An Overly Exhaustive Making of A TMNT8 cover Part 3: Colors

Benjamin Hobbs:

The RemasteredTMNT8 Kickstarter campaign is moving right along. One of the covers on the campaign was drawn and colored by me:

 

Over the next several weeks I'm going to show an Overly Exhaustive Progression of this cover.  This week: The Color.

Having scanned in the image and cleaned up bits I forgot to white-out, I added Color flats:

I wanted The colors to look water colored. To achieve  this, I printed out sections of the cover and, on a separate piece of paper, water colored over them using a light box. I started with Cerebus, the rings, and the area behind Cerebus and Renet. I scanned in the water colors and placed them in the image.  Orange was used a placeholder in the border boxes:

Next, I added color to the middle circle up top. And added some digitally created energy emanating from the clock at the bottom of the cover:

Next I rendered some light on the circles around the price, issue number and Turtles:

My wife pointed out that the circle around the rings wasn't really, you know, A CIRCLE. So I fixed it digitally. Then added more light effects to the designs around the Turtles. Also, Cerebus' eyeball drops down a bit:

Renet's clothes and cape were colored,  and the power from the Time Scepter was laid in.  I put a Blue field behind the four Turtles.  I thought about doing Blue/Purple/Red/Orange, but that would have been a BIT too cutesy:

I turned off the color flats to give myself a more realistic idea of what still needed to be colored. Having done the watercolors for the skin tone on Renet, I placed them.  Only to discover that I forgot to color her chest. How did I miss THAT:

So I colored her chest.  And the Turtles:

The alternating yellow and orange color on the rings wasn't working for the image, there wasn't enough depth. So I adjusted that.  Digitally, I cleaned up the lighting effects in the borders around the Turtles:

The Time Scepter effects weren't looking right.  So I took out the line work, and let the effect exist on it's own. The blue behind the Turtles wasn't working for the image, so I swapped it out for a color that matches the color behind Cerebus and Renet, unifying the cover:

 Then, I changed the logo text and cover price, and added highlights to the Turtles heads.

And finally, I moved around some highlights on the Turtles and added some to their bandanas:

Next Week: It's the last Wednesday of the month! An all new CIH? at you LCS!