A colorist is an artist who colors comic art reading it for production as a comic book. Colorists often work in transparent media such as watercolors or airbrush, but modernly colorists often turn to computer assisted tools such as Adobe Photoshop. Comic coloring has been taken to new levels through the efforts of artists such as Brian Haberlin .

Colorist can also refer to an artist who paints transparent cels for use in animation production. Since drawings in animation are colored digitally now, colorists no longer need the special training required for painting animation cels.