I want to share some of the visual development of Red’s Planet from time to time here in the blog and today I’m posting a quick color key I made for page 7 of the prologue. I bring a bit of my experience and knowledge in animation to my comic book process and one aspect of animation visual development that’s very helpful is the extensive planning of the color structure.

Color keys are paintings — usually small and loosely painted— made to plan the color themes and beats of the story. A color key is less about the specific details of the shot and more about expressing the emotion of the scene in color and lighting.