Saturated Canary Hair Tutorial

Hello Everyone!  Welcome back to another Copic Oz tutorial!  Today I'm colouring this super cute Saturated Canary image called Little Loves and focusing on colouring her hair.  There are many ways to colour hair and an infinite number of Copic colour combos that you can use.  Some images have lots of lines to follow to guide you to where shading should be, others have wide open spaces for you to play in.  Some people blend the hair so it's flatter and others use lots of fine details to give a more textured appearance.  So lets have a look at what I've done with Little Loves for this tutorial.

Stamp the image in Memento ink onto X-press It Blending Card (I've used Tuxedo Black)

Have a look at your image and see where the shadows/highlights would be, for example, hair is always darker at the parts/crown of the hair, on the underside of the hair close to the head, on the inside of plats and underside of curls.  Look at the curve of the hair and follow the lines when you colour.  Here I've used another image to show the direction I'm going to add the colours.

Add your lightest colour, flicking it in.  (For more information on flicking/feathering and using the tips of your markers, check out THIS Tutorial.)  I've used E11 for my base colour.

Next add your next darkest colour - in this case E13 and follow the lines of the colour you've already laid down, just don't go quite as far as you did with the first layer.  Use the tip of your maker when you flick, you should have a finer line which ends in a point.

Add your next darkest colour - in this case E15.  Once again use your tips to flick, following the lines of the colours already laid down, just not as far as the previous colour.

Then use your darkest colour - here I've used E18, flicking in using the tips and not going as far as the previous colour.

Now we are going to go over the lines again, but going lighter.  Here I'm using E15 over the E18 and dragging the colour out still using the tips.  With hair, you don't follow the traditional blending, rather adding many layers of colour of the other for a textured appearance.

Again, use the next lightest colour (here E13) to go over the previous colour and drag those lines out.

Use your lightest colour (here E11) to go over the previous colour and fill in those spaces.  You can leave white space for your highlights to add interest and contrast.

Sometimes you'll lose some of the contrast from the darkest colour after adding all the extra layers, so just go back and darken those areas until you are happy with the result.

Finish colouring your image in your preferred colours!

Hair - E11, E13, E15, E18

Skin - E000, E00, E01, E04, E11, E21, R20

Dress/Eyes - G20, G21, G94, G99

Lips - R20, R22

Butterfly - YR00, YR12, YR16, YR18

 Why not try different colour combinations and have some fun!  Make some cards or projects, or simply make it into a resource for your technique journal!

Hope you've enjoyed today's tutorial!  Happy Colouring!