Bring colour to Black Panther

Ken Lashley’s Black Panther is brought to life by Juan Fernandez, a pro colourist who passes on a decade’s worth of comic industry advice

Juan Fernandez works on Ken Lashley’s line art.

Black Panther was the first superhero I really identified with. I’m a huge fan of the character. Over the past few years I’ve had the chance to work on the comic and it’s always been a blast.

When showing the process of how a comic image is created there are always a few creators involved, usually a penciller , inker and colourist. I’ve been inking my own work for years now and I’ve become more comfortable as I move forward in my career. So I decide to treat this workshop like I do my day job, and ask my colourist to do his thing over my inks. l start my work the same way I do all my digital work: I lay down some rough areas and just get rolling. I open the work up by not overdrawing and letting the colourist have room to create. Juan Fernandez does some amazing work, and finishes the piece with great style.

l begin this drawing by laying down my red pencil. I use red because the lead doesn’t become waxy when I ink over it. I use a lot of smaller pens and build up the line weights. I don’t do roughs usually – certainly not in this case.

After finishing the inks I create a ‘clean’ version. I take the full colour scan, turn the image to Black and White in Photoshop, then turn down each colour. I then go to the Levels function and increase the black and decrease the grey. Now it’s saved and ready for the next phase. It’s colour time. Over to you, Juan.