Alyce’s Skin and Hair Coloring Tutorial Part 1

Hi everyone! It’s Alyce here and first of all I want to wish Kristy the hugest Happy Birthday!!! 😀 Kristy I am so honoured to be on your team…you are one talented chicka and so inspirational. I am also so excited to be joining in with Kristy’s birthday month celebrations and to share in the fun! Today and tomorrow I am showing a tutorial on how I use my copics to colour Skin and Hair – Some Odd Girl style 🙂 

Skin and hair are the fundamentals to colouring your copic images. When I first started colouring using copics I always practiced on Some Odd Girl images; the level of detailing in the skin and hair is perfect for practicing and fine tuning your technique. This post is pretty picture laden so for those of you who already have skin and hair down pat I just want to quickly show you with my finished birthday card for Kristy 🙂

I have used the super cute Alice Mae digi stamp, and for my light source I have just used a basic top right meaning that the right side of her face and hair will be the lightest as this is where the light is hitting. Remember there is no right or wrong…there are a lot of different ways to colour with your copics and this is just the way that I like best 🙂

Skin Colours used: E000, E00, E21, E11, R11 (blush)

Step 1: Starting with my lightest colour (E000) I go over all of the skin areas making sure to saturate the paper. I don’t worry too much about if it is neat or not at this stage, just so long as you are working quickly and applying the colour down.

Step 2: I go in with my next colour (E00) and start to add the shadowing. I know a lot of people can go from dark to light, but I prefer to go light to dark as if you make a mistake it is easy to go back over the top and fix it. With Some Odd Girl images I also like to make a little bridge for the nose and I do it in this step 🙂

Step 3: I then go over the top of the shadowing with my next darkest marker (E21), strengthening the colour.

Step 4: I use my darkest colour (E11) to really define the shadowing. I make sure to use this sparingly as too much can really overwhelm the image. Notice how the sides of her face are the darkest and there is a shadow under the fringe line. This is because, with the light being at the top right, the hair will create a shadow on the face. This works the same for her nose…the left hand side of her face will be the darkest as it is shadowed by the nose.

Step 5: I am going to skip a few steps here to save you some photos 😉 I work my way backdown going over the top of the e11 with the e21, then over the top of the e21 with the e00 again really defining the shadows. I wanted to show this photo as it can look a little funny at this point like you have done it wrong but never fear it will all come together with the next step!

Step 6: I now go over the entire image with my E000. I start in the darkest bits, e.g. the side of her cheeks, and flick towards the lightest parts of the image. This helps to pull the colour out to the middle, blending it as you go. To finish it all off, I go in with my R11 and add some blush to the cheeks. I like to pull my E000 over the top of the blush afterwards to smooth it out. I also went over the darkest parts of her face again with the E00 just to really add that final touch of depth. And that’s her skin all done! 🙂

Stop back tomorrow and see how I finish up the image with how I color HAIR!

34 Comments
  • Annette Allen says:

    awesome…love this…thanks for sharing..

  • Amy O says:

    You get such nice, smooth, defined lines. I will have to try it this way!

  • maria mendoza says:

    When you use E21 over E00 do cover the whole E00 with E21?

    • Alyce says:

      Hi Maria!
      No I try not to go as far as the colour under. Sometimes if I have not extending the E00 far enough I will go in pretty close with the E21 and then blend back out further with the E00. The point of layering it that way is so that you get a nice gradient in colour rather than seeing a ‘line’. Hope that helps 🙂 xx

  • Ann C says:

    In my head I always thought E21 would be darker than E11…..I’ll have to look at my chart again!! Another thing I like to tell people is that the face always seems to look really dark….until they put the hair color on then it looks right! Love your coloring.

  • Linda W. says:

    Gorgeous card thanks for sharing ….. I am going to try this

  • colleen says:

    Great job with the skin tone. I like to see that you are taking the tone a tiny bit darker than the usual combo of E000 and E00…. LOL

    Can’t wait to see the hair!

  • Kimberli Sarsfield says:

    Alyce is one of those rock stars that everytime I see something she’s colored, my jaw drops in utter amazement! Love the skin tutorial and can’t wait to see tomorrow’s hair!

  • » Alyce's Skin and Hair Coloring Tutorial Part 1 | The Odd Girl » Hair Styles For Hair ! Hairstyles for hair says:

    […] Read the rest here: Alyce's Skin and Hair Coloring Tutorial Part 1 | The Odd Girl […]

  • » Alyce's Skin and Hair Coloring Tutorial Part 1 | The Odd Girl » Hair Styles For Hair ! Hairstyles for hair says:

    […] Read more here: Alyce's Skin and Hair Coloring Tutorial Part 1 | The Odd Girl […]

  • jessica says:

    thanks so much for sharing Alyce’s awesome tips….I love coloring with my copics but can not come anywhere near coloring like Alyce….off to practice 🙂
    TFS
    jessica

  • mary pat says:

    thanks – super tutorial!!!

  • Linda Carson says:

    Thanks for taking your time to show how you achieve your coloring techniques! It’s truly valuable info for all of us “wanna-be” artist!

  • Sue D says:

    Great steps and I like how you added a bridge to her nose.

  • Lani says:

    Oh awesome tutorial!!! Thank you so much! Definitely bookmarking this one along with so many other great tutorials. 🙂

  • rachel mutchler says:

    This is just such a wonderful tutorial I love to see how everyone colors. As I am self taught getting another perspective can only add to my growing skill set. Thank you so much for sharing, and Thank you Kristy for celebrating your birthday by helping us all grow 😀

  • Shazza says:

    wow this is great, love all the shading, not sure I could achieve this though x

  • Andrea says:

    Wow!!! Loved seeing the step by step!

  • Arabella says:

    Happy Birthday Kristy! Great tutorial Alyce! I will have to try the E21!

    Arabella

  • Liz O says:

    Awesome tutorial, thank you for sharing!
    Have a fabulous day!

  • eva says:

    thank you for the tutorial, alyce! loved seeing how you color!

  • Lucianna says:

    I love to watch the step by step, you always do such beautiful work 🙂

  • Rae Ann says:

    Love all of the dimension you were able to add!

  • Grace O. says:

    thank you so much alyce!!!
    I’ve been trying to figure this out for the longest time!
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRISTY!!

  • Billie A says:

    Great tutorial for the skin coloring. I never know how to do the nose on these darling images and you gave me a heads up on how to do the face. Thanks so much.

  • Lynda says:

    fabulous tutorial!

  • Deborah A Addis says:

    Thanks. I think I can follow your tutorials.

  • Deborah A Addis says:

    Good tutorial!

  • Jennyfer L says:

    Great one! Love it!

  • Annette says:

    Amazing colouring as always Alyce, thanks for the tutorial, take careX:)

  • DebraK in Florida says:

    great tut! You make it look easy!

  • Lizzie O says:

    *cough* WOW what an amazing tute!!!!

  • Linda F says:

    Fantastic tutorial. However, I think its going to take me some practice to get the results half as good. cheers Linda

  • Alice Mae « Beautiful Creations by Tracy B says:

    […] Girl called “Alice Mae”.  Isn’t she adorable. I wanted to follow along with a tutorial on how to colour skin & hair and I found one on Kristy’s “The Odd Girl” blog. […]

Leave a Reply to mary pat Cancel reply

%d bloggers like this: