Eyo I’ve seen so many creators creating their comics using colors. Why? Why not pick black and white for easier time and art?
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Aug '23last reply
Aug '23- 35
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A lot of people just like to, probably. They probably enjoy looking at and making colour artwork.
I have a preference for black and white myself and ease of use or time has never been the biggest factor. I just love it, to put it simply.
Because:
1- It is what Webtoon and other webcomic platforms recommend to do. It's part of the branding (Even more, if you were to get hired by the platform but your series was pure black and white, they would tell you to color it, such was the case of Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell & I'm the Grim Reaper).
2- Many people new to webcomics see what's in the Original, what's supposed to be revised and tailored by the Editors of the platform, and they follow through, be it narration, panel arrangement, coloring and even having a bit of an idea regarding the Guidelines of the platform and what, somewhat, is permited or not.
At least for me, working in black and white or greyscale would be a lot more difficult due to the inherent limitations. I've always used color when making art, so going in the other direction would come with a learning curve I don't have the energy for.
my comic uses colors to show the mood of the scene, the story simply wouldn't make sense without colors.
-looks at my username- i dunno i guess there's just the inexplicable magnetism color has. something about bright vivid hues is just so insanely mesmerizing i cant possibly see myself doing anything else
but genuinely i personally just really love colors and it's my favorite part of the creative process. lines are not my strong suit and even tho i think i've got a good grasp on lighting and values and stuff it's just a lot harder for me to convey in black and white. and like RedLenai mentioned it's what most readers tend to expect.
I still read and enjoy well crafted black and white comics but not every reader may be as willing 🤷
It might be funny, but when I started making comics (I was barely a few months into returning to art and learning to how draw in digital) I realized... I am not actually that good in black and white. I wasn't great at colors either, but my first comic was for a manga competition, so I thought I had to use screentones. It was a nightmare. I was pretty good with just line art, but coloring it with b/w? Not at all.
The next comic I started I decided to go for colours not only because the "kids in the camp" comic asked for it in my opinion, but also because of that miserable manga experience 
Wanted Sickboy to be as cinematic as it could be, as close as i can get it to look like a horror film or triple A videogame. Enjoy detailed layouts and using color to diffrentiate emotions and other minor visual elements . Also most web comics are colored so didnt want fall behind with that either.
I prefer doing greyscale but switched over to color because I was told that it would get more viewers. I don't know if that is necessary true but some of my characters do look better in color. I have been practicing coloring through my gag strips but looking back at my B/W pages I feel sad because I would prefer to work in that style.
Colors is one of my strengths and how I make up for things I can no longer do due to injury (thin delicate lines, lots of details, etc). I also actually find it easier because I limit my palettes and can easily remember which colors go on what character. I recently did a few pages in monochrome and I HATED having to constantly look at references to remember which exact shade was what on each character. It was 9 colors representing the whole rainbow and I was just like WHICH one was the skintone again?!
Honestly sometimes I consider it, like just post the lineart and done
but then I think is worth it, it helps set the mood, define more the characters, the story and your style, so I think I'm gonna keep coloring it
Color is a pretty important aspect of my comic, so it wouldn't make too much sense to have it in black and white, haha. But there's plenty of good comics that are in black and white!
Because, honestly, working in B&W/greyscale depresses the heck out of me. Doing greyscale renderings of things sucks all the joy out of art for me. I don't read or watch very much media that's black and white either because it just makes me sad unless it's got something really special to attract my interest. Hell, I don't even like being in environments without any significant color (most Brutalist architecture, all-white kitchens, the average generic office building, many urban environments, etc.).
Color is a drug I can't live without.
Drawing in black and white is neither easier nor harder, but it 100% takes a different set of skills to depict things properly and to understand how to use contrast. People make the false assumption they can just take a colored page and turn the saturation to zero, then you end up with a blob of washed out greys or panels that are unparsable. You don't have to be as mindful with details when you can use color to bring to attention what you want! I think the biggest hurdle people face with trying black and white is learning techniques to inform details and objects rather than drawing everything outright.
I think if it's your personal choice, then people probably choose to work in color because that's what they're used to seeing or it's just what they want to see. Colors are naturally attractive, there's no denying that. I remember being a kid and picking up manga for the first time and going "but where da colors?" Same business!
I draw in black and white partially because i'm making manga, but also because I just don't care to use color. Black and white is easier for me to understand and I love it- over time I have only increased my expectations for art that just feels good to look at. There's something about just seeing linework with tone that feels very blunt, raw and "truthful", that is to say, you can't hide your shortcomings. I appreciate that.
Because colored comics are the standard for webtoons and mobile users like seeing colors (myself included lol). Also it's really nice seeing my panels in color -- especially for sunset and other specially lighted scenes -- like I'm looking at anime screenshots of my own work.
I still like doing a b/w manga style a lot more, especially styles that are stark b/w (not sure how to accurately describe it but ones that don't use a lot of tones, like Naruto or HunterxHunter), but I use it only for special bonus episodes.
I've made black and white for print in the past, and may in the future on a zine or something. On this comic, I wanted to do colour though and to try out a colouring palette influenced by old American comics and to try things like having funky, colourful magic effects. It's also just more eyecatching on a screen and a little easier on the eyes.
Having made both colour and black and white comics, I don't personally think black and white is easier. It's slightly less time-consuming at certain stages, but you have to think more about your compositions, lighting and character designs to do black and white well. Because of this, I prefer to use black and white for short print comics where I can really concentrate and make every panel as beautifully composed as I can, while colour I'll use on a comic where the long-form story is the focus and I have to bang out two pages a week every week for hundreds of pages.
The style I'm most comfortable in is semi-lineless, so black and white doesn't pop. It takes way longer to do but I don't feel it was a bad decision, colours is what gets the most compliments in my comic, even though I'm really not that good.
I did that black & white comics because I´m a big comic noir fan. I love the work of Will Eisner
and Jordi Bernet for example.
I did colored comics because it fit better to the story and how I wanted it to be presented.
I just sent a 16 page comic to a contest today and I´m pretty sure that they will choose a colored
comic over a black & white comic. I think it has to do with a psychological effect and people think
colored comics are more work or more professional or something like that. Not true obviously