By Autumn Daughetee
As a part of Kymera Press’ continuing series on the separate roles that are part of creating a comic book I recently had the chance to interview Sandra Molina, the new colorist for the Gates of Midnight series. I asked Sandra questions about her process, how she broke into the comic book industry and much more. Read on to get a peek into the professional life of a comic book colorist.
When did you first decide to pursue a career as a comic book artist?
“Well, I’ve always known that I wanted to work in an art-related career, ever since I was a toddler! But I didn’t decide to work on comics until four or five years ago, when I joined the comic club of my town, ALCN.”
How did you go about it?
“The president of said club was very supportive, and he always pestered me (with the best intentions, really!) to ask comic authors for help (advice that was promptly ignored because I’ve always been a stubborn kid). Thankfully, though, I met an editor, Julián Clemente, two years ago, at a local con, when I was 16. He suggested giving comic book coloring a try. I heeded his advice and the rest is history. I made my debut in Amigo Comics a year later, and I’ve been working on several editorials ever since thanks to David Macho’s Spanish Inq agency.”
Can you walk me through your process? What do you do when you are coloring a comic book?
“I begin by setting a schedule for myself, just to have an idea of how much time I can spend (slacking off) on each page. I take a long look at the page and think about the palette thoroughly. I begin shading after that, completing one page at a time. I use Photoshop for all of this, and I don’t always remember the process I use for shading, but that’s the general gist of it.”
What is your favorite part of the process of creating a comic book?
“I love setting the mood of each page. Playing with the palette to reflect the characters’ feelings is so interesting!”
What attracted you to the Gates of Midnight series?
“Well I must confess that I barely knew about it, other than seeing an image or two around! Let’s hope its popularity will keep increasing, so more and more people (including myself) will come to know of it!”
Breaking into the comic book industry is difficult. If you could share advice with an aspiring comic book artist, what would it be?
“Make lots of friends. I’m a very introverted person, and I’ve always been very bad at that, but without contacts and lots of practice, you will have a hard time getting anywhere. Meet comic artists, editors, fans, everyone you can. Talk to lots of people and learn. That is the key, as far as I know, to getting where you want to be in your life.”
What comic books have you worked on?
“I’ve worked on a few series by AmigoComics (Rogues: The Cold Ship, Roman Ritual), Dynamite (Game of Thrones, Bionic Woman, Twilight Zone) and I’ve done a couple of one shots for Sideshow (for their Court of the Dead series).”
What are your ultimate career goals?
“Improving my skills as much as I can and earning a lot of money. As much as I’m an artist, I’m the daughter of a businesswoman too, so my priorities have always been pretty clear.”
What do you think of Kymera Press’ mission to publish comics created by women?
“I think it’s quite the noble goal! Women get overshadowed all too often in the comic industry, but I think that’s mostly because the spotlight is elsewhere. In my experience, there are as many men as women working as artists, but only a few of the latter work for important publishers like Marvel or DC. Most of the female comic artists work in the webcomic sector, like Katie Tiedrich, Kate Beaton, Gigi D.G. and Kelly Turnbull, just to name a few.”
As a woman working in a male-dominated industry, have you faced any difficulties?
“Rather than male-dominated, in my experience, “penciller-dominated” is more apt. Every man so far has treated me with utmost respect, and so has every woman. I’ve had nothing but friends in this industry, and I truly hope any artist will have this same luck.”
Just for fun, if you were a comic book character who would you be?
“Well, that’s some question! Hmm… If you accept manga characters, Horo from Spice and Wolf, definitely! A wise harvest wolf goddess who travels the world in a cart sounds so great!”
Is there a comic that you wished you had worked on?
“I had the chance to do test pages for a couple of comics that I’d have loved to work on, but alas, that went nowhere! There was one in particular fairly similar to Fairy Quest, which I would have just loved to work on.”
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
“Well, just a tiny bit of self-promotion, if you’ll allow it! You can follow my work on www.sandramj.deviantart.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sandra.mj.95.”
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