TWCL

Casual Notice · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 10:52 am Post subject: What is a flatter?

Seriously. There have been a few ads in the dogpile for a flatter (possibly all fromt he same person.group), and I've looked at their DA pages, but I can't deduce what it is they're claiming to do.

Please someone tell me that it's just a pretentious term for a colorist, because digital coloring is sooo much more difficult than the work artists like Glynnis Oliver used to do with cellulose screens.

The only other thing I can think of is something to do with merging layers for a full picture, and I can't for the life of me figure out why that would be worth $5-15 US to anyone.
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iaviv · Joined: 03 Sep 2011 Posts: 251

A flatter (or a colorist, plenty of colorists flat and color) is a person doing the dirty boring work that comes before the coloring. Just flat areas of color where they need to be. Before you add in detail. You know, like light and shadow, gradients, effects and what have you. Some people prefer their stuff to actually look flat. Mike Mignola's Hellboy for instance is mostly and sometimes completely flat areas of color. But most people don't do that, for various reasons. For Mike's work it works, for most people's work it just seems lazy. This stage takes maybe 30 minutes to an hour at most for most pages, so you're not saving that much time. It is boring work, however. And some people actually don't have the time to waste on that so they hire a flatter from India or whatever real cheap.
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Casual Notice · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 4:11 pm Post subject:

So, basically, a flatter is an apprentice colorist.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
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iaviv · Joined: 03 Sep 2011 Posts: 251

Something like that. I'm not an expert or anything, I just know it exists. I flat and color my own comics, thank you very much.
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vaslittlecrow · Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 613

Actually, a flatter is useful for both coloring and pre-inking/line holding. For my webcomic SOUP Wars we actually needed a flatter because there was three layers of inking. In that case having the colors pre-laid out at the pencil stage was critical. He also colored in the lines for me after inking.

Nowadays, I use one whenever I am too bogged down with work or in too much physical pain to do my own flatting. I have one that I've used faithfully whenever I need him.

Here's how the process go:

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smbhax.com · Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 8:57 am Post subject:

Have I mentioned that you're looking marvelous today?
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vaslittlecrow · Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Posts: 613

smbhax.com Now THAT is a flatter.
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4LS · Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 665 Location: UK

Tony Piro has a tut over here on flatting comics, which gives an outline at the start of why it's such a pain in the arse. And also how to cut down on the time with a photoshop plug-in.
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