They Wasted a Perfectly Good Line Art: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Some artists are great at drawing but not so expert at colouring; in Japan, this is largely due to manga being mostly in black and white. The most extreme cases make you facepalm and think "This gorgeous lineart deserves sooo much better!". This isn't a trope about bad artists -it's about the ones who ''can'' draw but can't colour properly, or at least whose linearts are much better than their colouring. Alternatively, the coloring work can be done by a separate person, who is either totally incompetent or has different ideas to the line artist. This often gives an "off balance" impression.

 

 

Of course, the trope title is an allusion to [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot]].

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* The classic ''[[Batman]]'' story ''[[The Killing Joke]]'' has garishly bright coloration upon its original release. The 20th-anniversary edition was recolored by original line artist Brian Bolland in an attempt to fix this. The recolored version gives some disturbing new details, like how when the Joker emerges from the chemical vat, [[Eye Scream|his eyes were supposed to be bleeding]]. The original version colored the blood white, making the reader think it was just chemicals flowing down from the Joker's face.

** Not tears? (From a hysterical breakdown and chemical irritation)

* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' was originally released in black and white, and then recolored by a different person. With watercolors. In quasi-impressionistic colors. Without paying attention to the lines.

* While Frank Miller's art for ''[[The Dark Knight Strikes Again]]'' wasn't exactly gorgeous, the colors were often garish, which is a stark contrast to the muted coloring of the original (which was done by the same colorist).

* This trope applies to much of the art from Neil Gaiman's ''[[The Sandman]]'', but most especially the amazing artwork from "The Season of Mists"; Ty Bender's non-fiction "Sandman Companion" featured excepts of the same artwork without the hideous colouring, and the difference is astonishing.

* Leah Moore's ''The Trial of Sherlock Holmes'' has horrendously garish colours over line artwork that is clearly noirish and evocative. The result is a resounding mess.

* ''[[Elf Quest]]''—twice. The colourised [[Marvel Comics]] reprints were patchy at best, and the new computer-coloured versions are incredibly garish and obscure a lot of the original black and white linework.

* Quite a bit of ''[[Dark Empire]]'' is drawn in a rather unusual, stylized way. However, the colorist made some very odd choices, most notably deciding to tint nearly every page in some specific color and being overwhelmingly dark. Sure, a comic where Luke goes to the Dark Side might be expected to have dark colors, but there should be enough light to make things stand out.

* The vast majority of the ''[[Disney Mouse and Duck Comics]]'', at least in the United States. Characters will change the color of their shirts between panels, entire characters will be rendered in one color, gradients are used like they're going out of style, and very little background art is colored with detail. This is especially prevalent in [[Don Rosa]] comics, where the intricately detailed artwork is half the appeal.