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#anime #copic #crystal #crystals #ethan #forest #gabriel #gem #gems #gold #ink #iridescent #lapis #lapislazuli #lazuli #manga #rain #rainforest #samala #tree #trees #wood #woods #alcoholmarkers #drphmartin #sanddial
Published: 2019-05-14 12:14:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 386; Favourites: 29; Downloads: 0
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D. Ph Martin's Iridescent Blue ink, featuring Ethan, Lapis Lazuli mushrooms, and a sand dial! Because I have artist block!Link to the video of its shiny-shiny-goodness: youtu.be/lbuyjIAqNUM
Tried something new with Β the shading on the skin that I've been meaning to test out for months, but every time I go to do so I chicken out. So that's finally tested. I'll work more with it in future pieces.
In 99% of past pieces my main goal has been to not oversaturate the paper, and I generally failed. This time, I decided I was going to oversaturate it like crazy, because I wanted to see what kind of damp-rainy-misty effect it would give the background. While it could have gone better, I'm decently pleased with the result. It'll take more practise, though.
This blue misbehaved terribly. All of the other inks have mixed smoothly with the rubbing alcohol, but in this one the sediments clumped together instead of mixing throughout, almost like a gold leaf. In the end I was able to mostly smooth it out with my finger when it was partially dry, but it was really crispy for a while.
Tried to work in a more coloured ambient lighting than necessarily my standard white light from the sun/ceiling lights. Again, more practise needed, but not the worst first attempt. The BG7s were my best friend in this one (which have such fantastic names as: Ocean Mist, Ice Ocean, Abyss Green, and Bronze).
"UGH, it doesn't look like Ethan at all!"
"Well, it doesn't help that you've only ever drawn him from a profile view?"
"...What?"
"You never noticed? You've got one chibi of him in 3/4 view, but the rest have been entirely side-on."
"...I need to spend some time drawing Ethan..."
Five down. Three to go. I semi know what I want to do for the last one (everything included, and whittled down to a few options for posing), I know almost exactly what I need to do for the next one (not what I WANT to do, just what will work best and give me the most practise but will kill me in the process). As for the middle one, I know what theme I want, but I'm having a hard time putting it together in my mind. So it might be a while before my next upload.
Done with Dr. Ph Martin's Iridescent Ink (Iridescent Blue), Copics, Prismacolor Brush Markers, Promarkers, Speedball white ink, and a little Gellyroll for the fine details on the mini lapis.
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Comments: 10
Your coloring is so smooth! Even without the video I can tell that the gold is brilliant! It's always a shame that scanners will never pick up on the true shine they give off in person
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Thank you! I've been working really hard at it!
Aye, it would be nice if there was a way to show it via scanner, but I'm happy with mine. The scanner at the print shop in my area will pick up the shine and reflect it, so when it makes the print it looks...well, frankly, awful. 
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I love the Lapis mushrooms! They're gorgeous. How you shaded his shirt, the feathers, and hourglass also look fantastic OwO
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Thank you! I tried something new with the shading in the shirt and wasn't sure if the risk paid off, so I'm glad it worked out! 
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It worked out super well. The shirt drew my attention from the thumbnail and I stayed for the shrooms π happy to give it. This piece is great! The color of that ink is so rich and everything sews well together. (It ended up looking so darn pretty. Good job kicking the art block in the teeth!) I wish I had your understanding of markers
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The iridescent inks have been a lot of fun to work with.
It's taken a long time and a lot of research to get to the point where I am with the markers, and I still have a long way to go. I'm still really far behind on a lot of things I feel like I should have learned years ago, so I'm taking 2019 to do pieces based solely outside my comfort area and to try things that scare me (basically taking a year to do art I don't enjoy as much to improve the art that I do). The shirt was one of those things: before I'd only ever shade using darker versions of the colour of the item, but this time I tried using ambient lighting and combining it with shadows of nearby colours. There's a mix of grey, green, blue, and yellow all in the shirt to give it its effects.Β
If you're looking to learn more with the markers, Copic released a book focusing solely on textures in...June, I think? of last year, and it's been AMAZING. It breaks down the way light hits a bunch of different materials and how to represent it with markers, gives a basic overview of Copics themselves, and then has five full-colour pieces that the artist takes specific areas and gives picture walk-throughs of how they did each spot. I've used the book with other brands of alcohol markers as well. I highly recommend it. It's called "How to Render Eye-Catching Textures with Copic Markers by Midorihana Yasaiko.Β
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Trial and error. The endeavor has definitely been worthwhile though. Pop is right.
I'm sure it has been a long road! Behind or no, the results are impressive to me. Solid idea to work out of your comfort zone for a while. How do you feel it has been going?
OwO Oooh damn. I can see why trying that would be scary. Lots of ways to go wrong when shading with other colors
Thank you so much for the recommendation. It's hard to know what How to books are good! Will have to look into it. Sounds like it would be super helpful!
(I dabble a little and LOVE the medium but marker order is basically the absolute reverse of how I work digitally, and that messes me up a lot XD step by step would be nice)
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It's had its ups and downs. There are a lot of things I've been meaning to test and try for a long time but have been too afraid to, so it's forcing me to actually put those to the test. Some of them have worked out well (like the shading in the shirt), while others have been a long, tedious process that led to either little or no difference or where I felt I could have done far better but fell short. My main thing has been swallowing my pride and searching out external resources instead of having to learn everything the hard way, which is how I've always done it, so I've been reading everything from marker tutorials to anatomy textbooks to lighting guides, and these have been what have led to the most improvement so far. Some of the advice hasn't worked, and some has been simple things I should have learned years ago and needed the reminder for. Nothing wrong with stepping back to review the basics.
You're welcome. I've read enough flop How To books to be happy to save someone else the trouble.
(I can understand - digital art stumps me to no end. Even when I had a tablet I was totally lost. We all have our mediums. No one has to be good at everything.
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Thank you! I was going for Lapis Lazuli. 
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