When It Comes to Materials, Part Three

Hey, guys!!  I apologize for not updating this as faithfully as I'd hoped. Most days around here are just really busy and hard to find time to sit down and write something out, let alone type it out as well.  Many thanks again to my friend Robyn for hosting the last blog session!!  I hope you checked her art out and enjoyed her post!!   =-) 

In this final session (well... I'll say final for now. I may one day do a post about some of the different paper types I've used over the years, but I have other things I'd like to focus on after this post), I'm talking about the tools that add color to your work to make it more vibrant! 

There are so many different mediums and combinations out there that can make for a beautiful colored picture. Figure out what's going to work best for you, and then try different media combinations to add new textures and depths of color to your work! 


-Colored Pencils-  This is probably the most popular media choice for coloring. And why not? Colored pencils are affordable and come in every shade imaginable!! I started coloring with colored pencil very sloppily at first, but as I read books on the subject and watched other artists, I slowly learned some technique for improving with this medium. Pencils are still my favorite choice for coloring.. I just love the feel of it in my hand, and there's nothing better than the smell of a freshly sharpened colored pencil (only to be rivaled by the smell of a brand new book)! It's fun to learn how to blend, layer, and add more colors as you progress in your work! 


- Crayola Colored Pencils-  This is what I started out with. We were a homeschool family growing up, so we had plenty of colored pencils around!!  

I see a lot of artists that still use these in their manga art. They're affordable, and you can pick them up in just about any store, and I've seen gas stations that sell the small packs!! Of course, your basic set comes with eight primary colors, but there are sets of 12, 24, 36, and 50 that offer a bigger spectrum of color to play with and add to your collection of pencils quite nicely. These colors go down very well on most papers, and blend fairly well. My only complaint would be, that I've had several of these pencils that break and split when being sharpened, and it seems like it's an issue with certain colors... purple is one example. I'm not really sure why that is!  But, it hasn't been a big issue, and I have kept on buying them as needed.  I highly recommend these as a nice starter colored pencil!!




-Prismacolor Colored Pencils-   These are the pencils that I really thought would improve my coloring skills. I looked into them and watched other artists using them and really wanted to try them for myself. And, they did improve my art, but first I had to learn how to work with them. They are different from Crayolas, and going from a cheaper material to a nicer quality one is different. I also had to save up for these, since they are pricey.  I'm going to talk about three different brands of this pencil that I used.

The first set that I bought at our local Staples was the Prismacolor Verithin. I didn't realize until after I got them home and opened them up that these pencils had a thinner lead. I was disappointed, but I kept them because I had earned the money to buy them and decided I could still play around with them. I quickly discovered that the thinner lead was NOT ideal for coloring large areas, which was mostly what I was doing at the time... But they are great for doing detail work in a drawing! You learn as you go along!!  Mine have worn down now to nubbins, and I still have them... er.. what's left of them.. in my pencil box! The set that I bought was a set of 10, and it had your basic colors.

Our WalMart then started carrying some different pencils from the Crayola that I was buying... These were put out by Prismacolor, and they were called "Scholar" pencils. I eagerly bought a set of these, because these were more the pencil that I had been wanting. The scholar set at our WalMart was a set of 12, and it added to my collection nicely. I started playing with these and liked the softer lead, because it was so much easier to blend! They also sharpened quite nicely, but I quickly discovered that I liked sharpening the pencil often to keep a sharp point when I was coloring. This is the set I would recommend as a "step up" from Crayola. And you can play with the Crayola pencils and Prismacolors together, they will blend. Most of the time though, your Prismacolor's are going to be a lot more vibrant than the Crayola pencils!

Since I really,  really  like these pencils, I discovered that a Michael's store about 45 minutes away sells them individually, and so I go up there every so often to replace colors I've worn down, or to add some new colors to my collection. They are about $2 a pencil when you buy them as a single, but since the sets of these pencils are really expensive, I decided that I prefer to buy them this way, so I can pick and swap the colors the colors that I really want. The Prismacolor Premier pencils are very soft leaded and throw off brilliant colors!  I love how easy these are to blend, which is a bonus when you want to layer colors and shades. They also make a "Colorless Blender" pencil, which I only learned about a year ago. It's a really cool colorless pencil that is specifically for blending colors together for  smoother look. You can sharpen in, and I prefer to wipe mine off after blending colors so that I don't double blend next time.

Overall, these pencils are really worth looking into and saving up for if you're a color enthusiast like myself and are looking to improve in your coloring skills!!  They also make sets specifically for manga coloring. You can always watch some tutorials on youtube if you are interested in learning more about these pencils and how you can best use them!!


- Crayola Crayons -  Yes. I admit it... I still color with crayons!!  And not just because I have a four year old.  =-)

I mostly use these when I have a lot of background color to do, such as a sky, or dirt on the ground. I like blending colors for sunsets and such as well. Of course, you really don't need to be told that you can buy Crayola crayons everywhere.  And, let's just admit it.. When it comes to crayons, Crayola is the best out there for quality (at least in my book, but I'm open to new brands).

What I love best is that they started coming out with sets of eight in various color schemes. I scarfed up a bunch of these when our WalMart had them out with the new school supplies, and I'm still using them! I stocked up on the blues and browns, since I go through those the fastest. But they also do fun color sets as pictured, and I even have a set that is "Zombie" themed. It's nice to be able to just grab a set of these with the colors all laid out and ready to go!


-Markers-

This next part will be focused on markers. In my genre of art, which is the manga, it seems that markers are what we all want to work up to. However, they are EXPENSIVE. And, you get addicted QUICK to how nice they are and how much faster it is to color your work!!  xD  I'd had my eye on Copic Markers for a long time, and I was saving up towards those as my ultimate goal, but I also tried out a few other brands along the way that I'll talk about!


-Prismacolor Scholar Markers-  Our WalMart started carrying these not long after they started to carry some of the other "Scholar" supplies by Prismacolor. Since I liked they pencils and wanted to work my way to using markers, I bought a pack and was excited to play with them.

These markers came in two different sets; one with a brush tip, and the other set with a wider tip. The set I bought are the wider nibbed. The quality is OK, but I'm still not as crazy about them as I thought  I would be. The quality is just a small step up from Crayola markers, in my opinion. I've mostly used them for adding some detail shade to pictures, or little dots or basic things like that to a drawing, because the quality isn't that impressive. They blot really easily too, which is always a bummer!   =-/   Still, I have my first set in my marker box, because they were the first set of "artistic markers" that I purchased. I just can't highly recommend them.



-Copic Markers-  Copic Markers were my ultimate goal. I set a time goal for myself, because a., they are VERY expensive, and b., I wanted to really get better with colored pencils before I bought these. So I improved my colored pencil skills for a year and started saving up for some Copics. I think I bought six of them at first, and I had already determined what colors I wanted ahead of time. I felt like a real manga artist when I walked out of Michael's with those six markers!!!  It's an awesome feeling, accomplishing an artistic goal like that!!! 

Copic Sketch were the first markers that I bought, because that was what Michael's carried.

A few months ago, a friend blessed me by surprising me with a set of 72 Copic Ciao markers. I had always wondered if there was any distinct difference between the Sketch Markers and the Ciao, but after using both, I think it's just a matter of preference and what feels best in your hand. The ink flow is about the same in both marker types.

I had watched a lot of tutorials on youtube about these markers, and watched people using them (drooling the whole time) and I wondered if the quality really was as great as it looked. Now that I've had them myself and use them pretty much all the time, I can say yes, they are EXCELLENT quality, above and beyond what I had ever expected them to be.  You can buy them in singles, or in sets.

It does take a bit of work to learn how to use them. Coming from pencil to marker is a jump, because a lot more color comes out of a marker!!! But markers, especially these ones, give such a degree of quality to your work if you really want to learn to use them correctly. If it's something you're interested in, make it a goal to save up for some... I started with six and kept adding different colors to my collection of Sketch, and now I have the Ciao set that I have started replacing and adding colors to as well. They are pricey, so you'll want to save up for these!!! I just replaced a few of my Ciao that were starting to wear down, and I ordered directly from Copic's website. The difference in price was great, compared to Michael's and Amazon, and they have a color palette you can order from on their site so you know exactly what you are getting in colors!!!


-Prismacolor Premier Markers-  I bought one or two of these when I bought my first six Copics. The price for these as singles is about a dollar cheaper at Michael's.

These are SOOO much better than the Prismacolor Scholars that I talked about. They have a tip on each end, like the Copics. I prefer to buy the markers that have a brush tip and a fine tip (as pictured here), but I have also accidentally bought a few that are chisel tipped and fine tipped. The chisel tip is better for larger coloring areas.

Overall, I like these markers too, but Copics are still at the top in my book. I have a few of these and I add more every now and then. The colors vary a bit from what Copic has, so you can add some variety. I also feel like the ink flows out of these a bit differently from the Copic markers, but it's not a big deal and they are still very comfortable to use!!!  You can buy these in singles at Michael's and online too, and they also come in large sets.


-Spectrum Noir-  I only recently discovered these markers at our Joann Fabrics. A set of six is $15, so I got a couple sets and started to play around with them.

It's nice that these come in colored palette sets. However, I'm not happy with the ink flow. It seems to come out reeaally fast and bleeds fast into the paper, so you have to stay a reasonable distance away from the lines you are coloring in. If I'm in a marker bind, I'll pick up a new set, since they are close by where I live and fairly priced. I have three or four sets of these now in various palettes. One of the sets I bought though dried out really fast and I only used them a couple times, but it may have been sitting in the store awhile.. I really don't know. Anyway, they are cheaper markers and you can play with them, but I'm not overly impressed. I also think they tend to streak easier.



This sums up my thoughts on coloring mediums. I hope I've been a help in this area, or given you some new ideas and goals to work up too!!!  Again, don't think that just getting a new art tool is going to automatically make your work better. It's not magic, and it doesn't work like that; it works when you apply yourself to get better, and want to improve. You'll go through a lot of bad tries before you start getting results worth showing off.. I know this from experience!!! Save some of your first results, keep practicing, and then go back and look at those first tries and see where you have improved... this does a world of good for artists!!!  

Go forth and add some color to your world!!!   =-) 

-Stasia-Chan '15