Marlena Hall is a web designer, graphic artist and comic colorist from Las Vegas, Nevada. She has shown her artistic skills of coloring in comics such as Karma Incorporated, Viper Comics, Knights of the Dinner Table: Everknights since 2001. She also designs layouts and websites such as BlueSkyComics.com and others with an advertising agency in Dallas, Texas. Rest you may know from the artist herself,
1. What motivated you to get into coloring comics? And where do you get the ideas from?
Marlena: It came out of necessity, actually. My husband, Ben, was working on a comic called Knights of the Dinner Table: Everknights at the time, and he had the task of doing everything but the writing on the book. He had to do the pencils, inks, letters, cover art, grey tones and the task was a bit daunting for him. I’ve always been pretty crafty and so he asked me if I’d help him out and try coloring the comic and doing the letters for it. He gave me a crash course in Photoshop and I started doing the grey tones and letters for the comic. It was a BIG learning experience for me, having never dabbled in anything like this before.
I get coloring ideas mostly from looking at other comics (I cheat, I know) and from movies, books, and the world. I try to look at almost everything from a standpoint of “How would I color that if it were on a page?
2. How do you go about adding color to a comic book page?
Marlena: It’s ALL about Photoshop for me, and more recently I’ve started using another art program called Painter. I usually get most of the art files in digital format, because most of the artists I work with are out of state from where I am, so I get most of the art files through email or FTP. Once I get the file, I will open it up in Photoshop and set up a series of layers to work from. I then lay down a series of flat colors, which separates the elements on the page so they are easier to select individually and then I will go in and add detail to the colors, such as highlights, shadows and textures.
3. What is your design approach?
Marlena: Once I get the art from the artist I will bring it into Photoshop and look for any imperfections in the art, like smudges, line breaks or things like that. I then check the levels of the blacks and whites and make adjustments if I need to.
After that I will lay down “flats”. Which are flat colors that just separate the individual components of the art on the page. I try to use flats that will be the final colors for the page where I can, but sometimes I just use crazy colors so I can tell the elements of the page apart.
I choose my color palette based on notes from the artist, the script, what time of day it is in the story, the location of the characters, the mood of the story, things like that.
After that I’ll finish the page using both Photoshop and Painter, depending on how I want the page to look.
4. How many comic books/pages can you color per week?
Marlena: That really depends on the detail of the page. Some pages I can color a whole page in about 2 hours, other pages take me several days if the art is crazy with detail.
I’d say on average I can usually do about 5 pages per week, barring any computer or time issues.
5. Before Adobe Photoshop, colorists did not have the means to correct artwork. Do you find that more and more, colorists patch up artists’ work?
Marlena: Maybe other colorists do, but so far, I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve rarely had to do that. The most I ever have to do is fix the levels of the artwork if I get a bad scan of it. Sometimes the blacks aren’t true blacks or there are imperfections in the whites. If that’s the case then I will go in and make minor cosmetic changes, but the artists I’ve worked with have always been really good about giving me the best art to work from.
More so, in my experience, I’ve have just gotten to add more to a page, usually backgrounds, that the artist don’t draw for me, which gives me creative freedom, but can also be challenging at the same time.
6. What are a few websites you have designed?
Marlena: Firstly, I designed and maintain, along with some graphic help from Ben, my personal website, BlueSkyComics.com. I’ve split it off into three sections, one for our collective comic work and projects, and then Ben and I each have our own personal sections where we keep blogs and galleries of our individual comic and illustration work.
I also work for a small advertising firm in Dallas, called ABG, which is where I’ve done most of my web design. One of our clients is WindRiver Companies, I designed their website and all of their property sites. Another client of ours is the Canterbury Episcopal School in DeSoto, Texas. Those are just a few.
7. Have you ever considered trying drawing or writing comics?
Marlena: I’ve never considered drawing comics, simply because I can’t draw. I’m not good at it and have never attempted to develop any skill in that area whatsoever. I’ve written a few stories, and I do have a mini comic out there somewhere, if you’re lucky enough to find it but I’m not very good at fleshing things out. I’m more of a concept and story idea type of girl. I’ll bounce things off of Ben, and he usually takes my ideas and turns them into stories that people might actually want to read. Some of which we’re working on right now.
8. Marlena, what are your other interests? How are you able to snatch out time for other things? I would appreciate if you can share your working and lifestyle with us.
Marlena: I’m a BIG movie nerd. When I was younger I wanted to be an actress and there’s still a small part of me that would jump at the chance. I’ve been an extra in a few movies and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever done. I also love music, if iPods gained an ounce for every song you put on them, I’d have to have a wheelbarrow to tote mine around in.
It’s VERY hard trying to hold down a full time “day job” and still do comics at night and also have a social life. I don’t have a typical day where I come home from work and that’s it. I don’t watch TV after eating dinner and do normal stuff. After dinner it’s back to work in my studio with my husband by my side, and we work into the long hours of the night. (Well he does, I’m usually in bed by at LEAST midnight, if not earlier.)
Usually our friends have to call us up and beg us to come out because we spend so much time working.
9. Where do you see yourself after five years? I mean, any dreams, or plans for the coming future?
Marlena: I’d really like to be working on more high profile comics and/or possibly publishing my own comics with my husband. Hopefully that will happen soon.
10. Any parting words of wisdom, which you’d like to give to the budding artists?
Marlena: For anyone wanting to color comics, my advice is practice, practice, practice. Get your hands on as much black and white art in different styles as you can and just practice coloring them. Also, try to do some pieces just for fun. I find that if I’m working on something that has a deadline and I just don’t feel like working on it, I will find some black and white art or have Ben draw me something to color just for kicks. It keeps things fresh and makes it less like a “job” and more like an outlet for creativity.
Also, never EVER drink Irish Car Bombs. They’re nasty.
11. Finally, we would like to have your thoughts on the Instablogs News Network and all its related sites. Which one is your favorite?
Marlena: I’d probably have to say the Web 2.0 blog. Since I do websites for a living I’m always trying to keep on the cutting edge of all things web and technology related. There seems to be a lot of content on there that you don’t normally see on the front pages of Yahoo, MSN or even Google News.
Now, a rapid fire round:
1. Your all time favorite comics and super hero would be?
Marlena: Strangers in Paradise is my favorite comic, so that’s number one on my list, I just finished reading the last issue, however, so I’m a bit sad about it. The fact that Terry Moore has been able to take a small independent story and turn it into a lucrative career is just awe inspiring. I’d love to have a success story like that. Plus the story is the best I’ve ever read.
Kyle Baker has been one of my favorite artists for as long as I can remember. I love his style and his colors on his books are just mindblowing. He uses color that you normally wouldn’t think of to use just works in his art, and I love that.
He could illustrate the dictionary and I’d buy it. He’s a big inspiration for me, I love his stuff.
Hellboy is another favorite of mine, I like folklore stuff and the dry humor in it is just up my alley.
I also pick up a lot of independent titles, just because I know what it’s like to be there, and a lot of times the Indy comics are WAY more fulfilling to me than a lot of the mainstream stuff out there. I like crime stories and all things supernatural, but I will basically read anything that someone throws my way. I like to give everything a chance because you never know what’s going to really appeal to you unless you read it.
I’m also a huge Batman fan and so I try to read a lot of those comics, though, sadly, I’m years behind on a lot of them, but I try to get Batgirl whenever I can. She’s the cat’s pajamas.
When I was a kid, Batman was my favorite superhero. I liked him because he didn’t have any powers, he was just really smart. The Batman comics were stories that I could just relate to more, I guess. It’s thanks to him that I became so enamored with comics and have continued to read them, and ultimately become involved in creating them.
He’s still my favorite superhero, hands down.
2. Who is the most important person in your life?
Marlena: That would have to be Ben, my husband. He and I are totally in tune with each other and I don’t know anyone else who has a relationship that works as well as ours. We work both our day jobs and our night jobs together and we don’t get on each other’s nerves, which shocks almost everyone. I always tease him about how lucky he is to have a wife who is such a big nerd and who will put up with all of his late night hours of drawing while being right alongside him most nights working on art of my own. I think it helps that we both have a common goal, to produce comics, and we constantly push each other to produce the best art that we can.
We truly have a labor of love, and I know I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for him. I’m truly lucky to have found him.
3. What would you like to accomplish in life that you haven’t yet?
Marlena: I’d like to do more (possibly higher profile?) work in the comics’ field, not only because I love comics, but I feel that there needs to be more women involved in the industry. I know there’s tons of women out there like me, and hopefully, through some of the projects that I’m working on, it will open up more avenues for women readers and maybe get more women excited enough to try their hand at creating them. I mean, if I can do it, then ANYONE can.
4. What’s your greatest artistic ambition?
Marlena: To get paid exclusively for producing art. I think one of the greatest things in the world is to do something you love and also be able to make your living off of it.
5. What’s next for you?
Marlena: Ben and I are currently working together on our first project entirely done by us, which is fun. Ben is writing, penciling, inking and lettering it, while I’m doing the color work for it. It’s called Knucklejelly and it’s shaping up to be a really fun read. We’re hoping to have it ready for production next year. So I’m hoping good things will come from that, possibly more high profile color gigs, or at least enough of a response from Knucklejelly that Ben and I can start cranking out a lot more fun stuff for people to read.
I’d like to conclude by thanking Marlena for this fantastic interview and would like to wish her and her huby, comic artist Benjamin Hall, luck for their future endeavors.
