CopicArt – Illustrating with Markers

Archive for January, 2009

Back from my Certification class, and glad for taking it. I knew the theory of most of the techniques shown, but I didn’t have time to practice them or actually work on them. I wasn’t new to Marianne’s way of teaching, as I attended to three of her Copic presentations before at Anime Expo in Southern California. Nevertheless to say that I enjoyed the Certification Class.

Well, after hanging the Certificate on my studio, and surviving two birthday parties, I finally sat on front of my Netbook to write about yet another blending method that you can do with Copic Markers.

Personally I like the results of the Wet in Wet method, but it has one major disadvantage, it works with colors that belong to the same family range. If you want to blend colors that belong to a different family with the Wet in Wet method, then most likely your will end up with something really close to mud (literally).

For example, lets assume I want to blend a yellow and a brown. With the Wet in Wet method the result would be something like this.

No Blending, the brown is too strong for the yellow to blend, in other cases, like yellows and blues, one of the original colors will change. The following example shows how a blue color will change completely to a green tone once its blended with a yellow.

So, does that mean that I can only blend colors of the same family? No, there is another method of blending that allows us to blend colors of different families. The method is called feathering, and consist on coloring with both colors in opposite direction, lifting the maker’s tip at the place where the colors will met.

To understand better how it works, lets suppose we need to color a square that goes from yellow to blue.

First you will apply the yellow, with long strokes (not round, short strokes), from one corner of the square to the middle of it, but just before you reach the middle you need to lift the brush tip of your marker so it colors the yellow faint.

Then you will repeat the same strokes from the opposite side of the square with the blue marker. Make sure to slightly pass the middle of the square with your strokes, this will be the blending point.

To get a better blending, you may need to repeat the strokes on both sides while the paper is still wet. This technique has a disadvantage too, it works best with lighter colors (last digit below 5).

 Hope this is helpful. Have a nice day.

     As mentioned on earlier posts, on the 23^rd of January, 2009, I attended my Copic Certified Designer Class at the Anaheim Marriott. Marianne Walker instructed the class, and I have to say that she is just wonderful, funny, and very talented.

     The Marriott Hotel is extremely close to where I live (10 minutes walk), so I ended up about an hour earlier, sitting at the lobby, looking at the hotel employees preparing the place for the CHA. Just before the class started, Marianne mentioned that I looked familiar, and it was true as I have attended three of her workshops at Anime Expo.

     So we had a little chat about Anime and Manga, then I presented her a little gift that I made the week before. A silver Copic, and said she will wear it if I turned it into a pendant, and I will do it this week, and mail it to her.

     I have to admit that I expected a little bit more people, but at the end the size of the class was just perfect for us to absorb as much information as possible. There was about eighteen beautiful ladies and three ugly guys attending (the three of us sat at the same table, at the end of the room).

     We started our class with our packages in front of us (Copic catalogs, Info sheets, a pouch with several Copic products, and sample papers). The first thing we learned was about the markers itself, and the papers to use (and the ones to avoid), we also found out about the yummies that we could eat at the end of the room.

     As the class progressed and we learned about stamp inks, and how to find out if it will work with our Copics, a couple gentlemen came in and told Marianne that they had extra goodies for us, a “Creative Colors for Paper Arts” book. Very good book, I would recommend you to get it, as it has some wonderful tips and projects.

     She spoke about coloring techniques, multi liners, the Spica pens, and the heart of the class, the different blending methods. Our lunch break was given about 1:00pm (I may be wrong about the time), and wen we returned we were given our last product of the day, a big bottle of color less blender, she explained the use of the blender, and techniques of effects that can be achieved with it.

     The last part of the class was to use the Air Brush System, and that was just plain FUN, one of the ladies sitting next to me brought some silk flowers, and we had a blast painting those. She ended the day by issuing our certificates, polite as I am, I was the last one to receive mine (in reality I was still playing with the ABS).

     So, that is how the day went, I learned a lot, and had fun in the process. I totally forgot about my camera until the end of the day, for that I only took a few pictures of the Certification.

    I was browsing the WordPress.org site in search of new features for my blog, and found one really cool. One of the main objectives of Copic Art is to teach the use of markers as illustration tools from the ground up. Following a step by step tutorial, or reading a long article on the computer screen is quite tedious and bad for your eyes, so the new feature is:

     The ability to generate PDF files of each article posted on the site. Allowing you to print the articles, e-mail them, read them off line, and share them to friends, without problems. You will need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader (Most likely already installed on your computer), to view and print the PDF files.

The way this will work is quite easy.

1. Just select the article you wish to have in PDF Format by either clicking on the title in the main page, or in the “Recent Post” box in the side bar.
   

2. Click on the [PDF] link on top of the article (next to my name).
   

3. A window will appear asking you to either open the file or save it to your disk.
   

4. Done, from this point you can print it, share it, e-mail it, etc…

Enjoy this feature.

I liked the last one, but the orange was to bright.

So I found out this theme, that it’s more neutral and easy on the eyes. Some things are re-aranged, but the functionality is the same.

     Here is the final image of my Copic Girl drawing; Colored on an A4 Copic Manga sheet.  She ended up using more colors than anticipated, also I changed some of the colors as well, so here is the list of colors used.

Hair: E13, E35    -    Ribbon: Y15, Y17
Copics: W1, W3, B29, G21
Skin: E31, E51
Eyes: V09, V17, 100
Socks: E07, R24, B45
Shoes: G00, B45, W7, W9
Mouth: R29, RV11
Dress: RV21, V12, V15
Shirt: B41, B45

      Wow, that’s a lot of colors. [Click on the image for bigger size]

  I apologize for it, but this past day I got bombarded with spam. And instead of either closing the comments, or to require registration, I decided to implement a captcha plug-in.

Thank You! for understanding.

Today I will attend my Copic Certification Class, and as soon as that’s done this image will be up on my blog. I am looking forward to share what will be learned from that class.

This is an image I made a few weeks back, but never got a chance to work on it (writing my previous post was to blame). The sketch was made on a regular copy-paper sheet, and then it was computer outlined. As it can be seen, some colors don’t match, and that it’s the purpose of this test page.

My selection of colors for the final image are: Hair – V09 BV08 100, Hair Ribbon – Y15 Y17, Hair – E13 E57, Skin – E51 E31, Dress – V12 RV21, Socks – E07 R24 B45, Shirt – B45 B41, and the Copics – B45 W1.

As a rule there is two things I never do, coloring an original sketch (either pencil or inked), and coloring without making a test image first.

A test image is a photocopy of the work that’s ready to be colored, and will help to select the final colors of your image, as well as the blending techniques that you may want to use. The coloring doesn’t need to be precise, as this image is just a guideline for the finished work.

     These are good practices even for Stampers, it is a real pain to spend hours making a card only to find out the color don’t match, or that your blending needs improvement. With a test image you did that beforehand.

     Technically speaking this is not blending, but since it’s mostly the opposite of Wet in Wet, I will handle it like that. Wet in Dry blending consists on adding a layer of color on top of a previously colored area. The result of this method will be a sharp and clear difference between the two colors and by that adding detail to our image.

     If you compare this image with my previous post you can see the difference between a wet in wet blending, and Wet in Dry. The shadows of this ice cream cone are sharper and more defined.

     The following images show how this image was created.

Base Color applied.

Top layer added on top of the base color.

Since it seems that I will be working more on projects for my Blog, I needed to re-evaluate my work area, and it’s functionality. For that reason I have been organizing my work area, and that is why I skipped last friday’s entry about Wet on Dry.

I will edit this post with pictures this following week.