Turns out (as I kind of expected) I still kinda suck with watercolors. At least enough to make this not look so good. So I started working with my copics. Im working on 11x17 canson comic art board. I'll update with progress shots assuming I get more work done on it in reasonable time.

Gambit and Rogue are Prepped!

EDIT: The colors on this image are a bit light, and the lighter colors like yellow you might not be able to see.  I haven't deleted or erased any line art from the original, it's all there, just some of it in light colors.

So after laying out and finalizing the color scheme I intend to use for this piece, I took the digital file that I had for the line art and in photoshop prepped it like any piece of line art that I'd color digitally.  Since I'm doing this with watercolors, I don't need to go through the tedious flatting or any of the digital painting I usually do.  I do want the lines themselves to have colors though, so that not everything is black lines and the piece can feel more natural and have a better flow to it.  I masked a seperate layer so I could paint only the lines, and started applying colors.  I filled all the background lines with colors that when painted (hopefully) blend into my paints and still keep the same feel that the original by Brian Ching has.  I plan on making the background in light washed colors, while Gambit and Rogue, along with the X symbol right behind their heads, will be more saturated and vibrant.  This should frame out the characters nicely while at the same time keeping the background details intricate but not distracting.  I kept the characters lines dark so the shadows don't get lost under the more vibrant colors I'll lay down.  I then printed out the colored lines on to 11x17 comic art board.  I'll start painting tonight most likely.

I like gifts...

So someone gave me THIS piece of original art as a gift as a thank you for coloring an original art piece they had purchased from me.  I really didn't expect it and was floored.  I actually had my eye on this piece about a year and a half ago when another collector was selling it, but I had to pass because I couldn't afford it at the time, so imagine my surprise when I got it in the mail.  I can't thank the person who sent it to me enough (Thanks Alex!) so in an attempt to, I'm coloring a copy of a piece she owns for her.  Here is the original.  This is just an 8.5x11 color study/layout that I did with a combination of colored pencils and Copic markers just to get an idea of how I was going to tackle this piece.  I plan on doing this in watercolors and making it look bigger and prettier, but I'm fairly new to watercolors, so if it sucks I might just do it with my Copics.