Hi, my name is Jeff Balke. I live in the great city of Chicago where I have the greatest job/career, coloring/illustrating comic books. I guess I'm kind of a big kid, but there's nothing wrong with that. In the 6th grade when I went to my first comic convention I met Stan “THE MAN” Lee. He really gave me hope by simply saying with a grin out of nowhere “Hang in there true believer, it will come. Don't ever give up”. Still to this day, I never gave up.
In 2006 I stumbled upon this site called Myspace. Many of my friends told me to put my art work up there. So I did and had a few people comment. I then decided to put up some of my colored work to see what kind of comments (if any) I would get. I got more comments on my colored pieces then I ever did on my regular line artwork. One comment came from my first comic artist friend who told me to stick with coloring. He clarified and said my coloring is very strong and that I should build on that. So since then, I've been coloring and LOVE it!
Recently, I've created something called Sketch Coloring. This is where I take a sketch cover of any comic and color it right there on the spot with special markers. This is my way of doing a sketch. Since most colorists really don't sketch “traditionally” (like Jim Lee, Micah Gunnell, David Faught and so on…) I wanted to come up with my own way to give something to the fans so they can take home and have a “one of a kind”. Sketch Colorings do just that. No two Sketch Colorings are alike (if they are the same cover).
With Sketch Coloring and coloring comic books and beginning to illustrate comics, I will “never give up”.
