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When colouring I usually start with the marker E50, also called "Egg Shell"
And then I start with some rough shadowing Sometimes with a brighter pen
so that afterwards I can correct any mistakes
Also I like to leave some of the paper's colour shine through, as you can see on the cheek
to use the white colour of the paper as skin colour and to illustrate light reflexes
The way I set these reflexes is more or less random Sometimes I use other fanarts as references or
I set out to experiment a bit, Most of the time the cheeks are white.
To correct mistakes I use the marker 0, called "colourless blender", to wipe some of the colour
away. This only really works with brighter colours! That way we get the white of the paper visible again.
It's important to re-colour this part again to avoid the kind of hard edges that happen with water colours
You want the blending to be as smooth as possible
With the neck I set the shadows rather randomnly as well I knew, that the light would come from the top-left
But most of the time it isn't really noticable if you're not really precise with the shadows
I usually do it as the whim takes me
When I'm satisfied with the way the shadows are placed I start making them stronger
For that I use "Skin White", that is E00, and colour some regions around the eyes, hair, lower lip and nose
again and blend it with E50 to get these smooth transitions
Hard transitions can look good as well, as you can see with the white cheek
it's good to mix things up sometimes
I continue with V000, a kind of violet tone, to make some of the shadows stronger again
I recolour the darker skin regions with V000
You can choose any colour for this process, what it does is indicate ambient colours
That is things that repeat in the surroundings In this picture though I'm not going to do that
But it gives the skin a nice red, lively tone It's not as plastic looking as using another
skin tone or a kind of grey
That way the whole picture appears to be warmer Just try not to overcolour the regions you left
white when doing this or all the work of keeping them colourless would be in vain
Next I use a darker violet tone: V91
If at first you are unsure if the colour isn't too dark, you can rub the tips at each other
To test the way it looks. In this case it all worked out and I could use the darker violet the way it is
to create even stronger shadows. Like I said earlier, it's important
to switch between the two colours regularly to blend the colours smoothly with the "old" skin tone.
It's easier to work wet-on-wet, that means working quickly while the colour is still translucent and wet
So it is easier to remove it again, so if you wipe the colours, there won't be any hard edges or to much smering
Rather you want to be able to "pull" the colour where you want it to go.