Copic Tutorial - Colouring Brown Hair

Hi everyone! Today I have a little tutorial to share with you on how I colour brown hair. This is quite a lengthy post so I have put my actual card at the start to save you all scrolling down if you don't want to read the tutorial! :D hehe

There are so many ways to colour hair but I particularly like the feathering technique where it looks like the hair has strands rather than an overall blended look. For this tutorial I have used one of my favourite copic colour combos for brown hair. Here are the colours that I have used:

E21, E25, E29

And for my model I have used the gorgeous Anastasia. These portraits are fantastic for practicing your hair colouring as you really get to experiment with the shadows and strands as there is just so much hair! *Sorry that the photos are all crazy! This is my first photo tutorial and I don't have a tripod for my camera so all of the pics are different sizes and colours LOL*

STEP 1

I always like to colour the skin first as it gives a good idea of how the hair colour and style is going to suit the character. When starting the hair, I always use my lightest colour, in this case the E21, to lay down the first highlights. I use the feathering technique and just flick my brush out. With hair, I tend to use a heavier version of the feathering technique as I like it to be a little chunky and have lots of texture. When laying down the first layer, I like to leave some white space where the lightest part of the hair would be. As there is so much hair, I have decided to colour the hair in sections starting with the front near her face. This is so that I don't have to hurry too much in case the ink dries.

STEP 2

I then go in with my next colour, E25, and do the same thing but not quite to the same length as the colour before. You can use the lighter colour 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

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

STEP 4

I then go back in with my middle colour, E25, and repeat the same feathering process, but this time when you feather over the darker colour, it pulls the colour down creating some blending. I also start to pay more attention to creating more texture with my strands.

STEP 5

I go in again with my lightest colour and repeat the feathering process.

STEP 6

After I have gone from lightest to darkest and back again, I like to do an extra layer of the middle and darker colours purely to focus on the texture and size of the strands. The image below shows an extra layer of 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, but to save you on so many photos I have just shown 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 (and mine are definitely not always right!) but just practice with what looks the nicest for you :)

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

I then went and coloured all of the flowers, and made her up into a card.

Hope that helped you just a little bit! If you have any more questions just leave a comment below and I will try to help! :) Thanks for stopping by!

Copic colours used:

Skin: E000, E00, E11, R11 | Hair: E21, E25, E29 | Roses: R81, R85, R59 | Flowers: V000, V01, V04, V09

Challenges that I am entering with this card:

Divas By Design - Pink

Penny's Paper Crafting Challenge - I Love You Mom

Scrapalicious - Mom

Truly Scrumptious - Anything Goes

Whimsy Stamps - Anything Goes

Just Tracy's Crafts - Anything Goes

Oozak - Spring Colours

Pretty Little Ribbon Shop - Blooms and Butterflies

Unique Crafter's Challenge - Ribbons and Fibers

ATCs & Cards with Attitude - Butterflies and Blooms

Card Makin Mamas - Flowers

Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge - Girlie Time
Make it Monday - Linky Party
Bearly Mine - Anything Goes

Supplies