Scrapyard Recoloring: Another Sample
Most of the recoloring for Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance has been pretty straightforward -- adjust colors for CMYK, throw a couple of gradient fills in the backgrounds, and then draw some shadows and highlights on the foreground elements. Every so often a strip shows up where doing those last two things -- gradient filling the backdrop and shading the fore -- suggests a more dramatic treatment of the material, and I really start messing around. Here's a before-and-after of one such change: 
I remember what Flood-Fill Howard thought back in 2004 -- "Red is kind of a bloody, painful color, and should serve to underscore what's going on in this scene." Howard Of Aught-Nine thinks differently -- "Red isn't selling it. Let's make it COLD, with blue and black shading, harsh light, and stark shadows." Is one better than the other? Well... in my estimation, absolutely. The second strip is prettier, more dramatic, and easier on the eyes. The details pop more, and the story is better told. If you want a slightly closer look, click on the image. I resisted the temptation to mess with the line art... that way lies madness. I'm not going to re-draw anything if I can help it. Every so often a strip will have an actual continuity error, usually missing epaulets, but by and large I stay away from changing lines. Life's too short for that. Anyway, the process of recoloring continues, and the fruits will not only be a much, much prettier book... you will also see better coloring in the upcoming strips you read online. I'm getting a little bit better at this.