Monday, June 23, 2008

Fixing Mistakes with the Colorless blender


I have been swamped since I got back from Seattle, so I'm sorry if it's taking me longer to answer e-mails than usual. We are also packing for a large show down in LA that will be happening July 3-6, Anime Expo, so I'm going to also be a bit preoccupied getting ready for that show for the next week, then it's packing for CHA and the Certification Classes in Milwaukee and Chicago. Summer is just sooo busy! Hopefully we'll see some of you this summer at one of our events.

Today I wanted to share a quick technique that goes right along with the bricks from Friday. This is a very simple but important trick to keep up your sleeve when you're coloring with Copic markers.

One of the qualities of the Colorless blender is that it pushes color- think of pushing your hand through sand and the sand piles up in front of your hand. That's why the bricks worked- it pushed the darker color out from the middle of each brick and made a thick ring around your shape.

So how can we use this to our benefit? I could push color around to fix mistakes. This poor snail was not colored very carefully. I used YG41, BV31, and YR31 and as you can see, the BV and the YR went out of the lines. No worries, this is where my colorless blender comes in to fix my sloppy work.

To fix coloring mistakes:
1. Color from the outside and "push" your color back into the stamped image. Don't color over the stamped line, color up to the stamped line. The dye is building up in front of your blender and creating a small ridge of color. The trick is to hide this ridge under the stamped line. See how the BV31 fixed right up on the first push? we got lucky with that color. The YR31 still has a ways to go, soooo...

2. Let it dry and repeat. This step might need to be repeated a few times, but you have to let it dry completely before trying it again, or else the marker will move too much and make a mess of the colored area. When you're doing this trick be sure to keep absorbent scratch paper under your work to catch any stray ink you push around.

Also, some colors will be easier to erase than others. After 3 or 4 repeats the YR31 still has a faint trace left, but no where near as bad as before. I can hide this with my ground shadow very easily now, before it would have looked really bad. If you do get a faint ridge inside the stamped line, just color back over the whole area with that same color. This will hide those small mistakes.

Stamp:
Slippery Snail by Stampabilities, Paper: Neenah Classic Crest Ink: Memento Ink, London Fog

15 comments:

Nicole said...

Glad to see you back safe!

I use this technique after I outline images with a shadow.
Sometimes I want it to be a sharp gray edge;
so I outline my colored image with my W3 or whatever and then go back with my colorless to outline/push in the gray.
When the gray pulls in it give a nice, THIN sharp shadow instead of a thicker, softer edge that the brushtip applies on its own.
Thanks, Ms. M {aka the Copic Goddess}! Nicole

Monika in VA said...

Thanks! I think a lot of use Newbies were very curious on how exactly to make that blender pen work! Love the tips! Maybe it should have a new name ~ like color corrector. Since it doesn't seem to work like any 'blender' I've ever tried before...

When I was playing this weekend ~ I found something cool using my Warm Grays ~ I colored with W5 & then 'dotted' with W1 & it gave me awesome sunflower seeds! I so love these babies!
Have a safe travels!

Unknown said...

Great tech and thanks for the update with emails I have been dying to hear from you but figured you were swamped so I am glad to see I was right.

I just LOVE you blog by the way...thanks.

Cris A said...

That, is awesome!!

Terri said...

Thank you so much for this tip!!! I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I was kind of using the blender as an eraser and abviouly that's why it wasn't working for me. :) This helps so much.

Ann said...

Thank you. I am learning SO much from your tutorials!

shulsart said...

I can't live without my blender to "erase" my mistakes. I have found that it helps to blow on the area as you erase, it helps the blender ink stay where you are erasing, rather than running into the colored area. Especially with Reds, they seem to run so easily and take more work to erase. Great tutorial, Marianne.

Sandy Knecht said...

I tried this last night except I didn't have anywhere to push the color. I made a mark on my paper and needed it to disappear. It finally worked. I kept at it. I should have let it dry in between tries and maybe it wouldn't have taken so long. Thanks for the tip.

Whimsey said...

Holy cow; you're brilliant!!!

:D Thanks for the tip; love it!!!

Tanvir Asif said...

Beautiful post. I learn a lot of things from you. Thanks.
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