Flatting

I'm not educated in the lingo of publishing, illustration or arts.
I know what I know because I've had to learn it. If you'd've asked me what a flatter was years ago, my answer would've had more to do with laying carpet than comics.

Personally, I find flatting takes the most time, and shading, blending, low-light and highlighting things are what I'm quicker at.

Below are some examples of flats, and then the finished colours.
the Kings Watch pages were provided by Nate Cosby for one of his Colourist Hunts,
the X-men pages were provided for the Chris Sotomayor course - Intro to Colouring,
and the Halloween lineart was provided by Lar de Souza of the webcomics Least I Could Do and Looking For Group..and of course, his cartooning / caricaturing.

Kings Watch flats

Kings Watch colours

Lar's line art flat

Lar's line art coloured

 

King's Watch test pages

Below are some test-pages [originally b&w, coloured by me] put out by Mr. Nate Cosby [ Tumblr & Twitter], who is looking for colourists.

A newspaper/media building while the sky is falling, The Phantom in the jungle, and some Flash Gordon - Flash is a work in progress, the flats are done.

I worked on the first page Monday to Friday after my "regular day-job", got The Phantom done Saturday evening after running errands all day and started on Flash's page, which is now flatted and ready for "prettying up".

I had to refer to the script a few times, and was glad to see that my gut was right on a couple of occasions, but keep kicking / reminding myself to read the script first, then jump into the colours.
Lesson learned? Always read the script!
Second lesson learned? Trust your gut - but read the script!!