So I love drawing, but (shhhhh, don’t tell anyone!) I may possibly love teaching even more. So a couple of weeks ago I posted my first Instagram tutorial, showing my process of working with Tombow marker pens, and the technique I use to put color into many of my illustrations. Want to learn? Let’s get started!
STEP 1: I always start with inspiration and a pencil sketch to capture the gesture (pose). This look comes from the super-chic Wendy’s Look Book. Sometimes I ink first, other times I make inking my last step, depending on how jiggy I’m feeling at the moment. This one, I went ink-first, using my Sakura fine brush Pigma pen, which I looooove.
STEP 2: Color! I usually start with skintone, then move on the garment. Here, I’m using my Tombow brush pen to lay down a hot red tone. You could stop here and it would be a perfectly fine way to indicate color in your sketch. (General rule of thumb: use the color in the shadows, and leave the highlights white.) But I’m going to continue withy favorite way of using Tombow pens… with a waterbrush!
STEP 3: Now for my favorite part. After laying down the color with the Tombow pen, I activate the ink with a waterbrush to create a bright, vibrant wash of color. I love this step, and I try to keep the variation in color by keeping the ink more opaque in thr shadows and making it more transparent in the highlight areas. It’s still good to keep some white showing through if you can. But sometimes it’s easy to get excited and let the ink get away from you.
STEP 4: After laying down the base layer of color, I like to add more texture with a little colored pencil, and deepen the shadows with Copic markers.
STEP 5: Last step! Adding a splash of color for the background, using the same marker pen/waterbrush combo that I used to lay color down in the figure. The red-and-leopard print combo made me instinctively choose a vibrant orange for the background.
And here’s the final product. Loads of color, just how I like it.
What do you think? Will you give marker pens and waterbrushes a spin? What other tutorials would you like to see?