Colouring with Copic's (Part 2)

Welcome back to Part 2 of my blog features for Two Scrapbook Friends on 'Colouring with Copic's.

In my first post, I covered a fair amount of background information as well as some of the practical methods I use whilst colouring flesh tones.  Today we are going to continue using those same methods and focus on colouring hair.


First of all, when trying to decide upon the colours you need, remember our process of starting with the lightest shade and layering through to the darkest.  With this in mind, as a guide, I envision the finished colour of my project as my darkest shade, and choose a marker that is closest to this.  I would then choose two, three or even four lighter shades.

Now, whichever colour you have chosen to use, remember the basic principles to ensure your finished creation will blend smoothly.  As mentioned, I often use at least three shades of a particular colour when colouring hair........sometimes even four or five! When choosing these shades, if possible pick ones which are within two or three places on the Copic chart. This doesn't mean to say that markers spaced more widely on the chart won't blend......you'll see later on that I use some positioned 12 spaces apart.  However, generally this rule will pretty much ensure they will compliment each other and blend smoothly.

So, we've chosen the colours we're going to use, and let's presume we have a stamped or digital image.........preferably something with hair!  The stamps I'm using today are again from Whipper Snapper Designs and you can find them in the Two Scrapbook Friends store.

So where do we start?  Well first, I use my imagination!

Remember in my last post I mentioned deciding upon the direction of your light source?  Well we still have to consider that when colouring hair, because to achieve that realistic glossy look, light will be reflected from various parts of the head.  I should point out that I am not an artist.......I cannot draw at all and I have no artistic training, so this is where my imagination comes into play.

In most cases, I presume my light source is above the image.  This makes the head the closest point and we can therefore go to town on showing these reflections.  I try to imagine exactly where the shine would be and this tends to be on the major curves of the hair.  Now we don't need to go crazy here and reflect light from every single curve.....the finished image then has a 'zebra' like appearance which is not what we're looking for!  Bangs are usually the perfect place to show a reflection and really achieve the impression of a curve.

Before we actually start to colour, I'd like to mention how I actually do so, as it differs slightly from how I colour everything else.  I tend to move the marker in strokes rather than colouring in block, and my layering would be more staggered as opposed to a straight line.  I just find this gives a more realistic look but hopefully this photograph will explain that a little better.

So, on to some colouring.
For this example I'm going to be colouring a light brown/mousy shade.  I start as always with the lightest marker in my chosen group (E31), and cover the majority of the hair, leaving a little staggered white space where I imagine light reflections would be.

Don't be afraid of leaving this white space when colouring hair........if we don't like the end result, we can always blend out a little with a final layer of our lightest shade.  I've shown this technique again in pink in the next photograph, to highlight the staggered areas left uncoloured.

Using my next shade (E43), I layer, ensuring I follow the staggered pattern and ending the layer a little closer to the hairband and outer edge of the image.

The next photograph shows this layer in pencil to make things clear.

Finally, I layer my third shade (E44) drawing further still to the outer perimeters of the hair.

Now is where we would look things over to see if we're happy with the result, or if we feel the layers and white space need a little more blending.  I chose to leave things as they were.

So whichever colour of hair you choose, the process is the same.  However, before I finish I did want to mention colouring black hair as this is quite often a daunting task for a beginner.....or even those who've been colouring a while!

Probably the most useful tip I can give for colouring black hair is that I rarely (if ever!) use black.  You will produce a much more realistic look by layering with tones of grey.  I have on occasion highlighted with a final layer of black, but very lightly and sparsely.

As far as your choice of greys.....'warm' or 'cool', it really doesn't matter as both will work nicely.  I happen to favour the 'cool' shades as this is what I have the most of.

So exactly as we did previously, I start with a layer of my lightest shade (C3).

Then stagger a layer of my next shade (C5).

I finish with a touch of my darkest shade (C7) around the very edge of the hair.......I've shown this in pink first.

Hopefully, you should end with something looking like this...........

............but remember, if the white space seems too much of a contrast, or the staggered layers are too severe, return to your lightest shade (C3) or even lighter (C2), and lightly layer to mute the overall effect.

Well that's about it for hair!

Don't be disheartened if you don't become an expert overnight.....I still have days where things just don't go as planned, but remember what I suggested in our first session......practice, practice, practice!

In the meantime, our 'mousy' haired girl is all coloured up and ready for a card.

Have fun and please join me next time where we will look at colouring........well........a little bit of everything else!

Till then,

Jayne.x.

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Challenges entered:

Digi Stamps 4 Joy - #42 Cute as a Button

Colouring with Copic's (Part 1)

As part of being a Design Team member for Two Scrapbook Friends, one of our responsibilities during our term, is to produce a three part special blog feature, tackling something scrapbook or card related.  Now this should obviously be something we might excell in, or have a talent for, or something we feel passionate about.

I am relying on the latter option here.  I certainly don't claim to be any kind of expert in the colouring field.......I have never taken a class, or become certified, not that I wouldn't want to, I just colour because.....well .....I love it!

So straight off the bat, there is my big disclaimer.

Everything I'm going to share with you today is what I've learnt from magazines, or scouring the internet, and most importantly, colouring.  So if nothing else, after reading this feature today, I hope you will at least be encouraged to pick up a marker and colour.

On with the show..........

Copic's!  Does that one word get your heart pumping with excitement at the thought of colouring up your next image?  Or guilt when you think of your rather large collection, gathering dust, just waiting to be used?

If it's the former....great, jump right in!  If it's the latter, I hope as we progress, you'll at least feel a little less intimidated, and a little more inclined to give them a try.  I hate to bust a myth here, but colouring with Copic's doesn't have to be that difficult.  I'm not saying it's easy, and you will certainly need to practice to improve your technique.  I'm still learning two years down the road, but that's the point that leads me nicely to my first tip -

#1 PRACTICE

The most valuable tool for improvement, in colouring with Copic's is to practice.....the more you colour, the better you will become, this I will pretty much guarantee.  Copic markers are certainly not your 'Crayola' variety (not that I have anything against these....my kids love them!).
They have a very fine nib, which is perfect for colouring detailed images, but requires a certain control.  It makes sense therefore, that the more you become comfortable with the feel of them ie. practice, the better you'll be able to control exactly what you want them to do.

Now if you are a beginner in the colouring world, I wouldn't suggest you run out and buy 50 markers, because you feel you need them.  Once you jump into this hobby, there's a distinct possibilty you will become 'hooked' and there will be plenty of opportunity to add (and add, and add) to your collection as you progress.  Here lies my second tip -

#2 THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO COLOUR AND PURCHASE FROM THERE.

If you like the look of cutesy girl/boy images, you'll obviously need a good variety of flesh tones, together with a small selection for clothing etc.  If you are interested in colouring landscapes, these will be of no use whatsoever.....common sense right?  When choosing any colour, to begin I would suggest purchasing at least two shades which are grouped relatively close on the Copic chart.  You can download your own free copy of this chart from the Copic web site - there's a link on the sidebar of the Two Scrapbook Friends blog.

As far as choosing images to colour, your options are endless, but generally, they are available in two forms......'stamps', the rubber/acrylic hold it in your hand variety, or 'digital', printed using your computer.

A couple of things to be aware of when choosing between the two.  If you are stamping, I would recommend using Momento ink pads as they are a water based ink that is fast drying, and that's the key.  The last thing you want is for the tip of your marker to pick up any ink residue, which then results in a discoloured nib and one very smeared, ruined image.

If you are printing digitally, then every brand of ink cartridge is different and it becomes more a case of 'trial and error'.  However, as a general rule of thumb, when colouring, I would always avoid touching the lines of your image, with the tip of your marker, as much as possible, in order to avoid disaster.

Before we get to the fun part (colouring!), there's one final thing we need to mention, and that is what you are actually going to colour on, so here comes my next tip -

#3 USE A REALLY GOOD QUALITY CARDSTOCK.

A key factor in achieving good shading whilst colouring, is saturation......the density of colour.  In order to achieve this with Copic's, we need to layer.....lots, and therefore a really good quality cardstock is required to be able to withstand this amount of ink.  By looking at the reverse of a coloured image, you should see the ink has absorbed right through, and this is what we want, as it confirms the density of ink layers on there.  Two Scrapbook Friends carry an awesome, super smooth cardstock, specifically designed for colouring with Copic markers, and you will certainly notice the difference when using this.  Believe me, I have tested many!

OK, I'm sure by now you're tired of reading and would like to get down to the business of colouring.  Before we do, I have one final tip which is again pretty much common sense, but designed to make life easier - 

#4 WHEN COLOURING AN IMAGE, CHOOSE YOUR PAPERS FIRST, THEN COLOUR TO THIS SCHEME.

This really does take all the hard work out of deciding which tones to use.  Let's face it, the colour combinations on patterned papers have already been tried and tested before going to print, so we know they work, and the end result is a card/scrapbook page which co-ordinates beautifully with your coloured image.

Well, I can't end today's feature without actually 'colouring', so I thought for this first session we would look at colouring 'skin'.  The images I'm using in all my examples are rubber stamps from Whipper Snapper Designs, which you can of course find in the store, and are extremely cute!

Before I lay down any ink to paper, I decide on my light source.  This is the direction from which light is appearing, because generally this will determine where most of my shading will appear.  You can see from this photo that I've decided upon the top right corner, and therefore will shade mostly down the left side and lower edges of the image.

When colouring anything, I always start with the lightest shade of the colour I've chosen, and  progress by layering with darker tones. For this image, I've started by covering all skin areas with E0000, my lightest shade.  I then start to layer by using a slighter darker tone (E000), on the areas denoted in the previous picture.  It's quite difficult to pick up these lighter tones with the camera, so I've shown this in pink to make it clear where the shading is.

I then move to my third darkest shade (E00) and following the same pattern, colour approximately half way over my previously layer.

The idea is to draw each layer a little closer to the outer edge of the image.  To make this clear, I've shown where my third layer is in pencil.

Finally, I use my fourth shade (YR00) and pretty much colour around the outer edge.

Generally whilst colouring, you'll be able to blend, and even correct minor errors in shading, as long as you start with the lighter tones and progress - the 'less is more' theory.  I quite often do a final blending of all the layers, by using my lightest shade of marker as my final layer, and covering the whole area.  This generally blends or smoothes out these layers, especially if they appear too severe.  Before I do that here though, I'd like to create a little 'blush'.

I start with RV000 in a circular motion on the cheek area, and carry this out a little toward the ears.  I then very lightly layer a little RV10 in a more centered area, over top.

Now is when I would cover the whole area (if needed) with a layer of E0000 to ensure everythings blended smoothly.

As far as colouring the diaper and bow, I followed the same principal as before.....start by covering the whole area with the lightest shade (RV000), then layer with the darker shades RV10 and RV23, in areas where shadowing would be.  The photographs should clarify their location.

Remember, if you are not entirely happy with the blending of layers, take your lightest shade, and cover the whole area.  You can always re-apply the darker shades as necessary.

Other than a little grey (C0) added on the ground to create shadow, the image is finished and ready for a card.

Well I hope you've managed to stick with me till the very end!

For my next feature, we'll be taking the basic foundations we've covered today, in order to jump right in to everyone's favourite task.......colouring hair!  I do hope you'll join me, but in the mean time practice, practice, practice and most importantly,  have fun!

Till next time,
Jayne.x.