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First draw your picture. Ink it if you like. I like inking my lines
because I don't have to worry about making them crisp with the pencils
themselves, but some ppl prefer using only regular pencil and not inking.
Whichever look you prefer.
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Grab some hardleads and color in the basic shadows very lightly. I
will be using Prismacolor pencils for this tutorial, but it helps to get
some pigment onto the paper, so the Prismacolors don't have to work so
hard later on. For this stage I use Derwent pencils, just because I happen
to have some. You can use cheapy Crayola pencils, or your Prismacolors--it
doesn't matter. Just make sure this stage is done very lightly, and you
leave the highlights white.
In the skin-color areas, use a yellow ochre, if you have it. That's basically a dark golden yellow. Color Sonic sky blue, Tails yellow, and Knuckles red-orange. This pays off later. NEVER, EVER color Sonic "blue" and Tails "orange" and Knuckles "red".
Nothing in this world is ever a pure color. Not even videogame characters,
owing to fancy shading and textures.
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Break out the Prismacolors. If you don't have Prismacolors, just start
pressing down harder on whatever pencils you're using. Switch to a darker
blue (something right under sky blue should work), and darken up Sonic's
shadows. Here I was shooting for a "Sonic Adventurey" look, so I made the
shadows darkest right against the highlights, then got lighter and lighter
toward the edge of the shadows.
Use a light yellow-orange for this step on Tails and their shoes. Use red-orange for this step on Knuckles and their shoes. Go over Knuckles's socks with a yellow-green. |
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If you have a perfect-for-Sonic blue, now is the time to scrub it into
the shadows. I don't have an exactly perfect one, so I used Ultramarine.
At this point, if you are using Prismacolors, the colors will start to
"burnish", that is, get very smooth and waxy. If you have two or more colors
on top of each other on the paper, they burnish and become very solid and
pure. This is one of the fun things about colored pencil, because the results
can be so beautiful they startle you.
Use a darker yellow-orange on Tails. I went straight to pure orange, and it would have been better with another color in between. Use Crimson on Knuckles and their shoes. |
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Grab your light colors and start shading the highlights. Blend them
with light blue on Sonic, yellow on Tails, and a coral pink on Knuckles
and their shoes.
Grab a dark peach and put the shadows on Sonic and Knuckles's faces. |
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Color the highlights on Sonic and Knuckles's faces with very light
peach. Now grab some pink and go over their whole faces very lightly with
it, to give them a rosy look. Knuckles's face is darker than Sonic's, so
don't give him as much pink.
Then grab an orange-yellow, and go over their faces with that, very lightly. Shade in all the whites with a light blue (not gray! Never gray!). Grab black and color in their noses and eyes, if you haven't already. |
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Time to put a core in the shadows to really make them pop out. Grab
dark purple or violet-blue and scrub it into the darkest places in Sonic's
blue. Then go over that again with Ultramarine.
Grab light red-brown and shade it into Tails's shadows. Too dark here will ruin him, so go easy. Use purple to darken Knuckles's shadows. Finish up the last details--their shoes and socks, shadows on the curb. And you're done! |