Mema's Crafts: Coloring Brown Hair

Copic Tutorial - Coloring Brown Hair

Here are the copic colors used for this tutorial. There are other color combos for brown hair but this works for me: E21, E25, E29

And for my model I have used the gorgeous Anastasia from Make It Crafty. They have a complete portrait collection that works well to practice coloring hair.

STEP 1

I always like to color the skin first as it gives a good idea of how the hair color and style is going to suit the character. When starting the hair, I always use my lightest color, in this case the E21, to lay down the first highlights. Use the feathering technique and just flick the brush out. The heavier the pressure you apply the more texture you will get. When laying down the first layer, leave some white space where the lightest part of the hair would be. If there is alot of hair, color the hair in sections starting with the front near her face. This is so that you don't have to hurry too much in case the ink dries.

STEP 2

Then go to the next color, E25, and do the same thing but not quite to the same length as the color before. Use the lighter color as a guide for the direction of the strokes. It is important to pay attention to the direction of the light source when determining what parts of the hair need to be the darkest and the lightest. I like to do the part quite dark, with the light source coming from the side. This would mean that all of the outward curves are the lightest as they are closest to the light source, and all of the inverted curves would be the darkest.

STEP 3

Then go in with your darkest color, E29, and again do a layer of color not quite as long as the previous. In this first set of layering don't worry too much about the shape of the strands as you can go back in after and lay more color down. These first three steps are more about just getting the color on the page.

STEP 4

Go back in with the middle colour, E25, and repeat the same feathering process, but this time when you feather over the darker color, it pulls the color down creating some blending.

STEP 5

Repeat with the lightest color and repeat the feathering process.

STEP 6

Now that you have gone from lightest to darkest and back again, focus on the texture and size of the strands using E25, and E29, and now the front section of her hair is complete.

STEP 7

Now we move on to the next part of her hair. Below is an image of her hair finished. As she has quite a different hair style the shading can be a little tough. As she has large curls, I have made the inside of the curl the lightest and the two edges the darkest to make them look more rounded. There are many different ways you can do this, so just practice with what looks the nicest for you.

For this section of her hair repeat the same steps as above, lightest to darkest and back again. Then go back in with the middle and darkest colors to create more texture and definition.