Oct 2021
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Oct 2021
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TheDoublekey
Oct '21

Hi everybody, I was wondering... do you prefer to read a colored webcomic or a b&w/grayscale one? I'm asking this question because I'm resorting to grayscale in order to speed up the process, but I don't know if the audience likes it or finds it confusing.
I see lots of webtoons and webcomics that are colored, and sometimes I feel like I should change things up and switch to color.

Here's an example showing the same panel, but one is grayscale and the other one is colored:

Senza titolo-1.jpg2215x2093 465 KB

Color.jpg2215x2093 361 KB

Either way,I'll put a survey right here to know your thoughts on it! Also, let me know your opinion down below!

  • Grayscale/B&W
  • Colored

31voters

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    Oct '21

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    Oct '21
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LunarScyphozoa
Oct '21

Grayscale works better with your style, and the colors in the colored version are just a bit too bright.

DualDragonsMaster of Yeet
Oct '21

I voted grayscale, mostly because I feel the colours in the colour version are very saturated and a bit painful for the eyes.

TheDoublekey
Oct '21
DualDragons

Yeah, I believe I'll occasionally put some colored panels here and there, but for the rest I'll mostly stick to grayscale

ArthurAleksei
Oct '21

I think it's easier to make a comic look professional when in greayscale/screentone. I also just really like that black-and-white-with-screentone look :slight_smile:

DarkChibiShadow
Oct '21

Grayscale can look awesome and it can allow you to make more updates! And more updates is usually always preferred by folks. :slight_smile:

thecrystalrook
Oct '21

Up to you at the end of the day. I don't have a preference. I personally work in grayscale to save on time and printing costs

BlueDragon
Oct '21

I agree with most others here, I prefer your use of grey scale, but think with a bit of studying, you could have some fun with color. And yeah, I think you should work in what makes you happy. If you want to learn color, it's always good to have more tools in your "arsenal," but if you prefer working quicker, than it might be best to hone you technique in grayscale. What you like to do can work, so long as you're enjoying the process and doing what you want :smiley: (in my opinion).

As for what I prefer: I kinda judge each comic on its own merits. I read all color web comics, all screentoned/grayscale, as well as those that use color sparingly. I think it just depends on how one uses their techniques.

But, I will say, I feel on something like Webtoons (not sure here), color comics tend to be the preferences of that audience (this not a judgement: there's nothing wrong with that, it's just my person observation).

TheDoublekey
Oct '21

Yeah, that's why I was in doubt: I see many webtoons published in color, and I started feeling like my comic lacked something. I know that the story and contents are waaay more important than the looks, but I also know that a good coloring and artstyle can hook and attract more people.

Either way, for now I'll stick to grayscale and I'll try to improve on my coloring. Btw, the colored panel I showed was done on the fly, so that's why I didn't focus much on it.

darthmongoose
Oct '21

They greyscale has moire on the tones (something that happens when tones are used at the wrong resolution, creating a plaid-like pattern), so if you are going to use greyscale, I'd recommend either switching to flat grey fills or using tones at the resolution you're going to display the images at, or at least scaling only in increments of exactly 50 or 25% etc. Since the tones have been used with dots too small to read as dots here, it looks like you need to have bigger dots for the screentone manga aesthetic, or to just not use dones and to use clean grey fills, and a texture or noise overlay if they look too mechanical. To me, as somebody with a manga background, the use of tones on top of hatching just feels like an odd choice though; hatching and tones aren't generally used together like that because they're meant to do the same thing.

So personally, I like the colour better, because while the colours used are a bit over-saturated and there are issues with pillow shading and random lens flare/shine marks, there isn't moire, it suits the American cartoon look of the eyes, and colour just generally attracts more readers on platforms like Tapas and webtoon.

Whichever you go for, I'd recommend doing some study on using consistent light source directions and using shadow to define solid feeling volumes.

TheDoublekey
Oct '21
darthmongoose

Yeah, the moire effect has always been a huge pain for me. Fortunately though, just as you said, I started using flat grey fills ever since chapter 4.4. The greyscale screentoned panel you see is from the printed version, where there should (hopefully) be no problem.

For the webcomic version I completely decided to exclude the screentones with dots (some can still be found occasionally), but I still use other screentones.

I wanted to ask a question though: how do some manga artists manage to do shading on top of screentones?
Like in this case:

I tried it myself, but moire happens, so I avoid it as much as possible

darthmongoose
Oct '21

That looks like some pretty amazing advanced tone work, honestly and far more complex than anything I've ever attempted (my screentoned work in the past, I took much more inspiration from artists like Kishimoto or Arakawa, who barely use any tones and use a lot more stark black and white fills.)
If I had to guess at the effect, I'd say that the artist is probably applying tone digitally, because I can't even imagine doing that with tone sheets. It looks like they've taken two different tones at the same dpi and dot spacing, but smaller or larger dots for lighter or darker tones put them with the dark layer over the light one and perfectly aligned the tones (maybe easy in digital where by default the tones will be centred on the same point) so the darker tone dots will completely cover the lighter ones where they fall. So you have one layer of lighter tone, with a layer of darker tone on top, You then use "tone scraping" (a hard edged eraser tool with a scratchy kinda texture) to remove dark areas you don't want. I feel like that's what I'd try first. That or I'd block in my shadows in greyscale and overlay the tone masked to the area?

Lensing
Oct '21

I like the grayscale one better
but a colored one would work too, in this example the grayscale picture
looks better than the colored one

TheDoublekey
Oct '21
darthmongoose

I see, it's pretty complicated. I often struggle with screentones but I love them at the same time :sweat_smile: !
Anyways, thank you for the tip, I'll test this as soon as possible!

goatbat
Oct '21

i love greyscale! manga is one of my favorite forms of comics (outside of webcomics) and they're pretty much all greyscale. i'd recommend going greyscale for you too, i think it helps make your panel look more dramatic and cohesive.