Second, this was a very small doodle (not even a A6 size) so its very scribbly.
Third, excuse my horrible english @__@
I suggest you looking on this urls for what marker brands does exist before you start using markers! Usuda's, hallistork's
Alright, lets make it go!
1. First up, sketch and lineart your piece.
Tip: Use a alcohol and waterproof ink liner, otherwise when go coloring, the ink can smudge out and it will not be beautiful. I using a Staedtler pigment 0.05, but there is better ones you can find in office and art shops. For sketch, any pencil is fine, but a ballpoint-pencil with H or HB is recommend at most.
2. Start with your base color.
Tip: You see that the paper quality is little grainy since its a normal office/sketch paper, and the is some color outside the edge of the picture. For serious drawings, a thick drawing paper is best since they dont bleed out as thin papers are. They also suck up the marker ink better. Some watercolor papers are good for it too, but there is paper just specified for markers at art shops.
Use a kinda light color for base since the artists who using markers mostly go down in darker layers. Its a easy but a useful thing.
3. Take same color as base and start with the shadows, same place 2-3 times.
Tip: Wait a few seconds to make the ink dry before you apply the next layer on the shadows, to make it a sharp shadow. Dont forget where your light on the picture will hit.
4. When you see you cant color more with same pen, take a new with darker value and repeat.
Tip: You dont need exact next pen on the value list when it come to shadowing. If you have different markers smiliar to the base color, use it. You can blend with copic and promarkers. You can use a grey tone to make a darker shadow, just make sure it dont turn out more too gray instead. Also, the colorless blender you can get can make it more smooth.
5. When you feel you are done with the shadows, add the effects and a background if you like.
Tip: Marker artists using mostly a white gelpen or white ink to make the highlights. This is where watercolors, color pencils and other traditional supplies coming in as backgrounds, for making mixed media a beautiful piece. Photoshop or Gimp can make also a nice retouching in the picture before you upload it somewhere. However, i think oil is not good, since the fat color can make more attention instead of the marker picture. And its not meant for papers.
And we're done!
Own suggestions: I started with pro markers like 2 years ago, and have use them until now, when i start with copic markers. I'll say, start with promarkers, since they are mostly for scrapbook making, so any beginner can use them.
Also, when you only want to test them out, dont buy a expensive 10 pack, but get only few of them, like two or three of different values in your favourite color maybe. Or if you know someone who using markers, ask them if you can use them, just for feelings. If its not your cup of tea, then you dont need to get any more markers.
I know i've still a long way to go before i can kicking butt by marker coloring, but im still improving, so it might be a better tutorial by a few years or so xD ;P
Still, i hope i found it quite useful anyway. Feel free to ask more, or youself have any other suggestions and tricks.
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