Wonderful Step by step Coloring with Copic Markers

Paper Piecing with Copic Markers

Michelle Bayliss loves to use her copic markers to color her paper piecing designs. We love what she did with the little "Trick or Treaters" pattern shown here and she was kind enough to do this fabulous tutorial for us to share with you. Thanks Michelle!! We love it and have been playing with our copic markers ever since.

Tutorial using MyScrapChick pattern:  Bella & Baxtor Trick or Treaters

1. Cut your pattern pieces and place them in order on top of each other. This will allow you to see which part of the bottom layer you need to colour. On this file I need to colour the spine, back leg and some of the hood around the child face.

2. Once I have my base colour on the bottom layer I always lay the pieces back on top to make sure I have coloured everywhere I need to. You can see on this piece I need to go back and colour under the face. You also need to shape your back leg so be aware not to colour the whole base layer in case it is not needed.

3. Go back to your base layer and add shading. The shading on this piece was done using just one colour. I just edged the spikes on the back for more shading by adding more of the same colour where the leg would be.

 

4. For the face I use 3 colours. E50, E00, E11. I always start with my lightest colour and colour the whole face in E50. I then edge the side of the face with my next darkest, E00. Then I take my lightest colour again and just drag colour in. By this I mean, I only take the pen from left to right, dragging the darker colour into the lighter and giving a shadow effect. With the darkest colour, E11, I edge the cut edge only. I then repeat the dragging technique. You can repeat this as many times as you want until you are satified with the shading.

5. Glue face into position.

6. Next piece is the body of the costume. Once again I put my lightest colour on first. This is the one time I use the chisel end of the pen. Do not worry if it looks streaky. It does blend as you add colour.

7. Next, either edge the outside edge with a darker colour or use the same colour again. Then do the dragging technique to blend. I find it easier to turn the piece and just go left to right when dragging the colour in. If you want more definition edge the outside cut edge with a darker colour. 

8. Glue on costume body.

9. When doing your shading bear in mind creases in arms and legs etc.

10. When you have all you pieces glued into place, you need to think about eyes, cheeks and highlighting. I have not added the hair to this piece as I like it without; it gives more space to put our eye.

11. To do eyes I use a 0.7 Letraset fine line drawing pen. I try a do a little curved d to get the eye, so slightly larger and rounder at the bottom. For cheeks I use either R20 or R00 depending on how much I want them to stand out. Highlighting is again down to personal choice as to how much or how little
you do. I always put a little white dot on the eye and on the cheek.

12. To finish off I glue another base layer to the back of the finished piece. This is to hide where the copic ink has gone through the card. Remember you can always go more in-depth with your colour shading and shade depending on
where the light is coming from.





Our many thanks to Michelle Bayliss.
To download a copy in PDF format click here.