I went with green when I colorized this fellow more because it seemed like fun than for any other reason. Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein was “flesh colored” in the comics.

This final creature is inspired by the version Dick Briefer drew in his Frankenstein comics.

Once again I stuck with a corpse inspired color scheme. In all the photos I’ve seen of this creature he looks like he’s pretty pale.

This version of a Frankenstein monster is inspired by photos of the creature in Evil of Frankenstein played by Kiwi Kingston.

I’ve only seen two of the Hammer Frankenstein series; The Curse of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Created Woman. Once of these days I’ll have to catch up on the other films.

I didn’t add much color to the image after the initial colorization. This creature seemed like he should be pale and corpselike in hue.

This second Frankenstein creature is inspired by the monster played by Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein, the first of the Hammer Frankenstein series.

Colorizing was done by –
A. Scanning the original art into Photoshop
B. Duplicating the original art a couple of times onto a couple of different layers. One layer would stay untouched in case I needed an undamaged version of the original image.
C. The original scan is duplicated again and then colorized.
D. The colorized layer is duplicated and then given a gaussian blur.
E. The three active layers (original, colorized and blurred) and then set to multiply.
F. I then erased out the parts of the original layer where I only wanted color to appear in the image (rather than color with a grey undertone).
G. I adjusted the contrast of what’s left of the original layer so that I get solid blacks and the greys are lighter.
H. I added another layer set to multiply and then added color for skin and the background.
I. On additional layers I added highlights or undertones of color.

I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. I’m especially happy with how little time I spent in Photoshop.

I’m constantly trying to improve my skills in creating color illustrations. I’ve tried a number of techniques and media – colored pencils, markers, watercolors and Photoshop. All of the media have their benefits but so far there’s not one that I would use exclusively. The problem with paint, pencil or marker is that, while the colors might look great on paper, the scans I’m able to get leave something to be desired. The illustrations all need some adjustment in Photoshop. And I try to spend as little time in Photoshop as possible. The program is a black hole of noodling opportunities. I can zoom in and fiddle around getting a perfect look to a bug on a wall in the background of an image that the casual viewer wouldn’t notice was there. The more an illustration is done on paper the less time I’ll spend screwing with it once it’s scanned.

So … I regularly check out the work of other artists and, if they’re doing something I like, I try to add their techniques to my skill set. I recently happened across Adam Hughes’ DeviantArt site and got a bit of a clue about his workflow. It was enough of a clue to try some version of it on my own.

As I often do when trying out new techniques I started with a familiar subject – Frankenstein monsters. The art here is done with cool grey Prismacolor markers and black ink.

Tomorrow, the colorized version.