Onii-chan Jentoru (Gentle) coloring walk through
i just decided to do a little walk through on how i color my drawings with one of my Onii-chan Gachi drawings xD or rather, my recent way of coloring that i've been doing. i've gone back to using Crayola colored pencils to color again since i got a giant set from my dad a while back. they're probably the best cheap colored pencils you can get to color with and they give nice results if you know how to use them :3 anyway, on to the walk through~!
this is the drawing where i will be showing the process of how i did it :D
so first we start off with the line-art of course :) i inked mine in the face with Pilot's Hi-tech-C with thickness of 0.25 since it's a rather small drawing, the rest i inked with Uni-ball's Signo in 0.28. it's rather similar thickness, but the Hi-tech-C one isn't really that pigmented and it was harder it ink with actually, so that's why i switched half-way through xD i didn't take an individual shot of the lineart, so there's also Rei's with it, but this is what it looks like just inked xD
so now on with the coloring~. i usually start off with the face. i use Crayola's peach color as a base, and i use very little pressure to color at first. ignore the scrabbly paper, i use it to test colors and stuff xD
next, i used light brown to put some shadows onto the face, once again, using not too much pressure. i also use small circular motions, moving from the darkest areas to the lighter, using less pressure as i move towards the lighter areas. afterwards, i blend the edges of the light brown with the peach again to smooth it out.
same method again with just brown to bring out the darkest parts of the shadows. with this brown though, since Taiga is rather fair-skinned, i only used it sparingly in a few areas on the face. i'm not a professional artist and everything i do is just through trial and error lol, but my general rule for where i decide to put these darkest areas are usually where lines meet xD but that's just my way haha.
next up is the hair~! Taiga has pretty bright colored hair, so i lightly shaded in the hair with light brown.
then, still using light brown, i use more pressure this time, and define some shadows in the hair to give it a bit of texture, if you know what i mean xD it's not a really good picture, but you can see that there's slightly darker areas in the hair now.
to further give definition to the hair, i used brown to outline those shadows some more so that it'll look sharper.
then i take dark brown to define the darkest shadows of the hair, like the area touching the hat, since there will be a shadow there from the hat. i use more pressure where it's closer to the hat, and then go lighter as i move down, creating a gradient kind of shadow.
i then used light brown to lightly fill in the eyes for now, and we'll come back to it later.
moving on to the outfit now~! i'm going to start with the bow. the bow that Taiga was wearing was sort of a wine red color, but i didn't really have a color like that, so i first put down a bold layer of mahogany, and then a layer of maroon over it. i used quite a bit of pressure here to get the opaque color.
if i left it just like that with one color, the bow would look rather flat, so i added in some shadows using brown. see the difference that it made?
now onto the vest. only a tiny bit of it can be seen in this small drawing lol, but basically, same concept as how i did the bow. i used gray and gave a rather generous amount of pressure to get the full color from the pencil, and then defined the shadows with black.
then i used cool gray to lightly give some shadows to the white shirt, just so it looks more 3 dimensional, since it's rather flat if i just left it plain white. once again, my rule of thumb for this is kind of just shade lightly where lines meet, and also just shade under things where there should be a shadow, like under the bow, and under where the collar folds. i also blend it out with my fingers a bit if i have to in order to make the shading look a bit smoother.
now the rest of the outfit is all black, which is very tricky to work with, and i'm actually still trying to figure out the best way to work with black lol, but here's how i've been doing it. i color it generously all over the areas that will be black, trying to keep the color even. it's easier if the colored pencil is blunt when you do this. make the color opaque, but don't use full pressure since you want to be able to do a bit of shadows later.
now we use more pressure with the black to make the color it's boldest, if that makes any sense, i don't know how to explain lol. but you start off with the areas that should have shadows and color really hard there. and then slowly blend out the color by using less pressure so that it's smoother.when shading the hat, color by following the curve of the hat. that way it won't look so blotchy. same thing with the suit. my general rule here is to follow the shape of the lines. i know it still looks a bit blotchy, but this is the i could do xD like i said, i still haven't fully figured out the best way to shade black colored stuff xD
almost there! now let's go back to the eyes. i'm going to switch over to Staedtler triplus fineliner (these are awesome btw, i've had them forever and they haven't dried out at all xD). i picked out the light brown one, since it's the closest color to the one i chose in colored pencil. basically what i do is just outline around where i colored the eyes, and then i softened the pen line by coloring with the light brown over it again. by using the pen, it gives the eyes a bolder color, and it also makes a more gradient-looking effect in the
looks about good, right? but i always like to give the drawing a second inking for a more clean and crisp image, since the lines seem to have faded with the coloring. this time though, i'm going to use Sakura micron to ink in the outlines again, because the kind of pens i inked with at first are the ballpoint gel types of pens, and those will get clogged with the colored pencil if i ink over it. i think Sakura microns are oil based or something, i don't know what the formula is, but it doesn't come out through a roller ball, it comes out from the little tip that's already protruding from the pen, so it can glide on top of the oil based colored pencils quite well, and i love Sakura microns since they dry quickly too and they don't smudge. i think Copic fineliners would also work too. i used the 005 (.20mm) for the facial features, and then i inked in the rest of the 01 (0.25mm). see how much more he seems to pop from the drawing now? :D
final step, add in highlights! :D i recently found a white gel pen when i shopped at Ichibankan and it's working great xD it's Pilot's Juice pen. i used it to add another little highlight to the eyes, and drew in a few loose hair strands, and we're done!
and this is another way that i also color hair recently. i use this method depending on the hair style xD so basically, i lightly colored on a dark brown with the colored pencil. part of it is darker cuz i forgot to take the picture before moving on xD you want to also leave white areas for where there's supposed to be highlights.
next, i took the dark brown color from Staedtler triplus fineliners and follow the general outline that i made with the colored pencil to shade in the hair and make it look like individual strands.
i then soften out the lines with a dark brown colored pencil.
in the end, i ink over the outlines again and put in loose hair strands with the white gel pen just like how i did for Gentle. and it's done! i like to use this method for slicked back hair (which i am still working on practicing), and also if they have hair that's not really textured and i want the color of the hair to also stand out with the rest of the colors, like for Kaji's and Meguro-kun's.
and that's all, hope this was helpful to somebody haha. i know this is mostly a fandom blog, but why not mesh fandom and art together xDD
this is the drawing where i will be showing the process of how i did it :D
so first we start off with the line-art of course :) i inked mine in the face with Pilot's Hi-tech-C with thickness of 0.25 since it's a rather small drawing, the rest i inked with Uni-ball's Signo in 0.28. it's rather similar thickness, but the Hi-tech-C one isn't really that pigmented and it was harder it ink with actually, so that's why i switched half-way through xD i didn't take an individual shot of the lineart, so there's also Rei's with it, but this is what it looks like just inked xD
so now on with the coloring~. i usually start off with the face. i use Crayola's peach color as a base, and i use very little pressure to color at first. ignore the scrabbly paper, i use it to test colors and stuff xD
next, i used light brown to put some shadows onto the face, once again, using not too much pressure. i also use small circular motions, moving from the darkest areas to the lighter, using less pressure as i move towards the lighter areas. afterwards, i blend the edges of the light brown with the peach again to smooth it out.
same method again with just brown to bring out the darkest parts of the shadows. with this brown though, since Taiga is rather fair-skinned, i only used it sparingly in a few areas on the face. i'm not a professional artist and everything i do is just through trial and error lol, but my general rule for where i decide to put these darkest areas are usually where lines meet xD but that's just my way haha.
next up is the hair~! Taiga has pretty bright colored hair, so i lightly shaded in the hair with light brown.
then, still using light brown, i use more pressure this time, and define some shadows in the hair to give it a bit of texture, if you know what i mean xD it's not a really good picture, but you can see that there's slightly darker areas in the hair now.
to further give definition to the hair, i used brown to outline those shadows some more so that it'll look sharper.
then i take dark brown to define the darkest shadows of the hair, like the area touching the hat, since there will be a shadow there from the hat. i use more pressure where it's closer to the hat, and then go lighter as i move down, creating a gradient kind of shadow.
i then used light brown to lightly fill in the eyes for now, and we'll come back to it later.
moving on to the outfit now~! i'm going to start with the bow. the bow that Taiga was wearing was sort of a wine red color, but i didn't really have a color like that, so i first put down a bold layer of mahogany, and then a layer of maroon over it. i used quite a bit of pressure here to get the opaque color.
if i left it just like that with one color, the bow would look rather flat, so i added in some shadows using brown. see the difference that it made?
now onto the vest. only a tiny bit of it can be seen in this small drawing lol, but basically, same concept as how i did the bow. i used gray and gave a rather generous amount of pressure to get the full color from the pencil, and then defined the shadows with black.
then i used cool gray to lightly give some shadows to the white shirt, just so it looks more 3 dimensional, since it's rather flat if i just left it plain white. once again, my rule of thumb for this is kind of just shade lightly where lines meet, and also just shade under things where there should be a shadow, like under the bow, and under where the collar folds. i also blend it out with my fingers a bit if i have to in order to make the shading look a bit smoother.
now the rest of the outfit is all black, which is very tricky to work with, and i'm actually still trying to figure out the best way to work with black lol, but here's how i've been doing it. i color it generously all over the areas that will be black, trying to keep the color even. it's easier if the colored pencil is blunt when you do this. make the color opaque, but don't use full pressure since you want to be able to do a bit of shadows later.
now we use more pressure with the black to make the color it's boldest, if that makes any sense, i don't know how to explain lol. but you start off with the areas that should have shadows and color really hard there. and then slowly blend out the color by using less pressure so that it's smoother.when shading the hat, color by following the curve of the hat. that way it won't look so blotchy. same thing with the suit. my general rule here is to follow the shape of the lines. i know it still looks a bit blotchy, but this is the i could do xD like i said, i still haven't fully figured out the best way to shade black colored stuff xD
almost there! now let's go back to the eyes. i'm going to switch over to Staedtler triplus fineliner (these are awesome btw, i've had them forever and they haven't dried out at all xD). i picked out the light brown one, since it's the closest color to the one i chose in colored pencil. basically what i do is just outline around where i colored the eyes, and then i softened the pen line by coloring with the light brown over it again. by using the pen, it gives the eyes a bolder color, and it also makes a more gradient-looking effect in the
looks about good, right? but i always like to give the drawing a second inking for a more clean and crisp image, since the lines seem to have faded with the coloring. this time though, i'm going to use Sakura micron to ink in the outlines again, because the kind of pens i inked with at first are the ballpoint gel types of pens, and those will get clogged with the colored pencil if i ink over it. i think Sakura microns are oil based or something, i don't know what the formula is, but it doesn't come out through a roller ball, it comes out from the little tip that's already protruding from the pen, so it can glide on top of the oil based colored pencils quite well, and i love Sakura microns since they dry quickly too and they don't smudge. i think Copic fineliners would also work too. i used the 005 (.20mm) for the facial features, and then i inked in the rest of the 01 (0.25mm). see how much more he seems to pop from the drawing now? :D
final step, add in highlights! :D i recently found a white gel pen when i shopped at Ichibankan and it's working great xD it's Pilot's Juice pen. i used it to add another little highlight to the eyes, and drew in a few loose hair strands, and we're done!
and this is another way that i also color hair recently. i use this method depending on the hair style xD so basically, i lightly colored on a dark brown with the colored pencil. part of it is darker cuz i forgot to take the picture before moving on xD you want to also leave white areas for where there's supposed to be highlights.
next, i took the dark brown color from Staedtler triplus fineliners and follow the general outline that i made with the colored pencil to shade in the hair and make it look like individual strands.
i then soften out the lines with a dark brown colored pencil.
in the end, i ink over the outlines again and put in loose hair strands with the white gel pen just like how i did for Gentle. and it's done! i like to use this method for slicked back hair (which i am still working on practicing), and also if they have hair that's not really textured and i want the color of the hair to also stand out with the rest of the colors, like for Kaji's and Meguro-kun's.
and that's all, hope this was helpful to somebody haha. i know this is mostly a fandom blog, but why not mesh fandom and art together xDD