Ninja Turtles - with my colour

[Matt Elder]

G'day everyone. Ok something a little different. Here is a drawing by comic book artist Joe Madeuira and Townsend that I went and did all the colours on. Took me a lot longer than I would have liked but I was experimenting with a new style. I'd be interested to hear any comments people might have and hopefully I haven't posted this in the wrong place/ inappropriately. Thanks.

http://www.mattelder.com/turtles_matt.jpg

[DJ Dubovsky]

Looks great to me Matt and I should know, my son grew up on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's all I saw on TV and the movies for several years. I actually grew to like the silly things. You definately found your niche' in cartooning and coloring cartoons.
DJ

[Matt Elder]

Thanks for your comments. Hmmm.... don't know if I should be admitting to it but I grew up on teenage mutant ninja turtles (maybe that explains a few things). I have alot of younger sibblings and also an uncle several times over so I'm *fortunate* enough to be kept up to date in the world of current toy goodies and fades. Must admit, nothing goes past the good old lego.

[kathleen]

hey matt

as the picture began to unfold in increments, i could tell i really liked those colors from the first inch that arrived. love the colors you chose, the highlights, the contrast. don't love the subject matter. prefer good ole bugs bunny of MY youth. plus he was really funny. and popeye.

would enjoy seeing the b&w and hearing a description. reading.

legos rule.

[Matt Elder]

G'day kathleen. Thanks for your comments. I'm not trying to side step the issue but I probably won't be giving a detailed description on how it was done for awhile. Mainly because I'm still experimenting with techniques, refining the technique, completely trashing one method and starting again. It's not like I've found a tutorial somewhere and blindly followed step 1 through 8. This is probably about the 4th major revision to the style. If you have a look at my website, you'll see earlier 'attempts' and styles. I feel that I'm getting closer to a 'winning formula' although speed is a concern.

It depends alot on the surface to the 'exact' technique. Metal blades are handled differently to wood to teeth to skin to organic shells. In *general*, I make a selection, lay down a 'flat' colour, set the gradient tool to screen - 30% opacity - fade to transparency - radius type gradient, use the gradient tool several times over varying the effect and length and changing the colour, go over it with dodge and burn, and a hardlight layer with some 'whites' for additional highlights. If it still doesn't look right, I'll use an airbrush set to screen for highlights or multiply for shadows and 'paint' accordingly.

"Layers" of colour are then built up (ie repeat above process several times over in the same spot).

I'm still experimenting but that is the 'basics' of it.

[kathleen]

thanks matt

what i was reminded of when i looked at it was a technique using colord pencils where you do a grayscale drawing first including all your darks and lights and then use color over it. so i wondered if the original had the darks and lights, but i think what i understand you're saying is no you put them in there - that sounds neat, esp about the radial gradient. thanks for taking the time

[Matt Elder]

to be honest kathleen, that had never even occurred to me until about a month ago when I came across this web site which has a really good tutorial on how to do that:

http://www.cgchannel.com/subpage.php...1.html&id=1173

I've just book marked it until I get time to have a good solid go at it. I'm always bouncing from one style to another - whether it be photo-retouching, comic colouring, digital paintings, caricatures, fine art, pencil renderings, flash etc. Just not enough time!

[Ed_L]

Wow!! What an impressive piece of work! But I'm with Kathleen - give me old Bugs any day.

Ed