I'm not sure how accurate skin tones are in graphic novels but for realism, create a tan colour and just add a hint of red.

Done that...
The image so far contain over 32 different colors.

Something I like to play with when I am having trouble getting a particular color tone is to decompose the image to CMY colorspace and adjust the curves of those components. In theory, the same results should be attainable with GIMP's available filters, but I am often just not able to get them to behave (the Hue-Contrast filter never does what I want).

Here is a simple breakdown of the steps:

1. "Colors->Components->Decompose" to layers in the CMY colorspace. A new image will appear with three grayscale layers corresponding to cyan, magenta, and yellow.
2. On each of CMY layers, use either the Levels or Curves Tool to adjust grayscale layer. This is definitely a trial-and-error thing, as you are flying blind until the next step.
3. "Colors->Components->Recompose" to have your changes incorporated back into the original image. (You definitely will want to assign a keyboard shortcut to this.)
4. Lather, rinse, and repeat until you get a pleasing result (or give up, because things just aren't working the way you'd like).

I don't know if I would consider the following image an improvement, but it does have a different tonality.

That's interesting!
I'm not sure what you you mean by "CMY colorspace", but I can try what you suggest. Sort of the "CMY colorspace" that I've never worked with in Gimp before.

I've decided to post the full image, to give some scope to what I'm doing.

He looks unnaturally pink in all these. Is that normal in graphic novels?

Thanks Graechan, that may be something I'll try when the coloring is completed. This is only my 4th attempt at coloring this type of line art/drawing digitally, I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Deciding on a course of action as I go along, using your my intuition and perception rather than a pre-determined plan or filter aids.


You're probably right about the "unnaturally pink" color. I may have over blended things a bit.
As for what's normal in graphic novels. I haven't view one in ages so I can't be sure what's "normal", but I don't think "pink" would be the norm for skin coloring.

Colors>Curves doesn't give you a better skin tonality?
Maybe try some other skin palettes from the web?

Wow, Wallace, that is quite an undertaking. I think it will end up great though when you figure out what color values you want for the skin. The lighting factor should determine that.

It is an excellent line drawing and I hope we get to see the finished product.

I haven't done that yet, but I could give that a try.
I made a special/specific color palette for just Conan's skin, can you guess what I named it?


Yes you're right, it a pretty detailed drawing. Much more then anything I've tried to color before.

There's a couple of factors I'll have to take into consideration for the lighting, that I'll have to evaluate before I do any more coloring.


It's going to take a while to complete and I want to do the drawing justice. It's going to be an ongoing project for me and I'll post the finished coloring for all to see when I'm through.

I got a crazy idea:

You could browse to Illustrateurs site and download the Conan draw more interesting for you.
After, use the Gino D's Translate into palette script in order to create a skin tone palette.

I suggest you to use the GMIC CMYK mixer (in colours)

The big difference with the usual channel mixer if that mix colors as were pigments , not as lights as does the normal channel mixer :

in RGB if you mix Cyan Red Green you get withe ,or close to , if you mix blue and yellow in CMYK you got green that is much more intuitive

That's not crazy. I like that idea and will check it out.
Thanks!


Good suggestion, I would have never thought to do this. I'm not a big user of G'Mic, but I think I'll have to change this.

You could make the line art into a selection and color it using the airbrush on a transparent layer using browns or whatever. I ususally draw like this while the dancing ants selection is turned off [Ctrl+T]



Pegleg

I do make selections of the line art then color them like you mentioned, but don't use the "airbrush" much if at all. This will have to be remedied, after all this tool is perfect for what I need to do. I don't know why I didn't began coloring it this way from the start. Old habits die hard I guess.
Another fine suggestion, thanks Pegleg44.

I would suggest that you go about it in the wrong way. You shouldn't colour an image like this one element at a time. This is because you cannot know what is a "realistic" colour of any individual component until you have established the light and colour tone of the entire image.

Take this example I did using a Multiply layer and some brushing (as I recall Conan is "bronze of skin"):



Now, this shading would work if the ambient light was yellowish and there were some sources of diffuse light in front of the two of them. But there is also a large flaming torch in the upper right. If this is backlight, then Conan is way too bright, and the highlights are all wrong. And maybe the torch is magically blue (or green?) of colour - then the entire scene will look very different and skin will too. And if the draperies are bright red, they will reflect red light down onto his skin as well.

To even begin to colour this you need to map out the colours of the entire image in one go. Make a Multiply layer on top of it and start to dab out the rough colour areas. Don't care about sharp boundaries. Put the basic colours of all the drapery and make careful note of all sources of light in the image (is that a moon in the background?). Only then can you have a feel for just what type of colouring the skin should have. You need to plan and tie all components of the image together at once. Never work only on one part at a time, it is a recipe for disaster in my experience.

As for working on a line drawing like this, I prefer personally to use a Multiply layer so the line art remains dark. This particular piece of line art has nearly no consistent light shading whatsoever, so you need to interpret this yourself, adding and enhancing the shadows with colour and shading so the 3D forms come across. See my example of Conans right leg/knee: In colour you can do a much smoother curve 3D shading than could be done in line art.

Another idea is to vary cool and warm colours. In my attempt above I use warm browns and yellows for the lit surfaces and cool blues and some purple to fill in the shadows. Since skin is actually a diffractive, transparent thing, this can help to liven it up. Finally, highlights can be done on a Normal-mode layer and a low-opacity brush. For highlights you of course must know well just where the lights are.

Just some ideas. Good luck!
.
Griatch

BTW it was a excellent "palette script" for gmic, i use the past because i believe got somehow missed
Anyway i think i may recover ,and if needed update searching in the Gmic flickr group : basically it was creating "harmonic "palettes , and the nice and original thing was that was not needed to apply the filter , was more to keep open to champion the adapt colours with the eyedropper and use on the fly

I think about now because i am using and testing gimpainter now and so i use much more the painting tool then before (alas i could not find a graphic tablet here ... ) and because maybe could fit in your workflow

I believe was one of the first "additional filter" proposed for gmic and was presented on the flickr group
...for sure i will search later (may even be that my memory failed and that filter is hidden somewhere in the gmic menu, are so many filters now that may even happen...
well i will look better later on but if you are more in hurry i should have given all data for a search (in old post of flickr GMIC group )

This is great food for thought Griatch, and I've given lots of thought to just this issue.
There seems to be 3 possible kinds of light sources drawn in the image. You've mentioned 2 of them, ie. torch and moon. The third looks to be a candle in a lantern, upper left.

What I gather from your post is, that I should establish these "light sources" before anything else.

The image below shows, (loosely). What I plan to do with these light sources.
Would you have any advice as to how I might use "layer modes", to help represent these light sources?








Thanks PhotoComix.
I'm not in a hurry, but this G'Mic filter may be of some help to be able to use it with the coloring of this image.