Ok so I'm critting a colored piece called Wolalina by and it's drawn by who doesn't need critting by my lameo ass.

Original piece: [link]



First off, your friend is on crack. EDIT: BTW, was it MICAH GUNNELLZ who said that? MICAH YOU ARE ON CRACK. I didn't ask Randy (that would've been smart on my part but I'm not smart so hey!) if he hates cel or anything but I don't think the "lines" suggest you render it any specific way over another. I think this piece is beautiful and that your color selections are amazing. Seriously it's beautiful, pat yourself on the shoulder!



1. There are just a few suggestions I'd make on this one. I'll start with the main character; she could pop a little more. I'd render more on that metal. I'd definitely up the contrast on it by adding highlights and darker darks. Adam Hughes told Laura Martin who told me who's telling YOU, "There's no such thing as too much contrast when rendering metal."

It's ENTIRELY TRUE.

Also, making her the most detail oriented piece when it comes to rendering makes her the immediate focus of the viewer's eye because there's so much going on with her. So tone up that metal!

2. Now on her face, honestly, you can leave it as is if you like or you can take my suggestion to define her face a little more. Either way works for me, honestly. I like doing more detail cause it defines more, but it's not really necessary. What I WOULD suggest is bring more attention to her eyes by adding a tiny bit of white to the side of them like I did.

3. See how you have the green shadowed bit on that earring? I'd warm it up. You'll notice that all of the shadowed areas on the piece are warm EXCEPT for the earring and her necklace. They're not important enough to warrant that sort of eye catching coolness. So I warmed up the shadow just a little to make them less attention grabbing.. Oh and I added a highlight on the ruby.



So here's the full version of the piece I colored over. All of the metal is more contrasty and I adjusted a little of the rendering on her. For one thing, her back leg should fully be in shadow PLUS it makes her pop out more from the light background. I did a slight darker gradient on her shadowed areas from the bottom up to make her even darker than the background for more pop. Also, the two dudes in the background I lightened them a little. Her foot and the guy on the left were looking a little to same samey so I wanted to distinguish them apart from each other a little more. I made the purple dagger thingies lit all the same way PLUS added a third level of rendering to them to make them a little more attention grabbing the same way I did with her, with more detail. And lastly, the pyramid in the very back right, I made it a little bluer. Atmospheric perspective makes everything in the distance a little bluer, so I added just the TINIEST HINT more blue to push it back further. And lastly, the dude in the foreground, I toned down his clothing and made him more contrasty.

OH and I forgot to mention that I also softened the transition from her hand to the swooshy thing you have blocked in. I like the color you used for it, I just think it was a little too harsh near her hand so I toned that down a little.



This is a gif of the before and after.

Now a little word about the cel style.

It's awesome. STFU.

People have been saying recently to me that my style's all different suddenly and that it's more cartoony and whatever. That's cool if that's how you see it, I'm totally cool with that. It's cause I've been doing more cel style recently based on requests from my pencilers and what I've noticed they tend to like. i.e. sara pichelli on run I did cel style cause that's how she colored herself from what I saw. I'll be working with her on her next book too and then I might try something different, but for Run, I did it that way cause she likes cel and she likes the way I do it. Mark Brooks asked for cel on Young Avengers after liking what I did over Humberto over Runaways. Anyways, my point is, yeah, everything I've been doing recently aside from Thor has by crazy luck been cel style. And dammit, I like it. XD

But I'm digressing from my point. XD Cel is COOL. It's just another style and yanno what? It's a fucking HARD STYLE TO PULL OFF. Because it's ECONOMY OF RENDERING. Seriously. You can glow and airbrush something to muddy rendering death to hide all of your flaws and problems with anatomy but that doesn't change the fact that you don't know anything about the underlying structure. But when you use cel style, it HAS to be SOLID. You HAVE to know what you're doing because it's all about knowing the shapes of the STRUCTURE you're coloring. Because while people can do all the crappy airbrushy coloring and over rendering they want and get away with it in the layman's eye, you can't pull off crappy cel style and get away with it. Even Joe Schmoe will probably notice that it's pretty bad because it's even MORE obviously wrong because of the barebones nature of it. It's so naked!

So yeah, I have a lot of respect for people who can cel style well. It's such a different mind set than airbrush/painterly rendering. It's hard committing to that selection and just fill bucketing it! Remember that!