Tintin: Who coloured the artwork?

The only images I have seen of Hergé at work on Tintin show black-and-white strips.

Did he apply the colours himself (or via his assistants)or did the publishers add colours in?

I write as a would-be cartoonist myself, hoping to produce something in the Tintin vein.

Hergé may have done some of the colouring, but he also employed others such as Edgar P. Jacobs, Guy Dessicy, Josette Baujot and Fanny Vlamynck (who became his second wife).

I believe that who does the colouring often depends on the situation of the artist.

Early in his career, he may have to do the colouring himself or get friends or relatives to do it. Nowadays, of course, a lot of comics colouring is done by computer which is cheaper.

Be careful though. I read somewhere that an artist employed his relatives to do the colouring and they kept getting it wrong: a red-brick building was painted pink, for example. :)

Some publishers do colourise as well, but I think that that would be part of a deal with the artist. The publisher may want a more professional and expensive colourist in order to boost sales.

Good luck!

Thanks. I am surprised he'd trust colouring to anyone else. The effect of the strip can be altered by poorly chosen colours.

Would he or his assistants have used inks or gouache maybe - or even a combination? Getting large even areas of colour is not easy I find.

I've heard of using Photoshop to colour nowadays. I'm assuming the drawing is done by hand and the result scanned in for colouring?