Thursday, July 9, 2009

How do you do the colorific hoodoo voodoo that you do?

May I ask how you all are doing your colors?

I've tried water color / art markers - they bled too much; tried color pencils - too muted versus the yellow card stock. Tried water colors with varied success, though seems I have to really layer up goopy thick paint to get enough opacity to overcome the yellow.

Most of you all seem to easily surmount the yellow and get some sharp details in your colors. What do you use? Is it guasch paint? acryllic?

And yes, sorry, this is a huge gaping hole in my fine arts background, I don't know nearly enough about illustrative color work or techniques. Any suggestions would be deeply appreciated!

Thanks!

e

PS - apologies if you saw this post on the other Moly groups I'm in, trying to get ample coverage from all the amazingly talented folks I've been fortunate enough to crew up with!

11 comments:

  1. Yeah, I'd like to know what you find out. You should post up what you find afterwards. I can't find anything to work very well either. Markers also seem to die really quick for me. I think it worked ok with a mix of pencil crayon and color marker, but then again, not really.

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  2. Color? What color?

    I think that you are the colorist in this group. Some of the entries that you've made for this group and others have dreamy colors. Maybe it's a battle for you, but when your best ones are all done the color swirls like stirring up an exotic fish tank.

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  3. Well....my weapon of choice is water color.
    At first I found that the paper repelled it and it was a mess. There seems to be a coating (sizing) on the paper.

    I found that if I take a brush and wipe water over the whole surface and brush it around a bit...it opens up the grain/tooth of the paper and it becomes receptive. A washcloth may work just as well.

    If you want to overcome the yellow of the paper..goauch or acrylic are the best starting points. Acrylic can pretty much cover anything...but, if used to thickly, has a tendency to stick the pages together when the book sits closed for a while. So it is best used in washes to build up a surface.

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  4. Also...if you really want to use colored pencils:

    use markers to take the page to the darkest tone you want to have in your picture. Then use the pencils to bring light back into the dark.

    Prismacolors look great on top of marker black.

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  5. I have to aggree with Marty your colors are great and after finally having some of your work to see in person I think you do a good job at color.

    I like watercolor I find that using them more pigmented and less watered down they work better and look brighter on the paper. I've also been using watercolor pencil and am just figuring out how to work with them but they seem pretty good not as vibrant though. And of course coffee is becoming a favorite of mine. I've seen pencil over marker and it seems to really add depth to it but I havn't done it much myself as I dont have great markers for it.

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  6. Thanks fellas, some great tips in there!

    And I'll post up what I hear back from other forums for ya, Mr. Linds!

    e

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  7. indeed the moleskine paper is coated with somekind of (celulosa its called in spanish) which makes it a bit water-repellent, resistant, but its just the water that is gonna be rejected not the "aglutinante", omg I find lack of vocabulary when trying to explain this kind of stuff in english

    Anyway, what I meant, the problem is not the technique but the technique + water,
    I use mostly acrylics and have no problems, but I use them without water, watercolor = the same i use them almost dry (what michael said)
    About markers (I use the ones from "Touch",they are korean or something), I use them but like if they were pencils, just do lines around the figures or little details
    watercolor pencils work fantastic aswell
    and pilots, eddings, all kind of permament ink-markers work awesome because of that coat the paper has

    for whites, acrylic, gouache or even Tip-ex work fantastic, and look good since the paper is yellowish

    thats my missy 50 cents

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  8. Where do you get your "touch" markers I've seen someone else recommend the markers not for moly but just as good markers.

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  9. this is their website:
    http://www.touchmarker.co.uk/index.html

    I have the box with 60 markers
    and I got em at a graffiti shop here in barcelona
    not sure about USA...
    Ive heard Krink are good also..
    Posca is cool but I think they sell just in spain..
    and...
    best option for USA probably is Copic Markers
    Copic are quite same quality as Touch ones

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  10. Thanks for the comments all, tried out mixing acrylics and water colors with some solid success, esp. following the tip to wet wipe the moly paper first, noice!

    e

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