Colored Pencil Tutorial Thing

Hey Everyone! I've been getting a lot of questions on my colored pencil work lately, so I put together this WIP Progress thing for this drawing [link] some time ago, put it on Tumblr, and then promptly forgot about it.

So I'm uploading it here now, for those of you interested. It's not the best of tutorials or anything, but it's how I go about doing things via colored pencils.

1) Start out with a basic sketch; this is my least favorite part because I'm terribly messy with graphite pencils and make a big smeary mess before I get anything useful. I usually just use a mechanical pencil, a tissue for blending, and a kneaded eraser for this

2) Start an outline and figure out my color palette. For this I wanted a super colorful drawing. I usually outline pencils in either an orange or a blue pencil first; partly because they're colors I always end up using in the final product, partly because they're some of my favorite colors

3) Begin to sketch out where the most saturated points of color will go, or where certain colors will end up. Like a color base sketch, if that makes any sense at all. All the while I'm doing this, I start to erase all that mechanical pencil work I did before (it will muddy the colored pencil colors if I don't). The main color here is going to be yellow, so I start those highlights first, along with a preliminary background color palette.

4) Now that I have my colors mapped out in my head I can start adding some kind of depth and I begin to properly blend in things and add really basic shadows and contrast.

5) Adding more color, the drawing still looks fairly flat at this stage. Up until now it's all about getting a base to work off of for when I can put in detail work. Basic hair is started, starting with the darker stuff first.

6) Base layer of color down, I can add the final shadows, hair, stubble, and begin doing final details which are the most fun. They bring the whole drawing together

7) I don't know why, but ears I always do last. After I add in lots of final details like pores, arrant hairs, catchlights, folds, wrinkles and all those other fun things, I add in the background colors that I decided on way back in the beginning of the drawing. It's basic coloring at this point and tedious detail work. I add in the final lighting effects and color reflections, and with a few blops of white out, I add in little highlights, and then I'm done.

The whole thing takes about 3 hours give or take.

Enjoy!