Full Color Nightmare!!!

Wow!  So I totally lost track of time while I was working on the cover but this easily took 10 to 12 hours to finish and it’s a good thing I didn’t know it was going to be that time consuming because I probably would have said “Screw it,” and just done a black and white cover.  

I may make some tweaks to this before everything is done but this is more or less the final image for the cover.

 That said, I think the extra effort was worth it and I am really happy with the results.  Assuming that I did the color conversions correctly I think this will look great once it’s printed.

Part of the reason why this took a little longer is because I have a setup where I am working semi-blind as I color.  I currently lack an image editing program which provides a CMYK mode to work in.  So, working in GimpShop, what that means is that as I am working I have to periodically use the Separate+ plug-in to convert the image to CMYK colors and make sure that the palette I’m using is going to reproduce correctly for printing purposes.

It’s a little tedious but not really that bad a system I suppose, and currently if you’re a Gimp or GimpShop user it’s the most reliable way to do color management as, from what I understand, using printer profiles to configure your monitor display is somewhat hit and miss.

Anyway, only a few things left to do: design a logo; do a back cover design; write up a note for the first page and a table of contents.  After that the comic will be ready to ship off to the printers. 

Right now I am planning on using Docucopies.com to handle the printing process.  Unfortunately I missed out on some really good deals they had going on earlier in the month, so I may wait until the end of the month to see if any other promotions occur that could save me a bit of money on the printing costs.

At the moment I anticipate printing 100 copies, which should be more than enough copies to ensure that anybody who is reading this blog and wants a copy can order one.

I will continue posting work in progress as I finish up the loose ends for issue 1.