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rachaelm5 — Amber Clarity Color WIP02
#amber #dragon #stonedragon #prismacolorpremier #coloredpencils #prismacolorpencils #wip #workinprogress
Published: 2017-12-03 03:57:34 +0000 UTC; Views: 608; Favourites: 67; Downloads: 0
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Here's more progress on Amber Clarity. This is done primarily with Prismacolor pencils; you can see my color palette off to the left. There are about 12 hours in this project so far. I anticipate another 12 to 15 more to complete it. So... not this weekend.
Might have some more done tomorrow, though; we'll see how my hand holds up.Progress bar:
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Comments: 20
Damn. Wow. I'm just...floored. Hats off to you and your incredible skills and equally incredible patience. I know you don't do these all in one sitting, but still; 12 hours is a lot of time to pour into something. The end result is going to be so worth it though.
I honestly wish I had this level of patience (and commitment!), but I just don't. My art will likely never develop into anything further than it is now because of it, but...I'm okay with that. XD For now, anyway.
Also: I read below that you typically lay down your darker colors first, then mids, then lights. How does that work? I've always done it the opposite way: lighter colors first, then darker and darker ones. I'm not much of a colorist, but I'm curious to know if you're willing to enlighten.
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Thank you very much!
I've worked my way up to these projects that take multiple days to complete. Even ten years ago, I probably would not have been able to keep my focus on a project that lasted more than a couple of weekends. It takes practice to get comfortable with it. I usually work three or four hours at a time, then stop to rest for a while, have a bite to eat, then dive back in if my hand thinks it can take it.
If I'm using hard-lead colored pencils like Polychromos or Aquarelle, then I've also found that working light to dark is better; the layering style I need with those is much more delicate. However, the layering style is completely different with soft-lead pencils like Prismacolors. The individual colors blend easily when I mush them together on the paper, and I'm using anywhere from four to six intermediate values between the darkest area and the lightest area. It's those intermediaries that allow the gradient to work fairly smoothly, and over time I've found that I get the best blending when I mush colors from dark to light. I often use the lighter colors for further blending, working the middle values down into the darker values, and the light values down into the middle values until I have the gradient effect and texture that I want.
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No prob!
Haha, I think the longest I've ever spent on an entire drawing is 3-4 hours.
Thanks for the insights! Again, I'm no coloring pro, but this is useful and interesting info. I think some of the color pencils I have are indeed soft-lead, so maybe next time I decide to experiment with them I'll give your dark-to-light blending method a try.
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I have Prismacolor pencils as well, and I was wondering how you seem to blend them so gorgeously...? 0.0
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Part of it is working on a surface that can take a lot of colored pencil layering - in this case, cold-pressed illustration board. It's smoother than pastel paper, but rougher than, say, Xerox paper. The other secret is that I do a whole lot of layering in different colors. You see the pile of pencils on the left - each "yellow" bit consists of no less than five colors, and usually six or seven. I typically lay in my darker colors first, then middle tones, then lights.
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Ohhh! Got ya! Thank you so much for the info, hopefully I can reach that mastery of colors some day!
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wow still some work to do but looks better and better!
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Yep, it's getting there. Thanks!
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Hey, awesome, you have those pencil nub extender things too! I've had one for seemingly forever, and all my friends were always kind of amazed that it was a thing. I've never seen anyone else with one (think I got mine in Germany, or from someone on the German side of the family).
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Pencil extenders have saved my drawing hand! They are a marvelous thing. I found them in an art supply catalogue several years ago, and I've seen them on Amazon in latter days.
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Loving those underbelly scales!
Hey, those colored pencils to the left, are those holders for them so you can use the most of the colored pencils? I've never seen those before! How neat! Would you happen to know what they're called?
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Thanks!
The pencil extenders are called simply that: pencil extenders. The brand is General. You can get them through most art catalogues, and I've found them on Amazon as well.
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I'm not sure what they're called in English, but in German they are "stifthalter" or "stiftverlängerer" (pencil-holder or pencil-lengthener). I've had one for as long as I can remember. Pretty sure I got it from a German relative.
www.kunstpark-shop.de/cretacol…
www.gerstaecker.de/Zeichnen-Gr…
www.gerstaecker.de/Zeichnen-Gr…
Can probably be found on amazon (.de if not .com).
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Hey thanks for that information! Very helpful!
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Wow, I love the details in his face. I hope he's a nice dragon.
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He's a bit on the feisty side, but someone off-camera is waggling his favorite dingle-ball to get his attention. The worst we can expect of him is that the whole mountain shakes when he pounces on that thing.
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