colour to begin with!

I really like both attempts you did here. The top one is more suitable (taking the blue out of the people is a big help), but I'm drawn to the warm one more. But the purpose of the page is to show the main character returning from service in Afghanistan and feeling out of place in his own country (and therefore not feeling warm). I'll try and take off from where you put me on that first attempt.

I've had some big freelance jobs come my way this last month and have not had a moment to put into my own work. I'll get back to this in the first week of February when everything is back to normal.

Thanks for the help and for the compliments!

Thanks a lot!

Here's some more artwork from baylapay. I've got 3 more pages done.

I'm considering approaching publishers with uncoloured but lettered pages. If anyone has any advice on contacting publishers I'd love to hear it.


RED_01_08b by threepu, on Flickr

Those black and whites are simply gorgeous. I'm not sure that they even need to be colored.

Thanks a lot! That is what I've decided at this point. I'm going with just black and white.

That's probably for the best. Looks good with the tone, no reason to over-complicate things.

Yeah, I think the black and white is working well enough. I'd like to note that your expressions in the last page are really quite good too.