Colorists See the Light: Brandon McKinney
Brandon McKinney is the artist on two upcoming graphic novels from AiT/Planet Lar: the superhero Planet of the Capes (written by Larry Young) and the SF Switchblade Honey (written by Warren Ellis). He has adapted Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones into a big-little book for Chronicle, and a coloring book (Heroes and Villains) for Random House. The Star Wars works will be out in May; the graphic novels are scheduled to come out this year. Both of the GNs are black and white, which might raise the question of what he’s doing in a feature on colorists. McKinney essentially ‘colors’ his own pencil work in Photoshop, using graytones instead of a full color palette. The result is much more textured than black and white art typically is. (Check out page 3 of Planet of the Capes.)
DT: What’s your training and background?
BM: I’m mostly self-taught, but I received a B.A. in Fine Art at UCLA. I was also fortunate enough to apprentice under Gil Kane and Steve Rude while I was down there. I learned a lot from both of them.
DT: How did you get involved with comics?
BM: Ever since reading them as a kid, I knew I wanted to draw them. My first job was in high school with SilverWolf Comics in Sacramento. Didn’t get paid much but got a taste of the business. In college, my buddy Darick Robertson hooked me up with Innovation Comics to do some Child’s Play comics. That led to my meeting Andy Mangels, a writer who got me involved with Elfquest and Lucasfilm. Darick also introduced me to Larry Young who I’m working with now on Planet of the Capes.
DT: How would you describe your art?
BM: I’ve heard my art descibed as “traditional”, in the sense that I didn’t jump on the Jim Lee bandwagon or do Manga-style faces. No disrespect to either of those influences, but they weren’t me. I grew up on Ross Andru and Gil Kane’s Spider-Man, John Byrne’s Fantastic Four and George Perez’s Teen Titans. Those are what stuck with me. I just try to draw in a dynamic straight forward sense that suits the story.
DT: How and why did you develop the techniques that you use?
BM: The black & white tones I’m using for Planet of the Capes came as a result of knowing the book would be in black & white and I wanted to get as much out of the art as possible. I’d started doing it for an Elfquest project, since I knew that would be in black & white as well, and I liked how it was going. I figured I’d use the same process I’d started on EQ with Larry’s book. It’s easier that doing full color since I just have to make value judgements (which areas should be shaded darker or lighter) and my color sense is still in its early development.
DT: What advantages and disadvantages do you think B&W art has over color art? How do you attempt to maximize the advantages and/or minimize the disadvantages?
BM: I think the B&W art has advantages in that it can be easier to read. Bad color can distract from the artwork and thus the story. I don’t think I could do a color book as well as I could a B&W book right now, until I gain more experience. But a well colored book can be mind blowing. I think the stuff that Laura DePuy, Moose Bauman and Paul Mounts produce is gorgeous — they really know how to set a mood with their color choices and themes. In attempting to maximize the advantages and/or minimize the disadvantages, I just try to apply the same principle of using more or less shading to create a mood or an atmosphere. I may not be able to show the reader the difference in the characters’ costumes, but hopefully the book will look better than if it were just B&W line art.
DT: When you say you ‘wanted to get the most out of the art’ in black and white, what exactly do you mean? Does using the graytones offer up any new storytelling tools that might be harder to use with line art? Or does it come down to the mood and atmosphere you mention?
BM: Most black & white comics are printed just that way: Black & white. Doing the gray tones allows a broader palette to work with. I admire the great artists who can use black & white effectively: Alex Toth, Steve Rude, Dave Lapham and Dave Sim to name a few off the top of my head. They know you to make the art interesting without any color or greys at all (well, Steve Rude used zip-a-tone, so he should get credit for cutting all that stuff out!) I find the tones just make my art look better than if it were just black & white. I can make things darker for scenes that take place at night, less if it’s a day scene. It does help the atmosphere.
DT: Does knowing that you’re going to tone the art yourself affect the way you do the line art itself? If so, how?
BM: It definitely does. For example, I won’t ink in a night sky because I know I’ll fill it in with a dark grey. I’ll do less shading on faces and skin, less texture on rocks, streets, metal, etc. because I know I can make it look better when I work on the pages in Photoshop.
DT: When you do line art and then give it to someone else to do full color on it, what kind of communication goes on between the penciller and the colorist? In an ideal world, how would the penciller, inker and colorist interact?
BM: When I did just pencil art, I would (and I know other pencillers do this) make notes in the margins to the colorist about if I’d want something a certain color, or if I wanted a certain line or set of lines to be changed to another color. In an ideal world, either the three artists (penciller, inker & colorist) are in phone contact, work in the same office, or they are the same person. I know there are times when I’ve picked up a finished issue of a book I worked on and been pretty disappointed by how the colorist finished the work. I’ve been pleasantly surprised in some cases, but that isn’t as common as the opposite reaction. I really like that I get to finish my own work. It stands or falls on its own merits.
DT: Could you perhaps describe in some detail how you go about creating the tones? What tools do you use, and when you’re looking at the page, what kinds of things are you thinking about?
BM: I’ll answer this assuming that the reader has a basic knowledge of Photoshop (which is all I really have anyway!). I basically use the Paintbrush, Pencil, Airbrush and Fill/Paint Bucket tools to do the basics. When I discovered how to use the Lasso and the Magic Wand tools, that opened up a world of possibilities in the art. You can get a variety of great effects by selecting an area and using the Gradient tool to create a blend of dark to light (or light to dark) tones that can help show a light source very well.
If I find I’ve toned a figure or panel and it isn’t dark enough, I can create a new layer, set it to Multiply and go over the art with a light Paintbrush to push the tones darker. I also like using the Motion Blur effect to create the illusion of movement. It gives panels a very cinematic appeal (see the bottom panel on page 5).
When I do the tones, I’m mostly thinking about light sources. I know painters do this more than line artists. I want to pick where the light source(s) are coming from and emphasize those. I also want to think about emphasizing or de-emphasizing foreground objects from background ones. I can do this by coloring one darker than another, or blurring one and keeping the other sharp. With line art, an artist usually puts a thicker outline around a foreground object and/or adds more spot blacks to it. It’s basically all about choosing where you want the readers’ eyes to go in the panel or the page.
DT: Any final thoughts?
BM: I hope people respond well to Planet of the Capes despite its lack of color. Larry Young and I hope that it has the same appeal as film noir — that the readers can use their imaginations to fill in the color if they so choose. I really enjoy the look of it and I hope it provides an alternative to the mainstream super-hero comics that are out there.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.