Upcoming X-books art teases

[CGAR]

Which one? Brian?

Honestly. I would rather have Betsy in that uniform.

I dislike flag/country colors as uniforms now.

[JB]

Absolutely fantastic. I'm gonna stare at this all weekend. Our mutants are going in!
So the victors take the world, huh? Very interesting.

[Whim]

Larraz is so good. glad he's doing more of this.

Trying to make out the fights.

On the left side it looks like

Gorgon vs Redroot The Forest
Magik vs Summoner
Cable vs The White Sword
??? vs Isca the Unbeaten ?

bottom left I can't make out. I assume that's Isca but in the other image they looked red? And who is that on the X side? If it's supposed to be Brian it doesn't look like him.

Wolverine vs Pogg Ur-Pogg (Logan is screwed!)
Storm vs Classified and Solem
Apocalypse vs Death
Captain Britain vs War
Cypher ? vs Bei the Blood Moon

Cypher still seems an odd choice but most of this looks pretty crazy.

[Glio]

Which one? Brian?

Honestly. I would rather have Betsy in that uniform.

I dislike flag/country colors as uniforms now.

Yes, Brian is in a suit clearly inspired by Egyptian aesthetics and I can't help but think "Who has he looted it from?"

[PlotDevice]

Wolverine vs Pogg Ur-Pogg (Logan is screwed!)

Wolverine has tried and true method for dealing with opponents like that. Allows himself to be eaten and then kills the enemy from within. It's worked on T-Rexes, Predator X, and even the Kraken.

[Jackraow21]

Wolverine has tried and true method for dealing with opponents like that. Allows himself to be eaten and then kills the enemy from within. It's worked on T-Rexes, Predator X, and even the Kraken.

Don’t forget the Hulk in the Old Man Logan future.

[JB]

Don’t forget the Hulk in the Old Man Logan future.

Hulk ate Old Man Logan? Holy moly.

[Tunasammiches]

It shouldnt be that hard to give Monet darker skin

Us designers have one rule: whatever you see on a screen will always print out darker in print. I understand the sensitivity to racial colorism issues, but just noting from a colorist's standpoint considering darker color values for a print format, CMYK print production tends to make colors darker and might not be the best in providing visual contrast and might become unclear for some viewers, since everybody sees colors differently - which means that people with poorer eye sight, visual impairment or color blindness will have a more difficult time separating the colors if they are all tones that are too dark and create a muddy color palette and they won't be able to enjoy the colors as much as someone with better vision quality. it's best to create color contrasts to ensure legibility for the reading experience. it's tricky to balance, ensuring respect for representing a person's skin color accurately while also trying to make it work visually with other color combinations on a ink-printed page. so if storm or Monet is wearing something dark, the colorist will need to tweak the skin tone to separate it visually from the costume, or surrounding lighting, they might have to tweak her skin tone to be slightly lighter or add more red to give more visual vibrancy but they will need to be careful about how it interacts with the red tones chosen for their lips. whereas if they were wearing something white, like the middle part of Monet's costume, it creates enough contrast to allow for darker skin pigment colors to be distinguished without worrying about the colors blending too much in the print process and totally muddying up their faces and facial expressions for the viewer. in the retouch of Monet in the last panel sample- her skin tone is too dark and although it looks ok on a bright screen with light coming through it, it might print too dark in a physical book copy and since her face is surrounded by black colored hair and her dark black/blue colored costume, in a dim night time setting of blues in the environment, her facial features will look muddied and illegible - the color of her lips blends too much with the color of her skin and now makes the lips less visible and hard to read, especially depending on the printing process and inks used. I'm not saying colorism is right in real life, but in consideration of the printing process, it might actually complement the characters and the art if the skin is tweaked to be lighter during darker colored scenes and color palettes. like I said, I get the knee jerk reaction to racial colorism, but there needs to be some technical awareness to proper applications to color for the best visual outcome for a printing process that allows for clear visual legibility. there is a way to get a good color balance that doesn't completely white wash a character but people need to understand the nuance that sometimes during print production, color tweaks are necessary for optimal visual communication.

[ChronoRogue]

Except the characters were colored darker in much older comics.

How is modern printing having this much trouble if simpler printing production did it far better? That seems like a poor excuse.

[Tunasammiches]

Except the characters were colored darker in much older comics.

How is modern printing having this much trouble if simpler printing production did it far better? That seems like a poor excuse.

except I don't think that's an accurate comparison. it's less about the process and more about who applies the process. and I don't think older prints actually did better if you really take time to evaluate old print work in comic books, the materials they used then as opposed to now, how those materials have aged and ink colors have degraded in time, rather than throw out blanket statements, tbh. new print comics and modern color processes don't automatically equal better visual quality. it all depends on the technicians applying them to the materials being used (in this case inks and paper). some get it right, some get it wrong. the type of paper we use now plays with inks differently and color process itself has evolved but not everyone who uses it is trained properly. if you look back on old inks from vintage comics they smudge in time and colors, depending on their combinations get muddy. you lose details like lines for noses, facial features and lips. it really is just common scientific color theory and application, not an excuse. if you don't believe me, just do some test prints of your own to see contrast issues combining darker colors creates and then do an exercise to play with the colors to get it to a point where you fix how they play together. here's a good example of what designers have to face when working with color. if you aren't a trained enough designer or production artist or have education in color theory, it's actually really easy to **** up colors for print. also things like paper quality and ink process coating can really affect colors in the print production phase as well, making colors darker than the colorist or production designer intended. there's a lot to balance with color work:

Color-Contrast-01.jpg
Why-Printing-Uses-CMYK-Image-3.jpg

the color brown especially needs careful treatment, when considering optimal color contrasts for surrounding colors to work well in combination with it.

colors on art have to work together in unison and that needs to apply to the material the colored art is printed on as well. to be concerned about the skin tone (is valid, but needs to have further, deeper thought and process evaluation) and in reality means you have to be concerned about everything that surrounds that skin tone, like the hair color, and the costume color as well as the environmental colors and lighting outside of the figure on top of that, the think black ink lines the colors surround, etc. luckily for working with Storm, the colorist has the benefit of her bright white hair to get her skin tones to pop and we can really enjoy that rich brown skin tone, but for Monet, except for the white strip in the middle of her costume, the colorist has an extra challenge because the colors surrounding her skin tone are all dark or black so the colorist has to be careful with the color mixing to service the art effectively where the viewer still gets good contrast and none of the lines are obscured. it all has to balance or else things get muddy and dark really fast. and on top of all that, the colorist has to know how their color choices will ultimately look on the type of paper they are printing on and the types of inks they are printing with.

for color blind people or visual impairment, it's really important to keep all colors on a page or a Wayfinding sign, or a billboard, or anything printed to be visually contrasting for quick, effective visual communication. the worst offender for coloring dark skin tones in comics is the IDW ghostbusters comic and how they color winston zeddmore's skin in relation to the color environment surrounding it. they try to go with what we think of as "Accurately" brown tones for his skin, but then they position the character in front of dark colored or warm toned backgrounds and dark settings and when you look at it in print, his facial features starts blending and gets really obscured and the art is lost and all you see are the whites of his eyes and teeth, but all the line details get lost. the colorist is not doing something right with the color mixing on his palette (I wish they would make sure colors around Winston were lighter so we can get a color balance and we can really see his skin tone contrast off of the surrounding environment more or find a brown color tone that doesn't obscure his facial line details of his nose and mouth) and when their colors go to print, it does not do the art justice and looks really amateur. it's possible to get a good, dark, or deep brown tone but the designer making the colors has to test the colors to get the right value to play off the page properly. all i'm saying is color is more challenging to work with than one might think, and if this colorist who is working on storm and monet is trying to be sensitive to keeping the facial features accentuated without worrying about detailed color testing--again, I don't support racial colorism-- but i can see why they might have chosen to go lighter in tone for this (dark) scene. also, another thing to consider is inks fade and paper quality erodes in time. a color used today will chemically change and deteriorate in the next 5-10 years or sooner so forward color planning for stuff like that should be considered as well.

speaking from someone who just had to color storm for a commission piece, i had the challenge of trying to get her lip colors to visually "pop" off from her brown skin tones and getting her skin tones to look separate from her costume color tones. now, on the art piece, my Storm is shown from a distance, at a smaller scale so getting those color details to pop and not blend to each other was really hard. it didn't help that the costume I drew her in was also made of dark purples and blacks, so it was a real challenge trying to find the right balance to get her color combinations to work right where the colors separated from each other, at the scale she was drawn in, in combination with the dark sky environment I colored behind her figure, and on the paper it was printed on, with the inks it was printed with...it was a lot of careful color balancing to work through and at some point I had to make some artistic negotiations with the color combination that might not have been totally "accurate" but enough to serve the visual and not be completely inaccurate, and sometimes that's the best you can hope for.

Screen Shot 2020-08-30 at 4.30.41 AM.jpg
if you see from this screen shot of my art, since i don't use black outlines, it was a real struggle getting the browns to not blend in with the purples in the costume design and its hard to see where her chin ends and her costume's neck piece begins, and its also hard to see the separate of her lips from her face. the red tones of her lips blend in too much with the brown of her skin, and in this digital style where i don't use outlines to separate features or objects, and only rely on color blocks, the visual balancing act gets challanging.

white/lighter skin tones are easier to work with because they are lighter in hue and contrast is easy to achieve but color balancing people of color for print does pose different challenges and sometimes is not easy! there are actually color guides and formulas out there how to apply color correctly but i assure you, not nearly half of everyone in the business who should know it, actually does.

[ChronoRogue]

except I don't think older prints actually did better if you really take time to evaluate old print work in comic books, the materials they used then as opposed to now, rather than throw out blanket statements, tbh. also new comics and modern color processes don't automatically equal better visual quality. it all depends on the technicians applying them to the materials being used (in this case inks and paper). some get it right, some get it wrong. the type of paper we use now plays with inks differently and color process itself has evolved but not everyone who uses it is trained properly. if you look back on old inks from vintage comics they smudge in time and colors, depending on their combinations get muddy. you lose details like lines for noses, facial features and lips. it really is just common scientific color theory and application, not an excuse. if you don't believe me, just do some test prints of your own to see contrast issues combining darker colors creates and then do an exercise to play with the colors to get it to a point where you fix how they play together. here's a good example of what designers have to face when working with color. if you aren't a trained enough designer or production artist or have education in color theory, it's actually really easy to **** up colors for print. also things like paper quality and ink process coating can really affect colors in the print production phase as well, making colors darker than the colorist or production designer intended. there's a lot to balance with color work:

Color-Contrast-01.jpg
Why-Printing-Uses-CMYK-Image-3.jpg

colors on art have to work together in unison and that needs to apply to the material the colored art is printed on as well. to be concerned about the skin tone (is valid, but needs to have further, deeper thought and process evaluation) and in reality means you have to be concerned about everything that surrounds that skin tone, like the hair color, and the costume color as well as the environmental colors and lighting outside of the figure on top of that, the think black ink lines the colors surround, etc. luckily for working with Storm, the colorist has the benefit of her bright white hair to get her skin tones to pop and we can really enjoy that rich brown skin tone, but for Monet, except for the white strip in the middle of her costume, the colorist has an extra challenge because the colors surrounding her skin tone are all dark or black so the colorist has to be careful with the color mixing to service the art effectively where the viewer still gets good contrast and none of the lines are obscured. it all has to balance or else things get muddy and dark really fast. and on top of all that, the colorist has to know how their color choices will ultimately look on the type of paper they are printing on and the types of inks they are printing with.

for color blind people or visual impairment, it's really important to keep all colors on a page or a Wayfinding sign, or a billboard, or anything printed to be visually contrasting for quick, effective visual communication. the worst offender for coloring dark skin tones in comics is the IDW ghostbusters comic and how they color winston zeddmore's skin. they try to go with what we think of as "Accurately" brown tones for his skin, but when you look at it in print, his facial features get really obscured and the art is lost and all you see are the whites of his eyes and teeth, but all the line details get lost. the colorist is not doing something right with the color mixing on his palette so when his colors go to print, it doesn't not do the art justice and looks really amateur. it's possible to get a good, dark, or deep brown tone but the designer making the colors has to test the colors to get the right value to play off the page properly. all i'm saying is color is more challenging to work with than one might think, and if this colorist who is working on storm and monet is trying to be sensitive to keeping the facial features accentuated without worrying about detailed color testing--again, I don't support racial colorism-- but i can see why they might have chosen to go lighter in tone for this (dark) scene. also, another thing to consider is inks fade and paper quality erodes in time. a color used today will chemically change and deteriorate in the next 5-10 years or sooner so forward color planning for stuff like that should be considered as well.

speaking from someone who just had to color storm for a commission piece, i had the challenge of trying to get her lip colors to pop off of her brown skin tones. now, on the art piece, my Storm is shown from a distance, at a smaller scale so getting those color details to pop and not blend to each other was really hard. it didn't help that the costume I drew her in was also dark, so it was a real challenge trying to find the right balance to get her to color combinations to work right, at the scale she was drawn in, on the paper it was printed on, with the inks it was printed with. white/lighter skin tones are easier to work with because they are lighter in hue and contrast is easy to achieve but color balancing people of color for print does pose different challenges and sometimes is not easy! there are actually color guides and formulas out there how to apply color correctly but i assure you, not nearly half of everyone in the business who should know it, actually does.

I appreciate the insight into the process of how printing affects color, but still find it difficult to believe it's such an obstacle that people whitewash to such a degree. If new printing technology is inconvenience to such a degree to new artists in terms of variety of skin colors, maybe they need to go back the basics for printing.

If it means sacrificing a little contrast or detail to accurately portray a skin tone respectfully, I'm sorry but it's representation every time. I understand an artists need to get their art just right and to be accommodating to visual impairments and color blind readers, but it's more than a little insulting for that artist to think lightening skin color is the answer to the issue or acceptable work ethic.

[Tunasammiches]

I appreciate the insight into the process of how printing affects color, but still find it difficult to believe it's such an obstacle that people whitewash to such a degree. If new printing technology is inconvenience to such a degree to new artists in terms of variety of skin colors, maybe they need to go back the basics for printing.

If it means sacrificing a little contrast or detail to accurately portray a skin tone respectfully, I'm sorry but it's representation every time. I understand an artists need to get their art just right and to be accommodating to visual impairments and color blind readers, but it's more than a little insulting for that artist to think lightening skin color is the answer to the issue or acceptable work ethic.

my pleasure.
like I mentioned, it's less about the technology and more about the technician who is trained to apply the colors. it's really not as cut and dry as you make it. color is about visual communication. if you are truly about inclusivity and representation, you need to take into account that not everyone has the capabilities or luxury to see things the same as you or I, and colors on print aren't the same as colors in real life, and always need adjusting in its process from initial coloring on screen to final print production on paper. You also shouldn't sacrifice other "accurate" representations for the sake of color solely from a socio-political standpoint. more than one element does exist on that page to consider. from an artistic standpoint, there also needs to be anatomical accurateness represented like noses, shapes of eyes and lips and cheek bones that are important in representing a character's defining physical traits -like ethnicity/racial background or body type. if I can't see the line details that form the shape of Monet's nose I wouldn't get any notion and nuance of her ethnic background and I might mistake her for an African American girl instead of Algerian/Bosnian. to me, if the color is applied too darkly that it obscures that beautiful detail, then it's just as offensive a loss as inaccurate skin color and effectively, the colorist just diminished the artist's efforts of accuracy in representing M as an ethnic woman of color if those colors obscured those details of the art. I'm not saying lightening skin color is the answer to contrast and I'm not advocating for white washing. (also there is a difference with "lightening" skin tones and "brightening" skin tones) i'm saying using the right color balance and playing with ALL the environmental color combinations and light sources as a whole around the skin color to compensate for print limitations correctly is what is needed so we can get good visual color outputs and beautiful brown faces - and by faces, I don't just mean skin color I also mean physical facial features.

So, for example if it's a dark scene with dimmed lighting, the skin color might be lightened (or brightened) to compensate...but in bright daylight settings or brightly lit settings the colorist can tweak the skin tone to be darker on that character. adjusting the colors dynamically to what the scene needs actually helps amplify visual representation if done correctly, but keeping colors local despite changes in environment colors and lighting actually does the image more disservice than one might assume. while the color technically shifts based on lighting and environment, the correct balancing creates this visual illusion of "accuracy" and consistency that the scene and the character needs. for painters using oil paint, colors like blues or purples might be mixed into brown toned skin if the image setting is during the evening, or in the other spectrum, more reds and yellows will be added to brown tones, if the image setting is a hot, bright summer afternoon. now, as a brown skinned guy in real life, do I have blue in my skin? no. but if I'm a brown skin character set in a night time environment with blue and dark tones, I'd want some blue tones applied to that skin so the colors integrate to the lighting of the scene rather than stick out like a sore thumb and visually distract the viewer or make for a jarring visual experience. sometimes it takes other colors or less of certain colors to get the right "accurate" color but it always depends on the lighting and surrounding color environment. long story short, color treatment is complex and should not to be taken lightly by fans OR people working with it in the industry. for print, color balancing is necessary, and skin tones are always balanced to serve the color environment and can not be rigid in application. there's a visual trick to tweaking colors where the viewer isn't even aware they are seeing changes in colors they are looking at, but in my experience, even the best, most "respectful" colors aren't consistent from page 1 to page 25, because the colors change from scene to scene and are constantly being balanced.

[ChronoRogue]

like I mentioned, it's less about the technology and more about the technician who is trained to apply the colors. it's really not as cut and dry as you make it. color is about visual communication. if you are truly about inclusivity and representation, you need to take into account that not everyone has the capabilities or luxury to see things the same as you or I, and colors on print aren't the same as colors in real life, and always need adjusting in its process from initial coloring on screen to final print production on paper. You also shouldn't sacrifice other "accurate" representations for the sake of color from a socio-political standpoint. from an artistic standpoint, there also needs to be anatomical accurateness represented like noses, shapes of eyes and lips and cheek bones that are important in representing a character's ethnicity/race. to me, if the color is applied too darkly that it obscures that beautiful detail, then it's just as offensive a loss as inaccurate skin color and effectively, the colorist just took away the part of the artist's job to represent M as an ethnic woman of color. if I can't see the line details that form the shape of Monet's nose I wouldn't get any notion and nuance of her ethnic background and I might mistake her for an African American girl instead of Algerian. I'm not saying lightening skin color is the only answer to contrast and I'm not advocating for white washing. i'm saying using the right color balance and playing with ALL the environmental color combinations and light sources as a whole around the skin art to compensate for print limitations correctly is what is needed so we can get good visual color outputs and beautiful brown faces. So, for example if it's a dark scene with dimmed lighting, the skin color might be lightened...but in bright daylight settings or brightly lit settings the colorist can tweak the skin tone to be darker on that character. while the color technically shifts based on lighting and environment, the correct balancing creates this visual illusion of "accuracy" and consistency that the scene and the character needs. for painters using oil paint, colors like blues or purples might be mixed into brown toned skin if the image setting is during the evening, or in the other spectrum, more reds and yellows will be added to brown tones, if the image setting is a hot, bright summer afternoon. sometimes it takes other colors or less of certain colors to get the right "accurate" color but it always depends on the lighting and surrounding color environment. long story short, color treatment is complex and should not to be taken lightly by fans OR people working with it in the industry. for print, skin tones are always balanced to serve the color environment and can not be rigid in application. there's a visual trick to tweaking colors where the viewer isn't even aware of it, but in my experience, even the best, most "respectful" colors aren't consistent from page 1 to page 25, because the colors are constantly being balanced.

Then those technical artists need to do better.

Visual impairment and color blindness should be taken into consideration, but even video games that portray people of color do not commonly lighten to the extremes that result in whitewashing in comics. And keep in mind those are games which vision is even more important, as it plays into being able to see a character, move, and react to them.

Maybe I would understand better if you had more examples to show in terms of how darkening a picture to such an extent would derail or obscure person's racial features. Because in examples I can find, it doesn't play any significant difference.

Shadows at play with darker skin, can still clearly see facial features (in terms of he were Caucasian it would be the same shadows).


Vixin who has dark hair and dark skin, we can see the lights playing on her skin but her skin tone is clearly dark emphasized by the shadows. Can see her features clearly.


Basically any Storm cover that plays with shadows, can still see her features and works with dark skin.



What Havok83 posted was fine, it did not detract from the scene or seem weird to portray a darker skin tone.

And yes, the shadows and environment do play into an extent how skin tone color lighten or darken, but not the extent the Storm & Monet preview pages show. This is why people are complaining about it, it looks off.

[Tunasammiches]

Then those technical artists need to do better.

Visual impairment and color blindness should be taken into consideration, but even video games that portray people of color do not commonly lighten to the extremes that result in whitewashing in comics. And keep in mind those are games which vision is even more important, as it plays into being able to see a character, move, and react to them.

Maybe I would understand better if you had more examples to show in terms of how darkening a picture to such an extent would derail or obscure person's racial features. Because in examples I can find, it doesn't play any significant difference.

Shadows at play with darker skin, can still clearly see facial features (in terms of he were Caucasian it would be the same shadows).


Vixin who has dark hair and dark skin, we can see the lights playing on her skin but her skin tone is clearly dark emphasized by the shadows. Can see her features clearly.


Basically any Storm cover that plays with shadows, can still see her features and works with dark skin.



What Havok83 posted was fine, it did not detract from the scene or seem weird to portray a darker skin tone.

And yes, the shadows and environment do play into an extent how skin tone color lighten or darken, but not the extent the Storm & Monet preview pages show. This is why people are complaining about it, it looks off.

Please keep in mind you cannot use video games or anything you see on a screen output as an example for your case or a comparison to colors viewed on print materials - because video games are projected from an RGB (Red Green Blue) output that uses less colors and emits from a bright screen with a light source that provides brighter visual output. print outputs on a (CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) page and do not have the same lighting benefits as a screen. also your first screen shot of roberto looks digital - if you have a physical copy of the panel from the original print from the 1980's you will see it's much darker than what you posted on the screen, and the paper quality is much yellower, which makes all colors age darker.

for me, havok's image (while looks good on screen) showed potential to print too dark and too much yellow was added so it does not look correct. I hear what the complaint is about, but i'm just saying it might not always be a case of the technician exhibiting racial bias and colorism and more technical application issues due to the color setup or lighting compensation. there was another poster on here that did another skin test with the same Monet image who came up with a better color adjustment solution than havok tho.

[ChronoRogue]

Please keep in mind you cannot use video games or anything you see on a screen output as an example for your case - because video games are projected from an RGB (Red Green Blue) output that uses less colors and emits from a bright screen with a light source that provides brighter visual output. print outputs on a (CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) page and do not have the same light benefits as a screen

for me, havok's image showed potiential to print darker and too much yellow was added so it does not look correct.

Yes games do have the benefit of being a light source itself but few people would read a comic in poor light conditions, that kinda of defeats the purpose and strains your eyesight unnecessarily. The more limited colors that a game protrays is not relevant to how a person can perceive darker colors, how would a more open palette matter if artists are able to make do with more limitations?

Havok83s image is not as dark as skin tones go so it printing darker should not be an issue. I don't really understand what you mean about too much yellow or why it would not look "correct" as Monet's skin tone there looks more similiar to the regular skin tone that she was often portrayed in Gen X (even in darker settings).

But I think I have untentionally derailed this thread long enough, I forget this was not a thread about colorism and art in Marvel comics but focused on discussing the preview pages themselves. You bring up good insight, but I feel like I still don't see a good reason for the artist in these pages to lighten their skin tones to this degree.