Manes: Traditional Tutorial

I had some requests for a traditional tutorial, so I figured I'd start with manes (and tails). ^^



I personally use Prismacolor colored pencils, but this should work with just about any brand. I also use a colorless blender pencil, and while it's optional, it's a good investment as it makes things flow better and, well, blend. The particular colors I used for this, a black mane, are:
Base- Dark Umber (yes, brown)
Shadow- Black
Effect- Indigo Blue
Blending- Colorless Blender



1.) Firstly, the sketch. Looks pretty familiar right? Now, my scanner is really sensitive, and when I sketch, my pencil lines are so light the scanner rarely picks them up. So, all of these images are a little bit darkened so that you guys can see the line work. This is quite important, to have your lines very light, because thick, dark pencil lines are ugly and smear very easy. They don't look good on a finished piece. ^^

2.) Again, I use Prismacolor. It *should* work with any brand, but I can't say for sure considering that I've never done this with any other type of colored pencil.

3.) Now we start color. It is very important to establish where the highlights are going to be. You do not have a back button or layers- if you mess up, you have to start over. Taking the Dark Umber pencil, start to color in the base of your hair. You don't have to use individual strands yet, just get the base color down. Make sure you go in the direction the hair flows, and not a few pencil marks one way and a few another way. Make it flow, and remember where your highlights are.
*When approaching the highlights, you don't just want straight bars of white either. Make a few strands longer here and there to give it a little bit of an uneven, but nice, look.*

4.) Take the same colored pencil, sharpen it to a fine point, and now begin to draw in individual strands. Again, mind your highlights, and make sure you are going in the same direction as the hair in each section.

5.) Now we use the black pencil! Sharpen it to a fine point, and now start putting in individual black strands over the brown. When reaching the highlights, try to leave a little bit of brown in between the white and black. This is also the time to start putting in wispy little flyaway hairs if you want them.

6.) Now for the fun part: Blending! This step is optional, if you don't have one. If you do have one, sharpen it to a fine point, and smudge smudge smudge those colors together! This time around, you don't have to mind your highlights, as smudging over them will give the impression of small colored strands that are being hit by light.

7.) Now that we're done smudging, you can either be done or you can take it a little further with the Indigo Blue pencil. Do the same thing you have with the pencils before, and put some blue strands into that mane!

8.) Repeat above fun blending.

9.) Do that for the rest of the mane and the tail, and wa-la! You have yourself a purdy, shiny bunch of black hair!



You can do this with just about any color of hair so long as you have the right colors. White I can't really help you on, besides maybe just a few different shades of grey. It's a pretty simply process, but it takes some getting used to, especially when planning out highlights. Always use a light copy of your original sketch- that way if you mess up, you are dead in the water. Hope this helps and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!



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