Watercolour Illustrations: How I do them.

Hey Everyone hope you’re all well!

Today we’re gonna have a wee art lesson, I’m going to show you how I make my watercolour illustrations! Now keep in mind, the way I do things is not gospel it’s just how I like to do things and it works for me. Today I’m going to be drawing my favourite X-man Gambit!

Now obviously in my style it’s not going to look anything like that but you’ve got to work with what you got and we’ll start by pencilling out our gambit.

It’s pretty rough but I quite like the pose so let’s stick with it. Next I’m going to ink over the pencils, I use fineliners (or sometimes brush ink) in this case I’m using a 0.1 pen. I sometimes also use a 0.3 for thicker lines. These guys are good pens.

Okay so I’ve penned over my Gambit and rubbed out the pencil from underneath with an eraser, he’s looking like this.

Now it’s painting time! I’m using mid range watercolours, Windsor and Newton Cotmans to be exact. Brush wise I’m using a small flat head for colouring in and a small round for finer bits.

Also for a palette I’m using a plate covered with tin foil, basically so I don’t have to clean it (when I’m done I just put the foil in the bin).

Now, with watercolours there is a strict rule of working from light to dark, following that rule I’m going to colour my Gambit in with the lightest shades possible. You can do this by really watering down your colours.

I should also mention I keep a scrap of paper handy to test my colours before they go on the page. I should also mention I’m using 300gsm watercolour paper.

Right, now it’s starting to take shape I’m going to start adding in darker tones. It’s very important at this stage to choose where the light might be coming from in this illustration, hypothetically the sun is to Gambits right hand side so his left hand side will be darker. While I’m doing this I sometimes use a damp brush to blend the dark and light tones.

He’s looking sweet! Now I’m gonna add a very thin and watery layer of pink around his cards for effect. I’m also gonna make him say something funny.

Now you might not be as funny as me but that’s totally cool, everything in time. It is also very important to SIGN YOUR WORK or it’ll turn up on reddit with 2 million views and no credit (true story). Right once it’s dry it’s time to scan it in.

In photoshop I might brighten it up with the levels adjustment and that’s it that’s how I do it!

Thanks for reading I hope someone out there found this helpful!

Take care!

Neil.

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Tags: comic tutorial, comics tutorial, funny, gambit, Illustration, watercolor tutorial, watercolour tutorial, x-men