Tips and Techniques for Using Colored Multiliners Copic-loving comics artist Jayleen Weaver (Guruubii of GuruKitty Studios) shares some great, practical information on ways to use colored inking pens. Multiliners come in a range of colors for a variety of applications. See how she uses them, below:
Materials:
- Copic Multiliners – Sky blue, Orange, Cool Gray, and Sepia
- Copic Sketch markers: B91, B93, B95, E30, E31, G00, B000, R20, Bv31, Y21, YR23, YR24, Y32, (and many more I grabbed as I just kept colouring)
- X-Press It Blending Card and Aquabee Marker Paper
Copic Multiliners are inking pens that are designed to work with Copic Markers. The pens come in a multitude of sizes and colours. Once dry, the ink is alcohol-proof so it won’t smear on the right paper when you colour over it with your Copics.
I use Copic’s coloured Multiliners in a variety of ways; sometimes to help create a sense of depth in an image, sometimes to just soften the look of the image or add some nice accents. It all depends on the look you’re going for. I use them in a few different ways, so I’ll show you a little bit about each technique.
In my illustrations I very often ink my characters in colour to distinguish them from the background, and if I want a less graphic/comic book style to my illustrations.
For this image I used a variety of colours to make her look softer. Sepia for skin, cool gray for hair (mainly because I didn’t have a purple, lol) and blues and orange for her clothes.
I was careful while inking to be conscious of areas of overlapping features. See this example where her eyebrow is on the edge of her profile, so I stopped the skin colour at the eyebrow.
Its important to note that these pens are somewhat transparent, so when you overlap the pen stokes you actually darken the colour a little so be careful of creating little dots where lines overlap by picking up your pen at the end of a stoke instead of holding it on the paper.
You can also use the coloured multiliners to add accents to a black inked image. See this example where I’ve used the colours to embellish her outfit. It adds a nice bit of detail without being too bold.
Now, the best excuse I can come up with to use coloured Multiliners is to create effects. I use them. In my comics all the time for inking the mountains in the distance.
See how the cool gray makes the mountain less bold? Using black lines in the foreground and light gray lines in the background, gives a sense of depth. If the mountains were inked in black, I think it would be too harsh of a line and would cause distraction.
In this panel here I’ve used the cool gray to ink the entire panel because it’s being viewed through a car window. A hazy gray line can be exactly what’s needed in certain situations.
So there you have it! Colour Multiliners are one of the most versatile tools in my Copic arsenal! There are also many different types of nibs you can get. Think about brush tips if you like the way they look, too!
For the very latest from Jayleen Weaver and GuruKitty Studios, visit these sites:
http://copiccolor.com/markerguru
http://gurukitty.com
http://markerguru.blogspot.com
https://www.facebook.com/gurukittystudios
