A quick study for a character design. Drawn in Mirage on the Cintiq, colored in Photoshop. This is another one where the digital color frustrates me ... it looks different from browser to browser , and quite a bit different depending on the monitor. It's frustrating how many variables there are . And these are just simple little cartoons with color washes . I think how frustrating it must be for people doing full-scale illustrations, trying to get their colors to remain true when viewed in a web browser.
[click on image to view it larger]
Perhaps you could benefit from a monitor calibrator. There are some fairly inexpensive ones now that work quite well. This is how most studios keep things looking correct.
Also I'm curious why you colored in Photoshop?
Nice design.
Posted by: Rusty | Sunday, December 03, 2006 at 11:15 AM
I was imprecise in my description: drawn in Mirage , started the coloring in Mirage , finished off in Photoshop because I find that I can control the gradient tool better in PS. I'm still more acclimated to PS for coloring than Mirage. Prefer drawing in Mirage and I just need to work with it more to get used to coloring with it.
I've calibrated the monitor a couple of times. The mystery to me is why the colors look vivid in Safari , but dulled down in Firefox .
Posted by: David N | Sunday, December 03, 2006 at 02:12 PM
Ahh...was just wondering how you approached the coloring. As for the color it looks the same here in both Foxfire and Internet Explorer. I wonder if Safari is reading monitor color calibration settings. Does the color in Safari look like it did in PS? Because I'm sure you are using calibration settings in PS.
Posted by: Rusty | Monday, December 04, 2006 at 12:24 AM
Yes, the color looks exactly the same when viewed in Safari as in Photoshop.
I guess Safari must be set up to read color profiles embedded in image files.
Posted by: David N | Monday, December 04, 2006 at 11:53 AM
Thank you for the comment in my blog! :D
I have a similar problem with my own color. Well.. my main problem is that when I print my illustrations, they come out much darker and more saturated than they are on my computer monitor. As a result, my teachers think I'm a horrible colorist! Yikes!
Really endearing drawing though. :) I wanna play with a Cintiq.
Posted by: Erin | Tuesday, December 05, 2006 at 01:33 AM
I have the same trouble, too. Colors appear different in different applications. I can make notes for an animator on something in Photoshop, but when they open the file in mail, the colors are markedly changed, usually muted.
If you come up with a solution, let me know.
Posted by: Tim | Monday, December 18, 2006 at 11:56 PM
Tim,
I'll send you something that Eddie Pittman gave me on how to handle color profiles in Photoshop. Look for an email from me later today...
Posted by: David N | Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 12:31 PM