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Interviews

Javier Tartaglia: Coloring the Shadows Brings the Glow

Alex Rodrik
June 2, 2009
Interviews

In this latest installment of our Space Goat Productions Interview series, we sit down with Colorist, Javier Tartaglia. This interview provides such insight and detail in just a few questions that you’ll be amazed how far you’ve delved into the artistic process.

This is also the newest installment of our “Native Response” Interviews.

You can check out the first 4 installments in our Space Goat Productions Interview series by clicking on the names below.

1. Shon C. Bury
2. Jason Metcalf
3. Roger Bonet
4. Martin Montiel

Enjoy!


Alex Rodrik: How’d you get involved with Space Goat?

Javier Tartaglia: El contacto nació de la mano de una de las empresas en la que Shon estaba involucrado, antes de Space Goat. He trabajado con Shon Bury antes de que existiera el proyecto de empresa, haciendo pequeños trabajos. Así que asumo que empecé a trabajar en Space Goat desde el comienzo. De todas formas, fue 2008 el año en que empezamos a trabajar fuerte con un impaz de unos meses en el medio. Para volver a retomar no hace mucho.

Shon and I met while he was working with another company; before Space Goat Productions was formed. So, I guess you could say I was with Space Goat from the beginning. But it wasn’t really until February 2008 that I really started the hard work. After some time we split for a few months, but we’ve been working together a lot recently.

AR: Tell us a bit about yourself, how’d you get involved in the industry? What drew you to comics?

JT: Los comics siempre me gustaron aunque no tengo una colección como se supone debería tener. Hace unos nueve años, junto a un amigo empezamos a hacer algunas cosas para una empresa local, lo que nos permitió ver hasta dónde podíamos llegar. Así que mientras producíamos estas cosas íbamos creando páginas de prueba para mostrar en las editoriales de comics de Estados Unidos.

Mi primer contacto fue a través de Doug Miers. Una persona fantástica. Fue mi primer representante y a él le debo el acercamiento a este negocio. Con él pude desarrollarme profesionalmente haciendo diferentes cosas, desde pinups, páginas de interiores de comics, portadas, y todo eso. Mi desarrollo a través del tiempo y de diferentes contactos me dio la oportunidad de hacer que mi trabajo se difundiera a través de distintas editoriales, algunas pequeñas otras medianas, e incluso Image y Marvel.

El fallecimiento de Doug fue un golpe para quienes lo conocimos. Primero porque había una buena amistad en el medio, y segundo porque no supe al principio cómo seguir por mi cuenta. Un tiempo más tarde el fruto de mi trabajo me abrió posibilidades con otras personas interesadas en lo que yo hacía. De hecho fue en ese año, 2005, que tuve el primer contacto via email con Shon. A partir de entonces, tuve muchos clientes con los que trabajé pero fue con Shon con el único que mantuve un contacto fluído hasta el día de hoy.

I always liked comics even though I don’t have a big collection as I is suppose I should have. Nine years ago I started doing some comic book work with an old friend, which allowed us to see to how far we could reach. In the meantime, we also focused some of our energies to developing a good story and some test pages for us to showcase to American publishing companies.

My first contact was through my very good friend, Doug Miers; my first agent. I owe to him for getting me into this business. An agent allowed me to progress as a professional artist, working on different things such as comic interior pages, covers, pin-up, etc. It also provided for a diversified range of circulation for my work. Whether it be through smaller publishers, or through some of the big guns like Marvel and Image.

Doug’s death really hit me hard, along with those who had the pleasure of knowing him. His death cast many ripples in my life, whether it be the loss of a good friend, or how I was to continue forward as a professional artist. But in time I realized that as a result of my published works there were many opportunities for me to continue my work in this field with all new people who were interested in collaboration. In fact, it was actually that very year, 2005, that Shon and I first got in contact with one another…it was by email. Since then I’ve worked with a wide range of people, but it’s only with Shon that I never lost contact. And, well…here we are.

AR: The position of colorist is not nearly glorified enough. What is your process when tackling a page?

JT: No sé si es verdad que el trabajo de colorista no está glorificado, pero sí es verdad que lo nuestro siempre está en tercer lugar a menos que no haya entintador con lo cual subimos un puesto (jajaja). Me consternó cuando publicaron mi primer comic por Image y yo no aparecía en la portada. Maldita sea, dije. ¿Por qué? Porque no, fue la respuesta. Tremendo. Deberé vivir en la oscuridad… Pero después vi que Marvel sí me puso en la tapa. Medio raro todo. De todas maneras, con el tiempo me di cuenta que en realidad, la mayoría de la gente ni siquiera le da importancia a quien dibuja o entinta o hace los globos (ese sí es un trabajo poco glorificado), sino a la historia o un personaje determinado hast que empiezan a hacerse lectores asiduo y comienzan a elegir por artistas.

Lo que sí me di cuenta es que el trabajo del colorista, el último en la cadena, puede sumar al trabajo final o tirarlo abajo aunque el arte sea de lo más extraordinario que pueda verse. Hay cantidades de excelentes coloristas que levantan un trabajo pobre o acompañan un trabajo bueno y muy logrado, pero he visto en otras ocaciones trabajos impecables arruinados por un mal colorista, que aplasta con un pleno oscuro los detalles de los fondos, o que iluminan mal las escenas o que llenan todo de pésimos efectos especiales de mal gusto y bajísimo nivel.

En mi método de trabajo, cuando recibo una página para darle color ya tengo una somera idea de cómo va a verse. Trato de focalizar que paleta de c
olor pueda quedar mejor para cada escena. Trabajo en Photoshop en modo RGB pero visualizándolo en CMYK para tener idea de cómo se va a ver en la impresión. Yo trabajo con Canales no con Capas como otros coloristas están acostumbrados a usar. Trabajar en Canales me permite guardar los archivos mucho menos pesados que los que se generan usando Capas. Pero bueno, cada uno elige usar lo que me mejor le sienta.

Así que uso un Canal alfa donde guardo la linea, al que normalmente le llamo Lineart, y pinto sobre Background. También siempre guardo las selecciones en otros canales que sé que me podrían servir en otra parte del proceso de coloreado. El Canal del Lineart es similar a una filmina transparente, y las partes en blanco son invisibles, lo cual me permite pintar sobre el fondo con el Canal activado sin riesgos de alterar el Dibujo.

Una vez que tengo las Bases de Plenos terminados tanto como ajustada la paleta de color de la página, comienzo a darle luces, sombras y crear profundidades. Esta es la parte que más me gusta. Cada vez que puedo uso colores realistas tratando de conservar el estilo de comic y queno se convierta en una seudo-foto. Hago selecciones usando las herramientas, Lasso, Path o Quickmask dependiendo de lo que me convenga, para crear máscaras que serán áreas en donde pongo un gradiente para crear la sensacion de volumen. Terminado esta parte, convierto ciertas partes del Dibujo en lineas de color. Y así poder separar términos, y despegar una figura del fondo, o darles color a las lineas para crear nubes de explosiones, rayos, golpes, etc.

Luego procedo a Aplicar el Canal con la Linea al Fondo, y así queda todo integrado. Luego borro los Canales y empiezo a poner los Efectos Especiales como los brillos o las chispas de las explosiones, relámpagos, disparos de armas, lo que sea.

Luego lo grabo en JPG en 100 dpi y lo mando como muestra. Y luego volverán o no con las correcciones.

I’m not sure if the colorist work isn’t glorified enough, but it is true that we’ll always be third place. Well, unless of course there’s no inker which lets us move up one spot. [Laughs] But, I was disappointed the day my first work was published by Image and my name didn’t appear in the cover. “Holy cow,” I said, “Why not me?” “Because,” was the answer. “So I should live in the shadows?” I thought to myself. But then I saw that Marvel DID put my name on the cover. “Weird,” I said. But anyways, as time passed I realized that most of the readers didn’t much mind who draws, inks or puts the balloons (now THAT’S a really not glorified job), they buy them because of a character or because of the story. And then after they have a good knowledge of the title’s universe they start to choose artists.

A realization I did come to was that the colorist, as the last link in the art chain (penciler-inker-colorist), has a lot of responsibility. The colorist can either add volumes to the art or can completely ruin it, no matter how extraordinary the pencils and ink work were. There are many excellent colorist who can get improve poor art work or simply add to very good final art. But, I’ve seen some awesome work ruined by a bad colorist, who flattens a detailed background by putting a flat dark color, or very poorly lights a scene, or even fills everywhere with tasteless, awful and very low quality FXs.

As for the way I work, when I receive a page I often figure out the kind of color palettes I’ll use for each scene. This gives me an approximation of what the final product will look like. I work with Photoshop in RGB mode, but I set the proof colors in CMYK to see an clearer approximation to the final file. I use in the coloring process in the Channel Options, not Layers as some other colorist are get used to doing. Channels allow me to work with lower files than the ones you could have if you work with Layers. But everyone chooses the best for himself.

So, I use masks to visualize the art in a Channel, it’s usually called Lineart, and I paint in the background. I always save the selections which I know will be useful in another stage of the process, in other extra channels. The Lineart Channel works like a transparent slide, and the white parts are invisible which allow me to paint in the background without any risk of changing the Inks.

Once I have the flat colors ready and adjusted the palette color in the page, I start creating shades, lighting and depth — this is my favorite part. I often use realistic colors trying to maintain the comic book style. I do selections with the lasso tool, path tool, or Quickmask to create the areas over those in which I’ll paint with gradients to create depth. Once I finish this part, I convert certain parts of the drawing into color lines. For instance, it’s useful to separate areas from one another like a figure from the background. Or to color the lines to create lightning, blasts, explosion smoke, etc.

Then I proceed to apply the Lineart channel to the background. This action integrates both channel and background into one. I then erase the channel and begin to create the FXs: glow or sparks for explosions, lightning bolts, gun fire, etc.

Finally, I duplicate and save a copy in RBG 100dpi to see if it all worked or if I need to make some revisions.

AR: How has Space Goat affected the way you view and exist within the industry?

JT: Lo que puedo decir es que este es un trabajo tan grandioso como agotador. No sólo hay que encontrar un primer trabajo, sino que hay que desarrollarlo, hacerlo bien, sin mencionar las fechas de entregas que algunas son apretadísimas y rigurosas, y al mismo tiempo ir buscando el próximo trabajo. Y así suscesivamente el resto de tu vida… Amén. Pero me alegra poder contar con Shon, que siempre está ahí tratando de enganchar algún buen proyecto para mi. De hecho hice muy buenas cosas estos últimos dos años como Marvel Adventures: Ironman, o Eternal Descent.

Está muy muy bueno el hecho de tener un representante. En algún punto te sentis un poco más relajado, sabiendo que hay alguien ahi afuera tratando de encontrarte algún proyecto nuevo y bueno. Lo que quiero decir es que no necesito volverme loco como antes de tener un Shon en mi vida. [Risa]

All I can say is that working in this industry is just as cool as it is exhausting. Not only do you first have to get a job, then you have to develop it and do a good job at it, not to mention meeting your deadlines, while also actively looking for your next job. And so on, and so on until the end of your days…Amen. But I’m happy to say I have Shon who’s always trying to hook me up with good projects. In fact I have done some really good things these last two years through him, like Marvel Adventures: Ironman, or Eternal Descent.

It’s cool to have representation. It’s relaxing to know that you’ve got someone on the streets finding you new projects. What I mean is, I don’t need to drive myself mad like I did before there was a Shon in my life. [Laughs]

AR: What are some of your current projects that our readers should keep their eyes open
for?

JT: Eternal Descent #2. Eso es una de las últimos proyectos en que estoy trabajando y que me está gustando mucho como va quedando. Además se nota que Jason ha mejorado muchisimo su trabajo desde el primer número. Y creo que el producto final va a ser muy bueno.

Eternal Descent #2. It’s one of the last projects I’m working on and I really like how it’s looking. You can see how much Jason (Metcalf) has improved his pencil work since the first issue. I believe the final product it’s going to be very cool.

Alex RodrikJavier Tartaglia

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