HAIR - Y622 Y625 Y627 (Yellow Set) AG871 (From Ash Gray Set) & N900 Blender

When laying down color on uncoated cardstock with the intention of blending, start with the darkest colors first, which I'll show you when we color the shirt. For the hair, I want to leave some texture, so I'm starting with my lighter yellow first. Simply draw from the center in the direction the hair would naturally follow.

Next add some texture by drawing in the same way using the darker yellow colors. Because the sunlight is overhead I'm leaving the darker colors away from the crown of the head.

Note about the blender pen: In the next step you'll use the blender pen. The blender pen works as a blender on coated cardstocks but behaves more like bleach on uncoated cardstock. In fact, sometimes the lighting effect is a little delayed from when you use the blender, so make one pass and wit a few seconds before determining if you want to lighten more.

The next step is to create a halo around the head. If you're assuming the character has very shiny hair you might actually leave the halo uncolored initially to provide stark sharp contrast. This character clearly does not have shiny flaxen hair so I can use my blender pen to remove color from the hair. A narrow or pointed head with have a small halo closer to the top of the head. A large head like this will have a wide halo further down the head. To remove color simply apply your blender in a circular motion around the halo area.

You'll find your halo a little too stark initially for this character. Simply draw some hair low-lights back through the halo using the lightest yellow. On the left his hair still looks a little too flaxen so a little light warm gray applied over top with light strokes alternating from top to bottom and bottom to top will blend the hairs just slightly and give a dustier appearance.

SKIN - OR821 & OR823 (from Skin tone Set)

To start, simply color in all the areas of the skin with the lighter skin. Then think about areas that will get shading on Hinkie's face. His hair will cast a shadow, as will his brow, his nose, his bottom lip, the the shirt on his arm, the shorts on his legs and the spider in his hand. Also anywhere skin touches generally makes a slight shadow, like between fingers.

Using the darker skin tone simply draw in those shadows. If you want softer shadows, draw them first or go back with the lighter skin tone and touch the edges of the shadows. My scanner actually shows a little more contrast between the two skin tones than the actual image so I didn't do that at this stage and decided it was okay to show the stark shadows to make them easier to find.

If you want to try something not shown here, take the blender pen to areas that get the most sun; nose cheeks, top of hand and use a light touch with the blender pen to add highlights.

T-shirt - R112 R115 R117 (Tomato Set) & Blender

For the shirt, I want the shadows to blend more so I'm starting with the darkest color of read and drawing in all the areas I think there will be shadows; under his chin, arms and inner folds of his shirt. The artist drew folds in for us but in a future tutorial I'll show you how to add folds to simpler cloth images that don't have fold suggestions already.

Next simply color the rest of the shirt with the medium red pen. At this point, if you use a light hand there will not be much blending of the shadows and the clot color.

If you continue to work the edges of the shadow with the medium red by circling lightly around th edges, you'll see the medium red start to push the darker red down further into your paper, leaving more of the medium red. Look at the back of your paper. You'll probably see the bright red bleeding to the back far more than you could after step 2.

Add some highlights to the shirt in areas that will get the most light, like the shoulders and tops of the folds. Compare to step 2 and see how much more texture and dimension you see in his shirt.

Spider OY848 (from Skin Tones Set) & Blender Pen

This is a fun and easy step. Color your spider using a dark brown and then dot the blender to remove dots of color. This mottling gives the effect of a fuzzy texture. We'll use this next to make pants have the texture of denim.

Jeans B707 (from Blue Set), CG895 (from Cool Gray Set) & Blender Pen

Color the pants blue. Right now they're just pants. To make denim, use your blender pen to add lighter dots to the entire blue area, concentrating just slightly more on areas that will be lightest.

Remember how I used the dark red first on the shirt. I could have done that here on the pants but I don't have a darker blue. I'm going to cheat to make the shadows on the jeans. Using the cool gray I drew in the shadows. It simply needs to be a slightly darker color gray than the blue I used.

Well that doesn't look very natural, so I'll need to go back over the gray with the same blue I originally colored with. Oh yes, much better but it's still not blending as well I'd like.

I use the blender pen one more time to dot the edge of the shadow, but not adding any more blending outside the shadow.

Note about color codes:

I was talking with a Copic instructor the other day and she felt stampers really rely too heavily on the numbering systems and said that when she tries to teach classes on Copics some of the students get so fascinated about the numbering to the point that she has troubles getting the basic concepts across. Other teachers feel the number system is key to understanding how to shade and blend colors. My opinion is that the numbers really help as guidelines, especially, for us mathy logical sorts but a basic understanding of blending and shading will allow you to find the solutions outside the number box. Also strict adherence to guidelines can damper creativity. In a later tutorial Di Davies will demonstrate some fascinating color choices that can't be found in any rulebooks.

For this reason please do not consider any numbering "rules". Rules suck anyway. Guidelines or suggestions are awesome. If you never want to learn the number system at all, don't. You might want to study color theory instead.

Shading guideline: To find a good shadow for a color, say Marvy R815 or Copic R14 for instance, a good shadow would be Marvy R817 or Copic R17. In both systems the last number is darkness and the second to last is an immediate color class. A class of colors has the same hue (color) and the same value (saturation). There are differences between the two about how the families are grouped and I will soon provide more details if you're interested.
Okay Cheat: Copic R17 doesn't have a darker shade in that color classification, but R08, which is slightly more saturated will work especially if you add a light-medium gray underneath.

For more information on the number systems and how to choose shaders and blenders, view this page Copic and Marvy Le Plume Permanent Basics

Shoes E858 (from Maroon Set), OY848 OR827 OR823 (from Skin Tones Set)

Color the upper part of the shoe with a medium brown (OR827), leaving a blank area to become the highlight on the toes.

Color the soles with the darkest brown (OY848) and add a shadow at the base of the upper part of the shoe with a medium-dark brown (OR828).

Darken the shadow a bit by dotting in some E858 just above the sole and blending it in with the OR827.

At this point the bright, clean lined highlight should give the effect of a shiny shoe but the subtle shadowing contradicts that texture so we can soften the highlight by adding a tan color (OR823) around the edge of the highlight.

Note about Surface Smoothness:
Glossy surfaces like clean, straight hair, plastic, and patent leather generally have crisp, defined highlights and shadows. Softer textures like unoily skin, cotton and suede need more blended shadows and highlights to reveal their texture. Other things affect highlights and shadows like number and type of lighting sources and object shape, but I'll cover that in a later tutorial.

Mixing Color on Slingshot AG873, AG871 (Ash Gray Set), OR827, OR823 (Skin Tone Set)

This is just a little trick for expanding your colors. I only use the three browns that we just used on the shoes, but the slingshot is right next to them and I don't want it to completely blend in so I colored the slightshot wood with a medium gray and the rubber band with a light gray before adding the browns.

By coloring over the medium gray with a medium brown and the light gray with a medium tan I have different colors. Remember whichever color you add last will be predominant so if I wanted it more gray I would color the brown first and then the gray.

Final Touches

Add some light blue around the pupils of the eye, some light gray dots in the whites of the eye to soften the white and some light yellow to some of the teeth Add some dark brown lines to the slingshot.

Use the blender pen to lift off and blend the gray dots in the eyes, the yellow on the teeth and soften the shadows on the face.

He's done!