CopicArt – Illustrating with Markers

Archive for the ‘Projects’ Category

   Up to this date, there was really no planning with my illustrations, except for the colors used.  Sure, I always create a test image, but there is one area that it is just weak, and overlooked. Shadows have always been my worst enemy, especially since they were done on the fly, never planned.

   I have to admit that sometimes they were in the wrong place, and since it is markers we are talking about, fixing is out of the question. So after hearing a good advice, here is how I tried to solve my problem. I made an extra copy of the image to illustrate, and with a pencil (easy to erase) added the outline of how I wanted my shadows to appear. Not only I got better looking shadows, but also got a better handle of the light source.

   So here are the first two images of my fairy illustration. 

* Original Illustration *

* Planned Shadows *

   I know it is the end of the month, so nothing better than to post this before March. Well after a long time, the re-make of my Copic girl drawing is done. Here are the steps I followed to finally finish the image.

   My first issue was to decide the type of background I wanted to use. So, using an extra copy of the image, I drew a the outlines of a brick wall.

Oh, no! I ruined my image!! Not quite. Since I wanted to use my ABS to color the BG, I masked my image with a frisket, and then colored the background.

 Here is the image without the protective film. Looks like my work was safe after all.

Using the outlined image of the wall, and a light box; I added the basic shapes of my bricks.

Last step was to shade the bricks and add highlights. The result, a much better picture than my original, I hope you like it.

  Well, almost done with the image. Just a couple more elements to color and it will be finish.  Today I colored the skirt, and sweater. Unlike the original illustration, this time I decided for a denim skirt.

More pictures:

  Well, today I just did the hair of my Copic girl. I used a combination of three shades of yellow, and a prismacolor pencil to give it more detail.

  I didn’t disappear again. Work projects for Valentine’s Day kept me away from my home computer.  Last year I did my first posts on CopicArt.com, featuring some drawings made by myself of Anime girls with huge Copics on each hand.

  At the time they looked OK to me, as I didn’t had much practice with my Copics, my color selection was quite limited, and I didn’t used other media to combine effects. Last Sunday I decided to re-do all of my original drawings, using different colors and techniques, and if possible, implement an idea for Backgrounds that I saw in a Book.

Here are some pictures of the original image and the coloring so far.

There are two topics I wanted to write today. A new style of Sample Book that I’m making, and a recent purchase of stamps.

 This morning, I just went shopping with my parents (haven’t done that in long time) to our local market place (Swap meet). And one of the booths had rubber stamps for sale, most of them small, or were sentiments only. So I spent some 30 minutes selecting the ones I could really use and color.

 And here are the five that I selected, each for only a couple dollars.

 And with the purchase of the Memento Ink Pad last Saturday at the CHA super show, I figured out the proper use of a sketch book purchased three years ago when my Copic fantasy started. Well, I’m stamping my images directly on the book pages, and then coloring them with my Copics, and Prismacolor pencils. This will make a more permanent, and portable sample book.

 Will post more images as soon as I color the new pages.

   Well if you tough I disappeared again, well not this time. Well, thankfully I was able to finally find a dealer that sells regular Memento ink pads at the CHA super show. The pad that I had before was the tear drop kind, and it made stamping large images a real pain (Unless there is a magic trick about those kind of pads that I’m not aware of).

So, for the last few days I have been stamping images like crazy, and gathering material for new Blog posting. And what is so special about the Memento Ink Pad, well the ink pads that I used in the past weren’t compatible with the alcohol ink of my Copics, meaning, to actually be able to color any of my rubber stamps I have to go thru the lengthy process of Stamping, scanning, re-touching, and printing the resulted image. And that is the reason why I was a heavy advocate of Digital Stamps.

I still like using Digital stamps, but for now, it is time to use my Rubber. For today’s project I stamped an INKADINKADO stamp, with my Memento Ink Pad, on Georgia Pacific card stock.

First I colored the skin. My base color is E000, then added E00 as soft shadows, E11 and E51 were used for hard shadows. Note that I used the same kind of coloring as described on my previous Blog entry.

for the hair I used the same color combination of that entry as well: YR21 for base color, YR23 for mid tones, and YR24 for dark tones, then I went all over the hair again with the YR21. For the Bear I used the YR23, and YR24 colors.

Next it was time for the Clouds, and the boy’s clothing to be colored. So for the clouds I used B0000 as base, and B01 for shadows. For the boy’s shirt, B00 as base, and B01 for shadows. And finally, the overall, and sail of the boat: B32 as base, B34 for shadows.

Looks nice so far. For the sand I used YR21 as base, and YR23 for shadows. Yes, many of the colors are repeated.

And finally, for the sea I used the following colors: G00 as base, and G02 for shadows. Indeed, I did a green sea, why? Too much blue on the image already.

I didn’t use any fancy technique, or coloring.Junst something that works, and looks good, I hope you like it.

   During the certification class, the instructors provided us with sample card stock, and borrowed a rubber stamp, so we could practice the blending techniques. And so I stamped several images that now will serve as samples for today’s topic.

First lets talk a little bit about hair. Hair is not flat, it contains highlights, mid tones, and dark tones, so selecting a solid color to render hair will result on a flat unnatural hair. When rendering hair it is a good practice to use several shades of colors.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the name of the stamp that we used, but at the moment I saw it, I knew it will be a perfect image to test this rendering technique.

Step 1: Using YR21 as base, color the hair in feather strokes from the outside in, leaving a white area in the middle of each side as highlight. make sure to follow the shape of the hair with your strokes, if not, the hair will look unnatural.

Note how I separated her head into two sections (left and right), and colored from the middle of them outwards, again to create a nice flow with my hair.

Step 2: With the base color and highlights in place, it is now time to add a darker color to add tone variations to our hair. Follow the same type and direction of strokes with a YR23. But this time make sure your strokes are a little shorter than your base color. Doing this will create a graduation of colors.

Step 3: Lovely isn’t, it looks like hair now. We will need to repeat the last step with a darker color and even shorter strokes this time, the color used is YR24.

Do not worry if your hair has some hard lines in between colors, we will make them disappear on the following step.

Step 4: Now that we have our layered hair, it is time to blend all the shades and eliminate rough edges that could be created by coloring over dry colors. Using our lightest color (YR21), go over the whole hair, using the same strokes and direction as in the first step. This will re-activate the darker colors and blend everything together nicely.

Final Image: This is a great departure from flat, un-attractive rendered hair, to a more natural looking hair. Here is my final image that I produced with this method, note that the face and dress were illustrated the same way as the hair.

I hope you find this method useful, and easy to use into your own projects.

     Well, I am ready to start the coloring of my image. But first I want to mentions the tools used up until this part.

     Coffee: I know is bad, but it sure keeps me awake.

     Copic PM Pad: Got to love this pad, is doesn’t bleed, the paper is really soft, and is thin enough to trace my pencils without the need for a light table.

     French Curves: I keep forgetting when the last time I even heard of them was, but have to admit that they are a nice tool when inking an image. As you can see I have some nice assortment of them.

     Multi-liners and Black Copic: They come in different sizes and by default the best pens to ink an image. I have one of them with a brush tip, but for large areas I like to use the 100 Copic, faster and easier.

     Copic Opaque White and small brush: I have to admit that my inking surely is bad (out of practice for several years), and made quite a few mistakes that are visible. So to cover most of those mistakes I used the opaque white and brush. I couldn’t get rid of all my mistakes, so I used my computer for the final clean-up. (Cheating I know)

     Right now, the image has been scanned, corrected and printed. My following step will be to decide the colors to use (maybe making a test image in the process), and then proceed to mask it so I can use my Air Brush System.

            During the long time I was outside the digital world, I keep looking at my renderings and noticed two patterns. The first one, I rarely draw any backgrounds; most of my pictures are just floating on the air. The second one, I rely too much on illustrator as an inking tool, and for that the images don’t look natural.

            So I decided to do a complete image this time, ink it by hand, and use my Air Brush System in the process. Just a little problem with that, I haven’t inked an image by hand in years, my hand was shaking and some of the lines didn’t come out as I wanted, but so far it looks decent.

            As I mentioned in the title, this will surely be a long project, as it will involve a technique that I haven’t even mentioned in any of my previous posts. Since I want to do most of the rendering using the ABS, I will use some masking frisket.

            Here are a couple images of the inking process so far.