Guest Tutorial: Lights and Shadows by Brandi York October 18, 2011

This week’s guest tutorial is by Brandi York. From February 2003 to July 2004, Brandi was a portrait and caricature artist for Rubio Arts at Disneyland.  In October of 2004 she began working for Trader Joe’s in Irvine, CA doing chalk boards for store displays, oil and acrylic paintings and any other odds and ends thrown her way.  In 2006 she and her husband moved to Oregon, where she continues working for Trader Joe’s while expanding her art career.  Her art has been seen at conventions around the country as well as local art shows.

For this tutorial, I’m going to focus on achieving the lights and shadows on the face. I like to keep a black and white print out of the photo I’m doing along with the full color version. I find this helps to push the values as well as the color.

All of the markers used are Copic Sketch, brush tip side.

Starting with a R000, I lay in the general tones of the skin, followed by E00 to beef up the shadows a little:

Copic Tutorial - Lights and Shadows by Brandi York

Using an E02, I deepen up the shadows a bit more before breaking out the BV31, adding into the shadows of the face. I go back over the BV31 with the R000 and E00 to warm the shadows back up a bit. Using the side of the brush tip, I pull the BV31 across the cheek, letting the shadow naturally fade out, instead of it having a hard edge:

Copic Tutorial - Lights and Shadows by Brandi York
Pulling out the E34 and E35, I start to hit the really deep reddish-brown shadows of the skin. I use the R000 to smooth out the colors, creating a softer transition, instead of the 0 Colorless Blender, which often lightens the area you’re blending (although that can often be useful, it’s not the look I’m going for here.) Next, I use the BV23 and BV25 to deepen the shadows of the neck, lips, eyes and nose, again feathering them out with the lighter colors I’ve been using:

Copic Tutorial - Lights and Shadows by Brandi York
I go over the face again with the E00, knocking down some of the redness from the R000, adding a touch of R20 into the cheeks and nose.

I finish out the eyes with a stroke of BV25 and E29 around the lashes and a dot for the pupils, then E29 for the darker portion of the eyes. I use the 0 Colorless Blender and just hold it down for a moment where the lightest part of the iris (not the highlight itself) is to get the two colors to blend, giving the look of the light reflected in the iris.

Using R59 for the deepest part of the lips and R46 for the lighter, I finish out the lips, touching the highlight with R20, then the 0 Colorless Blender. I use a little YR82 and E31 to yellow down the skin a little, taking out some of the red:

Copic Tutorial - Lights and Shadows by Brandi York
Much of the rest of the face (and whole piece) is played with, pushing a little here and there with the markers, until I find the balance I like. Experiment and have fun! That’s what it’s all about!

Copic Tutorial: Lights and Shadows by Brandi York

All colors used to complete the piece: 0, R000, R20, R46, R59, YR82, E000, E00, E02, E29, E31, E34, E35, E49, E50, BV23, BV25, BV31

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  • http://www.distinctivetouches.com colleen

    Brandi, this is wonderful! Beautiful work. Thanks for walking us through your process!

    • http://brandiyork.com Brandi

      Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

  • Brenda Robison

    what kind of paper do you use?

    • http://brandiyork.com Brandi

      For this piece, I used the Copic Sketchbook Bleed resistant paper.

  • http://www.silvertales.com Kitsune

    This is a lovely piece, and I’m definitely tempted to try my hand at a more realistic approach with my Copics.

    Thank you for the walk-through!

  • http://www.wickedlittlestudio.com Wicked_Juli

    First off Brandi, I nearly flipped when I found this tutorial as I myself was currently working on “Inara Serra” and was having the worst time picking just what tones to use for her flesh, as clearly she has much deeper tones than the rest of the cast but isn’t quite “light suntan” I never would have thought of using ANY shade in the BV spectrum for skintone.
    I wish I had read this before I set to work on her skin, but I SUPPOSE this just means I’ll have to draw another Inara sometime (Oh darn, twist my arm there!)

    Thank you for walking us threw your process, and sharing your tips! I’m a self taught artist so the only way I can get info is by figuring it out the hard way or when amazingly talented people such as yourself post wonderful walk threws. Thank you very, very much!

    Best Wishes

    • http://brandiyork.com Brandi

      Thank you so much for the kind words! And of course, how could anyone resist the draw (no pun intended :D ) of rendering Morena Baccarin.

      BV23 and BV25 are two of my go-to shadow colors for many things, and skin is no exception! They’re both lovely, warm colds (if that makes sense) that drop back the underlying colors without completely destroying them.

      Best of luck!!