Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Fun
I want to take this chance to tell everyone what I am thankful for. There are so many blessings I have: Good Health, Family, Friends, a fun job, and the chance to live in a wonderful country. And, I have so many wonderful online friends that I never get a chance to thank, for their inspiration and support.

Today, as a thank you to all my online friends, here is a free image that I drew just for you! I have been drawing variations of this pilgrim/turkey since elementary school, and I thought you might also like a chance to color him. Just click on the image and save it. (Not for commercial reproduction without permission).

Coloring the turkey
I looked at turkey photos to get the coloration right on my turkey. This image has a lot of browns, and honestly, I used so many browns that I may have missed some in the tutorial.

First, I started with the hardest parts. In this case, the gun was trickiest. I colored the metal parts of the gun with C1, C3, N5. Notice the strong contrast between darks/lights. This helps with the illusion of reflective metal.

I used E31/E44 for the main body of wood, and E27/29 for the shadows.

The yellow was colored with Y06 and Y21. His hat was colored with N3/N5/N7. His leather boots were colored with E13, E37 and E29. Notice the crisp cast shadows under the cuffs, as this helps make the boots look more dimensional. By changing the base tone of brown, you can see that the boots take on a different tone than the gun, even though the darker colors are pretty similar.


Next I colored his head. Turkeys have a red/blue fading bald head. Really pretty, and kindof tricky to do with Copics. The B32 is feather blended into the R22/R14. I added some C3 to his head to tone it down as well. I dotted on colorless blender and R59 to make it look lumpy. I could have darkened under the hat brim a bit more, but his head is so tiny that I didn't want to lose too much color, so I left it fairly bright.

Finally, I colored his body with a bunch of browns and N7 and W9 to darken the deepest shadows. Real turkeys have beautiful, patterned feathers, heavy in blacks/dark browns, so I wanted to keep that feeling of dark, dark feathers.

His tail is colored first with E44, then I added E31 to the small feathers, darkened those with E27 and W7. The Bigger feathers are darkened with YR14, E27/29, and the tips are colored with C3.

Once his body was done, I went through and touched up colors, deepened shadows on the whole image, and then added a hint of blue sky with BG70, BG000, and B41.

The scans all came out a little different in tone from each other but I didn't bother color-correcting them, and he seems to look better in real life. Oh well. He was fun to draw, fun to color, and I hope you enjoy coloring him as well.

Upcoming Events
Atlanta Intermediate Certification, Dec. 1
If you haven't registered yet, we still have a couple spaces left in the Atlanta Intermediate class next week. Colleen Schaan and I will be teaching that class.

On Dec. 2nd, from 10-11am, we will be having a book signing at Altered Angel in Alpharetta, GA.

This is a free event. We will also have markers and images from Our Craft Lounge for people to color and come down and say Hi! Don't miss it! Colleen and I are going to have a lot of fun, so please join us either at the class, or at the book signing.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, and those of you here in the States, enjoy your Thanksgiving!