Start to Finish: A Nyx Tutorial

[Nyx]

Okay, here goes. Never done a tutorial before…. bear with me, this will be a lot of information.

* RESOLUTION WARNING: May be slow in loading. Contains large pictures.*

For those of you who are interested, here’s how I take a drawing from pencil to finished. Please note that this is not a ‘How to Draw’ tutorial so much as how I ink and color. I’ll explain every step as well as what tools I’m using with each step, so people who want to can try it.

Pencils

Nyx has volunteered so kindly for this project…



I start out with a sheet of Bristol Board Smooth. Bristol comes in two varieties: Vellum and Smooth. Vellum has a slight texture or ‘tooth’ to it, while Smooth is, well, smooth. I prefer it to Vellum, especially when it comes time to do the colored pencils, which I will explain later. There are three large benefits to working on Bristol and the first is this: It takes a LOT of abuse. You can erase and redraw, erase and redraw, erase and redraw over and over and over, and you don’t have to worry too much about destroying the paper surface. This is, of course, assuming you’re not one of those types who presses down so hard that they habitually snap their pencil lead…

I drew Nyx with a 3H pencil first, which leaves very light lines, and, if you don’t press too hard, is fairly easy to erase. I use a white vinyl eraser. (Pink erasers are evil and must die.) Then, for the sake of cleaning up all my guide lines as well as for the sake of scanning ease, I went over the lines I wanted to keep with a regular HB mechanical pencil, 0.5 lead. That’s right, I’m not using anything fancy yet.

[Nyx]

Inks

This is where I break out the pens. Lately, I’ve been using Pigma Micron pens, usually in a 005 and a 03 size, though sometimes if I need a particularly heavy line, I’ll also use a 05. In a pinch, I’ll use a Uni-ball Vision Elite, which is a nice gel writing pen. They’re a little on the expensive side, as individual pens go, but I won’t use anything else. And believe me, I’ve tried others.

Here's Nyx inked:



When I ink, I vary my line widths, sometimes expanding a line to suggest weight and mass of an area (like under Nyx’s chin, or the side of her cheek or brow, or her neck and shoulders). Places with lighter, thinner lines are usually the more delicate structures, such as her ear or her hair. Varying the line weights also gives me a chance to do some hard shadows, such as inside her ear. The line under her jaw and chin is also a simple bit of shadow.

When I’m done inking, I take my white eraser to the picture and remove all the pencil lines. Double check to make sure they’re all gone – leftover graphite can be potentially disastrous when coloring.

[Nyx]

Markers

If there’s one lament I hear more than any other when I bring up the subject of markers, it’s “Oh I don’t like markers…. Markers BLEED….”

Allow me to rock your world here…. Markers don’t bleed. PAPER bleeds. That’s right, it’s your paper. This is the second great and glorious benefit of Bristol… it almost doesn’t bleed at all. It’s not as porous (sponge-like) as sketchbook or – heaven forbid – printer paper. Sure, there are special ‘marker sketchbooks’ out there, but Bristol is cheaper.

As far as markers go, I use a variety. Presently, in a very full shoebox, I keep a jumble of Prismacolor markers, Sharpies (which come in an array of colors now!), Copics (only in flesh colors, though), and Faber-Castell Pitt brush markers. I also have one random Marvy Brush marker in an indigo blue… the sucker just won’t die, despite my attempts to kill it. But I digress.

Some tips, tricks and techniques for working with marker:

· Work quickly. Markers dry rapidly, and in many cases, you will be fighting to keep them from streaking in areas where you want smooth color.

· To minimize streaking, use alcohol-based markers, which level themselves out nicely, especially when they’re fresh, and go over an area several times QUICKLY before the ink has a chance to dry. This should produce a fairly smooth layer of color. (To determine if a marker is alcohol based, smell it. Does it smell like a Sharpie, but not as strong? There ya go. Prismacolors, and Copics are alcohol based. The Faber-Castell markers I also use are not, and neither are Marvy markers, or Tombow. Sharpies, a class of their own as far as the markers I use, are xylene based.)

· If at all possible, try to color with all your strokes going in the same direction, and make that direction match the flow of the shape you’re coloring. This way, if you do streak, it will still look okay.



Bad marker technique on left, good marker technique on right.

· If you layer water based and alcohol based markers over each other, always make sure the first layer is totally dry so the chemicals don't interact. This is science, people. Water and alcohol don't like each other. Alcohol based markers sometimes tend to make strange streaks and splotches on top of a formerly smooth layer of water based marker. Been there, done that, hard to fix.

· Having more colors is better. Unlike paint, markers do not mix and blend easily. There are such things as blender markers, but I have very little luck with them, and save them for use with colored pencils. (Which I’ll discuss later) The more colors you have, the more you can grade and shade and tone your marker drawings.

· Work in an area with good ventilation, and drink plenty of fluids. Working with smelly markers can give an artist a roaring headache.

[Nyx]

Here, Nyx is about half-markered:



Her skin has been colored and shaded lightly, and her hair has been colored and shaded and toned and streaked with colors. This is a more finished look, and if desired, it’s possible to just bring the entire picture to a state of polished marker coloring and consider it done.

Note, however, that her mask, eyes, and lips are all still one flat color. This is also an option – simply using the marker as a base color on which the colored pencils will go. For our purposes, however, I’ll take the picture to full markering before moving on to pencils, and partially because that’s a really garish green.

[Nyx]

There now. Doesn’t she look better?



Often, even I’ll stop here, because not only does the marker layer look cool, but it saves me from having to do the colored pencil layer, which can be rather tedious. However, we’re not stopping here! Bwahaha!! On to the finishing touch!

Colors used on Nyx:

Copic:
· Barely Beige (E11)
· Light Suntan (E13)
· Carmine (R37)

Prismacolor:
· Sienna Brown (PM65)
· Dark Umber (PM61)
· Tuscan Red (PM169)
· Blush Pink (PM10)
· Raspberry (PM151)
· Scarlet Lake (PM5)
· Emerald (PM186)
· Dark Green (PM31)

Sharpie:
· Lime
· Green
· Black

Faber-Castell Pitt brush markers:
· #192 (deep red)
· #268 (greenish yellow)
· #177 (dark brown)

[Nyx]

Colored Pencil

Prismacolor. I’ll say it again. Prismacolor. Prismacolor Prismacolor, Prismacolor. They are the only colored pencils I will use, and for a very good reason. Color. Of all the brands I’ve tried, nothing lays down the rich, bright, creamy, beautiful color of a Prismacolor. The reason for this is their very soft, wax-based leads, which go down almost like crayon. Many people hate them because they’re so soft, as the leads can break easily, but if you treat them right, they’ll serve you well. I speak from nearly ten years of experience. Get a good pencil sharpener, especially if it’s meant specifically for colored pencils, and empty it frequently. The biggest reason my leads break is when I’m sharpening and the sharpener is too full of shavings.

The key to working with colored pencil is much the same as working with marker: Control the streaking. Bad technique will lead to visible pencil strokes, and it doesn’t look very good. A sharp pencil, a smooth paper, and a gradual building up of layers helps minimize the likelihood that you’ll see any of your pencil lines at the finished product. In fact, this is the third reason I use Bristol: The smooth variety has so little texture to it that it's easy to get nice, even, smooth pencil strokes on it.

Special trick alert: Get a blender pencil. Trust me on this one. I’ll explain later.

I’ll start with the green. Here we go. I’ll sharpen a mid-tone green, which will be, for the sake of clarity, Apple Green, #PC912, and lightly coat the entire green area –except for her eyes—with it. All of it, very lightly. Just enough so that you can see where the color has gone. It is very important for this first layer to be even and smooth, because it will affect how well successive layers go down. If you’re unsure, practice on a scrap of paper. A nice smooth layer of colored pencil should look like this:



Next, I like to take a dark color and bring out the shadows. I’ll use Dark Green #PC908. Shading is relatively easy, feel free to press hard with the pencil in the deepest, darkest areas, and let up the pressure to grade it out and feather the edges of the shadows. Shading with colored pencils is all about pressure. This takes some practice.

Nyx with her first layer and shadows on looks rather like this:



Not a huge change yet, but there are still more layers to come.

[Nyx]

Next I’m going to do another layer of mid-tone green. I could use the same green, or go lighter or darker, but as the Apple Green was a little on the light side, my next mid-tone will be Grass Green, PC909, a bit darker. Again, another smooth layer, except not over absolutely everything. This time, I’m going to work around areas where I want to leave highlights, and try to blend the mid-tones into the shadows. Then I’ll bring in my highlights, for which I’ll use a bright yellow green like Spring Green, #913. I’ll highlight areas that catch the light, pressing harder where I want the highlights to be intense, and tapering the pressure off where I want to blend it in with the mid-tones, and Nyx’s green will end up looking like this:






Good shading technique

I have one last trick left, however, to show you with this green. Note that the lines are still rather choppy in places. It looks okay, but it could be better.



This is where the blender pencil comes in. It’s simply a colorless pencil, and it’s used for smoothing out the pencil lines like this:



There. That brings the whole thing closer to that smooth look I crave. Using a blender takes some pressure, so press hard when you use them. You can do this just with areas that look choppy, or you can do it over the whole area to make it look more unified. One word of caution – the blender does pick up color a bit, so clean or sharpen or rub away any color (say, green) before you move on to blending another color (say, skin), or it will transfer. Yikes!

[Nyx]

Moving on, I do the same to Nxy’s hair and lips, layering a mid-tone, a shadow, a mid-tone, and a highlight, and blending where necessary. Don’t be afraid to use an extremely light color as a highlight – it’s easier to go darker than lighter with colored pencils, so if it’s too bright, you can always tone it down. You can’t always make it brighter if you start too dark. Also, resist the urge to use black or grey as shadows on any sort of color, unless there simply isn’t a shade of that color deep enough to work as a shadow. Black and grey rarely look natural as color shadows.

Now Nyx looks like this:



Looking pretty good, almost done! But there’s one very very important piece left to do – her skin.

[Nyx]

I don’t do skin quite the same way I do everything else. In fact, I have a formula of colors that I use for Caucasian skin tone like Nyx’s (A formula that was very nearly upset by Prismacolor discontinuing a main ingredient color of my formula!! Fortunately another color was close enough…), and I’ll share the secret with you right now. Note that this is not so much the ‘right’ way to do it as simply ‘the way Nyx does it’.

I start by giving a light, even layer of Deco Pink, #PC1014 (if you can find it, though it’s been discontinued) or Pink Rose, #PC1018(the next closest) over the whole skin area. This gives the skin a nice healthy pink that the marker sort of lacks. Evenness is very important with skin, where the colors are so light and transparent that every flaw stands out more. A sharp pencil is best. Warm up the pink a little bit in strategic places (cheeks, ears, eyelids) with a deeper pink like Blush Pink, #PC928.

Now for shadows. For Caucasian shadows, I use Henna #PC1031. It’s a bit aggressive of a color, so use a light touch except in the very deepest shadows. After shading, Nxy’s skin looks like this:

[Nyx]

Next, I put on a light layer of Cream, #PC914. This helps rein in the Henna, and tone down the overall sudden pinkness of the skin. Sometimes you can stop here, if it looks particularly good, but I almost always put on one last layer of color, just for the sake of final unification: Light Peach, #927. If they ever discontinue this color, I will cry.



There. You’re done. Breathe a sigh of relief. Okay, now go back and clean up your black lines, which are probably showing signs of having been colored over. This is probably easiest with a very sharp black colored pencil, as the wax from the pencils tends to clog or otherwise foul up most inking pens and markers.