My Methods for Copic Skin & Hair Part 2: Darker & Curlier

This is part two of my Copic technique.  Again I can;t say if I am doing this the proper way.  I am not Copic certified or anything but self trained.  I learned most of what I know about drawing and shading from years of practice and learning how to look at objects in real life.  To be honest I think that is where you can understand shading the best, by looking at a photo and seeing where the lights and darks fall.  In theis post I am going to go over a darker skin tone, black hair with Cool grey and how I color curly hair,  I am using another digi stamp image by La-La Land crafts.  It is called "Coloring Marci." (Again, please respect the artists and designers of these wonderful stamps.)

These are the colors that I have choosen for my skintone. E11, E13, E15 & E18.  I begin by laying down E11 (the lightest color) over the whole face.  It is ok if it is a bit streaky because there will be additional layers of color to cover it and even it out,

I added a shadow in E13 around the edge of the face and below the hairline to start giving depth.

 

I then blended the shadow using E11

   

 I then added more depth by making a darker shadow line in E15.

  

 And blended it with the E13 and E11.

 (For a medium skin tone you could stop here and make sure everything is well blended.) I added a final layer of shadow with the E18.

And i blended it with the E15-E11 pens.

For blush and lip color I used the E04.

 Now I am ready to color the hair.  I am starting with the area above the headband.

And for the black hair I am using: C9, C7, C5, C3 and C1

I started with the C7 along the top for head and behind top of headband. (This part will be similar to the straight hair we did in part 1.)

 I followed that with a layer of the C5.

 Then I blended in the C3.

 And lastly the C1 was blended in.

 I then added a scond layer of color over the first.  I started with the C9. to make the hair even darker.

 

 I then blended in the C7....

 C5, C3....

 

 and C1. And that finished the top part of the hair.

Now using the same set of colors I am starting on the curls at the bottom.

Using the C9 I start by deciding where the darkest parts of the hair would be.  I choose to make shadows below the headband, at the back of hair (by neck and behind shoulders), beneath the ears, the tips of the curls and anywhere the hair goes behind other hair. 

 I then blended that out in the direction of the curls with the C7.

 And the same with the C5.

 And then blend in the C3.

 And finally the C1. 

 And here is finished coloring of the darker skin and curly hair on the La La Land Craft's "Coloring Marci" stamp.

Thank you with sticking with me through two long tutorial posts.  I hope they help explain my thought process when coloring hair and skin with Copic markers.  I am going to add some other projects where I have used these techniques at the bottom of the post.  And I would love to see how you color hair and skin.  Have fun crasfting and coloring and I will see you again soon!

Another LaLa Land Crafts stap "Winter Marci" I colored her lips a deeper red here.

Here is one of the Gorjuss girl stamps with the darker hair and a much looser curl.