Thursday 21 June 2012

Step-by-Step colouring of Tilda's curly hair


Hello lovely bloggers, I have a little colouring tute to share today, but first some nice news.....I am being featured today on a fabulous blog called Craft Corners in their 'Best of the Web' section. The blog is about all sorts of handicrafts, not just papercrafting, and it has some great ideas that I wouldn't mind trying myself. Nice if you want a browse round a new site sometime, it's the kind of place I like mooching around in when I can't sleep. There are a few other bloggers featured in this edition, too: a quilter, a mixed-media artist and a stitcher.

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I've been colouring again. My good friend, the lovely Chrissy, sent me a Tilda image and asked how I would colour her very curly hair. I had no idea how to and I put it on the back burner of my mind to think over......for about a year or two! Anyway, in the mood to play recently, I found the image she sent me and decided to sit down and see if I could do something with it at last. I promised her I'd take some step-by-step photos and here they are.

I used this image recently to make a gift box...you can see the blog post about this box by clicking HERE.

This Tilda looks as though she has African American hair, or at least very very tight curls, so my usual hair techniques would not work here. This is how I planned and coloured the image.


Such tightly curly hair is a mass of darkness, which I decided I'd colour using E47 as my main colour with E49 as shadows, but to begin I needed to define some curls - I decided to colour the curls with a lighter edge to define them from the rest of her hair.




Step 1
I began by mapping out some curls by using a lighter-coloured marker - I'm guessing and feeling my way at this point so if I make a mistake it won't be such a big deal because I'll be coming in with a darker colour soon. The drawing of the hair is made up of lots of curves, and I'll be using these as the curls. Leaving the outer edge of the curves uncoloured, I laid down some E35 in all the areas that are going to be coloured darker later:

Mapping out with a lighter marker

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Step 2
When I'm happy with where the curls are, so I go in with the colour I want her hair to be: E47. I put this ink in exactly the same places where I mapped out my trial colouring, but if you are more confident you could miss out the mapping stage and go straight in with your main hair colour:

Laying down main colour

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Step 3
Next, I take my deeper hair colour that I am going to use for shadows (E49), and I add some to small parts of the image: round the bows and on the outside of the curves within the hair. This will give some depth to the image and accentuate the curls:
Adding some shadow areas

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Step 4
Then I go back in with my main colour (E47) and blend in the shadows:
Blending the shadows

You can see that I did the 2 sides of her hair in different ways: on the left side I used the E47 minimally to blend in the shadow areas, and on the right side I actually coloured over the whole of the E47 area. At this point, I didn't know which side I preferred, remember I'm working this out as I go along.

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Step 5
OK, so after this I want to add some colour to the curls themselves, so I use the paler colour E35 on the white areas only, I didn't blend in with the darker colour as I didn't want the highlight to get lost at this point:
Giving the curls some colour

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Step 6
Now, at this point I switched to a dotted stroke for 2 reasons: as the image is now quite dark, it's harder to be precise about where the dark marker tip lands (for me anyway, maybe my eyesight isn't so great but I can't distinguish the end of a dark marker tip against dark colouring) so a dot is safer.....less ink comes out and less chance of messing up. PLUS dotted strokes add to the textured feel of the hair.

So, I dot some of the darkest marker (E49) into the shadows again to deepen and extend them:
Dotting to add in and extend the shadows

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Step 7
And then I dot some of the main (E47) colour around to blend the dark dots and add more colour:
More dots to blend

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Step 8
I'm not happy with the curls - there is too much E35 showing and I want to reduce the size of the highlighted areas. I take another colour, E44, and dot this around, extending into the highlight areas to make them smaller:
Reducing the highlights with a shade slightly lighter than
the main hair colour

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Step 9
I could have stopped at this point as I'm happy enough with it. But I decided to take my E44 marker and again added some dots over and around the curls to tone them down a little, and you can see the result of this in the finished image below. The hair is still warmer because of the E35, but gives more the effect I was hoping for.

Here is the finished image:


Hope this was of some use. Please let me know if you use it - I'd love to come and see your work.

Happy colouring!



24 comments:

MagsB said...

What a fabulous tutorial! Even though I'm a Promarker girl I know that this will be just so valuable. Thank you!

love Mags B x

Jane said...

Great tutorial Carole, very informative.
Hugs
Jane

Jackie said...

Good morning Carole, you know what I think about your wonderful colouring by now, and you create such fabulous tutorials. What a talented lady you are :o)
Congratulations on being featured Craft Corners :o)
Jackie xx

Franz♥ said...

Wooow! Thanks so much Carole! Your tutorial will be so useful for me, i love Tildas with curling hair, but i never know how to colour them, it's not so simple...

and what about the dress? Perfect colouring and i'm partial to light blue :)

A big hug, Franz.

chrissy xx said...

Oh! I'm here lol.....
Thank you sooooo much for this tutorial I'm going to follow it{and then some more} step by step lol...
I've never even used this stamp! but I will now...
Chrissyxx

chrissy xx said...

I do read your blog lol..but I felt I had to reply to your exciting news separately....
Over the moon for you..Congratulations..
Your colouring is always amazing and I always pick up a tip when I call..
I'm off to have a look at the blog now..Like you say Carole it's nice to have a peep at new sites..There's always one popping up now and again and you wish you have found it sooner.
Hugs
Chrissyxx

McCrafty's Cards said...

Brilliant Tute Carole Thank you I will have to adapt it for my promarkers, congratulations at being featured at crafty corners, it is well deserved
Kevin xx

June Nelson said...

Thanks evr so much me darin I always have problems with curly and avoid it at all cost lol but I may have a go following this, thanks huggies juen xxxx

Joanne said...

BRAVO my friend! Excellent tutorial and VERY helpful! I would not have had a clue how to tackle this. THANX so much! And thanx for your lovely comments on my blog. I so enjoy your visits! Hugs & aloha, and can't wait for MY next personal lesson, lol! J:)

Anonymous said...

Great tutorial Carole! Will definately give your technique a try. Thanks for sharing dear! hugs, Angela

Anonymous said...

Another stunner Sis love the image and those curls are adorable - inspiration for us all.

Have a lovely weekend
Huggles Big Sis xxxx

chrissy xx said...

JUst to say...
I've called again lol for another look..
Hugs
Chrissyxx

Hanna said...

Great tutorial! Love it!
Thanks so much for sharing!

Have a nice weekend!
hugs,
Hanna

Hazel said...

Carole

One word - AWESOME - thanks for sharing you are such a talented lady.

Thanks for dropping by and leaving me some lovely comments.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Ta-ra for now.

Hazel xx

Joan Ervin said...

What a fabulous tutorial, Carole....your coloring is amazing!!!! Maybe with your step by step tut, even I could learn to color hair!!!! It may take me a year of practice, though...LOL!!!

Congrats on being featured on the Craft Corners blog...what an honor!!! You are sooo deserving, gf...they picked the perfect blog to feature!!!!

Joanne said...

Just a drop by to say Aloha and leave a few hugs! J:)

Janette said...

This is fab Carole, sure everyone will learn something from it...

Have come over to find your tute for Picasa, which I just know you did, they have just told me I'm all full up and need to start paying, that will put me 'OUT OF BUSINESS'...lol...am in a slight panic, can't live without my blgo...xx

Janette said...

Me again Carole....Big thankyou for your help. I will keep re-visiting your excellant post till I can sort it....I did some this afternoon just so I could upload a couple of pics...I did go on abit, but I feel there having a laugh...lol...Thanks again chuck.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Carole S said...

Hi "ME", great tutorial and brilliant work, I have not been around but will e.mail you today, love "HER, Carole. :)XXX

Vicky said...

Hi Buffy here, had a great look around you blog and I think its amazing. Thanks for you help on colouring hair, thanks for all the nice comments.

xoxox

Joanne said...

Aloha Carole. I know you had not been feeling well, and I just wanted to let you know that you were in my thoughts! Big feel better hugs coming your way! Oh, I got so excited today, we had some rain! I sat out in it and it felt sooooo good. A super change and a nice cool down. Fell better soon, hugs, J:)

Teresa said...

Brilliant colouring tut Carole. xxx

Joanne said...

Aloha again Carole! Just a quick stop by to let you know I was thinking of you. Hope all is well. I sure miss your lovely creations, hurry back! BIG hugs, J:)

Jackie said...

Hi Carole, many thanks for visiting my blog and leaving lovely comments, I really appreciate them. I hope you are soon well enough to blog as I am missing your stunning cards :o)
Jackie xx