How to Color a Picture & Get Most of it Wrong

 

The Bequest #4 from Aftershock Comics

 

As you've no doubt realized, I've been enjoying The Bequest series from Aftershock Comics. In the comics world, one way of celebrating that is by doing fan art. Fan Art can bring a series welcome attention, and help enlarge its readership.

A few weeks ago, penciler and inker Freddie E. Williams II released a few preview images from The Bequest #4 on his Twitter account. I particularly liked this drawing.

 

After the events in The Bequest #3, I knew our heroes were headed to the east coast to take on the United States government. This brought back memories of my visit to Washington D.C. three years ago. My wife and I took a tour bus at one point to save on some of the walking we would do that day. 

I saw Human warrior Warlock Garthodd and Half-Elf Jerril Fain as sitting on a bus traveling to or around the Capitol, while Night Elf Creedux Sharmae, their mentor and dragon Relik, and Wood Sprite Billi Uft-Imp lay on the floor in the entryway between the seats. I wasn't sure if Relik and Billi were sleeping, or exhausted from a fight.

I noticed something covering Relik, and draped over Sharmae. I assumed it was a tourist map.

 

I started in on hair and skin coloring. Gray and silver for the bus interior shouldn't conflict with any of my color choices for the characters.

Wait. Perhaps they weren't riding on a city bus? Right. Garthodd must be driving Relik's van. A blanket likely covered Sharmae and Relik, not a map.

Along the way, I realized I had mistaken a portion of Relik's jacket for Billi's blouse. I've never found a good way of removing colored pencil, so I colored the rest of his jacket light blue for a base.

 

I associate Relik with wearing black and plum jackets and coats, so I thought about working toward both those colors. Then I thought: midnight blue is close to black, and would still show up the inked areas, so I left his jacket blue.

I wanted purple and green in the picture, so I made the seats Jade green. I really wanted lavender for the blanket. Rather than add too many colors, I opted to go with a green blanket to go with the seats.

When painting ceramics, I use yellow as a base color before applying gold. Sadly, when I applied my Gold colored pencil over the yellow, Sharmae's earrings got lost amid her skin and hair. 

 

Jeremy Colwell was always going to color his image different from me. As you can see, he gave Relik the plum jacket I wanted to. Interestingly, the shoulder strap from Relik's jacket actually belongs to another blue jacket draped over him and Sharmae. So it's a blue jacket, not a green blanket, or a city map! 

Hm. Who the blue jacket belong to?

As for how I got Garthodd's arms and hands so completely wrong, I have no explanation.

 

I want to thank Freddie E. Williams II and Aftershock Comics for sharing those fun black & white sketches with readers. I don't know if anyone else will color them, or do any other fan art to share their love for The Bequest. If they do, I hope they do a better job than I did. 

Given its mature tone and thought-provoking themes, The Bequest is a great fantasy series that teens and adults will enjoy. It deserves a big audience. Writer Tim Seeley, penciler and inker Freddie E. Williams II, colorist Jeremy Colwell, and letterer Marshall Dillon have created an interesting and entertaining group of characters. 

May Garthodd and his War Party protect the portals between Earth and Tangea in many more adventures, for at least seventy-four more issues!

Dragon Dave