Step By Step- Colored Pencils

Okays guys, thought I'd share with you all how I color my stuff, starting with my colored pencil techniques. It's not great, but it works~!

The picture I'm gonna use is a fanart I did of Amber Sweet from Repo the Genetic Opera(an excellent movie). I'm going to try and share a good deal of the process with you, so bear with me~!

Step 1. Pick you character/get refs.

For any normal picture, you need ot have a clear idea of WHO you're going to draw. In this case, it's a fanart, and as such it's important to have references. From memory is good, but unless you have a photographic memory, it's good to have a few back up pictures for those little details of their face or outfit.

The reference I used for Amber was this:



I really liked her final outfit, it's one of my favorites~ Plus it's her shining moment in the film~

Step 2. Pose/ Draft

Once you have a good visula in your head of who you're drawing, it's good to plot out a pose and make a rough draft. Believe it or not, this can be the most difficult part >-> Poses are essential to a picture, and you need to make sure it works, or you're picture's gonna look like ass.

This is my rough:



Step 3. Sketch

Now that basics for everyone is covered, next thing I do is sketch the beginnings of my final draft out. I like this part the most~ You never have to try too hard, and you can be as messy as you want at this stage.



Step 4. Inking

Next I ink the main lines of my sketch. You can use anything for this, from a ballpoint pen to a professional marker, whatever you need to. Sicne this picture's for me and I'm not really trying to impress anyone with it, I just used a black Papermate ballpoint.

Then after you ink you can start cleaning up you lines by erasing the extra pencil marks. Then you have a nice clena picture to color.

NOTE: I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH!! MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT YOUR INK IS DRY BEFORE YOU START ERASING!!! YOU CAN COMPLETELY RUIN YOUR PICTURE IF YOU DO NOT!!



Step 5. First Layer

Okay NOW we get down to coloring.... Color in small circles so that your strokes are less notcieable. It really helps the picture to look better.

I add the first layer, since the jacket in the picture has a lot of blue, it's the first color I set down for her clothes. Doesn't necessarily meant hat they'll stay that way or won't chnage with the lighting in MY picture, but it's a good base either way. I put a very light brown down for her hair and you can't really see it, but I did color her skin a little.



Step 6. More Layering

I skipped a little, cause it's a smidge of a pain to halt my zone and remember to scan ^^0

But basically I made the blue a little darker, and fixed up her hair quite a bit(there's like a bagillion layers on it @-@) Her skin has a couple more layers too, but again my scanner sucks and you can't really see it.



Step 7. Add Black

Now I start adding black to the outfit, making it more recognizable to the picture.



Again TONS of layering involved here, there's at least 5 in this for black alone. This takes a long time, you have to be patient.

Step 8. Logo & More Skin

Now we work on the GeneCo Logo behind her~

First I colored the red "Co" then I outlined the letters using white and gray. For an extra, last minute effect, I looked up a picture of the logo itself and decided to add the little spinny things and the circles, so it looks a little less plain.



For the skin, I started adding orange, darker shades of peach, and even some whtie to bring it out a little more. Again, it's a constant battle with me and my scanner.....

Step 9. Finito~

For the final touches, I outlined the GeneCo in black, and shaded some gray in certain places around Amber, fixed the resolution and the brightness/contrast scale on my scanner, and.... TA-DA~!

All done~ This took about a 24 hour period, but to be fair I didn't work on it all at once.



You can also see the finished stuffs on my devinatART: http://peachykitsune.deviantart.com/

Okay, well that's it for now~ Hopefully I can get my next step by step up for watercolor~ Remember, commissions are STILL OPEN~! So please look into me~!