Why Does Style Matter?

Ask 10 people what colors Superman wears and nine people will reply, Red and Blue.  The tenth will add yellow to the mix.  Ask those same 10 people to compare the style of art and color from an issue of Superman to classic or popular paintings and the same nine out of ten people will [...]

Countdown 1: Why you will love Master Digital Color

The Book
The best way to take your digital coloring skills to the next level.
In Brian and Kristy Miller’s first book, Hi-Fi Color for Comics, you learned the basics of digital coloring.  The follow up, Master Digital Color, takes you on a journey through six distinctive color styles with 18 all new projects featuring artwork by [...]

Interview: Superhero Style with The Shen creator Ray Dillon

MasterDigitalColor: Your illustration of The Shen is a featured tutorial in the Superhero section of the book Master Digital Color.  What defines the look of a superhero comic book to you?
Ray Dillon:  Superheroes are meant to be iconic and powerful. They’re a fantasy of what we wish we could be or who we wish existed [...]

Countdown 2: Grayscale in a color book?

As Kristy Miller and I have visited schools and comic book conventions giving coloring demonstrations we find a large number of fans who have a need to produce grayscale comics.  Some are manga fans and want to create comics that resemble traditional Japanese comics including the grayscale patterns.  Others are indy creators who need their [...]

Countdown 3: The Styles of Master Digital Color Part II

Last time you learned about some of the digital color styles included in the projects, tutorials, and homework challenges found within the pages of Master Digital Color.  Today we’ll pick-up where we left off and cover a few more of the styles from the book.

Sci-Fi illustrator Joe Corroney explains his creative process and the [...]

Countdown 4: The styles of Master Digital Color

What defines an art style?  How many artist does it take to define a style?  One hundred, ten, only one? What styles of artwork would you most like to learn?  If you are a fan of classic animation may wish to learn how to recreate the look and feel of Saturday morning cartoons.  Perhaps you [...]

Countdown 5: Digital Artwork vs. Traditional Artwork

In the blue corner we have the all time champion.  Hailing from a time before written language and taking the form of cave paintings then becoming the undisputed master during the Renaissance.  He has served the art-world well for centuries and packs a one-two punch of widespread art-instruction and art-appreciation…  lets hear a big hero’s [...]

Countdown 6: Turning words and pictures into a book

Writing a book is not a solo effort.  In the case of Hi-Fi Color for Comics and Master Digital Color Kristy Miller and I divided the authoring work.  She who has the multiple degrees and many years of education experience would conceive and write the Homework Challenges while I would create the step-by-step tutorials.  In [...]

Countdown #7: The artist of Master Digital Color

Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri I was fortunate to visit The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art at least once or twice each year. I’ve been to other museums and art galleries since but this is the one that started my love affair with art as a young boy. The great thing about Nelson-Atkins [...]

Countdown #8: Knowing is half the battle…

I was out in the garage the other day looking for Christmas decorations. Searching for holiday cheer I had to move several large boxes full of comic books, Diamond Previews catalogs, and old copies of Wizard and Fan magazine when I stumbled across a small box containing some ancient Star Wars trading cards, a broken [...]