PROMARKER/COPICS SHOESTRING TUTORIAL - BLONDE HAIR

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This tutorial is for doing blonde hair using minimal colours using promarkers (or copics). For skin tones & brown hair see the previous tutorial here

PROMARKERS

Vanilla (or your usual skin tone)
A brown of your choice (I used terracotta)


COPICS
E00 (or your usual skin tone)
A brown of your choice

STEP 1

Colour your hair using vanilla and leave quite a wide band of white where you think the light will reflect. A bump on the hair is usually a good place!


STEP 2

Take the cap off the chisel end of the brown and pick up some of the colour with your vanilla pen (It wont harm it!) If you're using copics then scribble some of the colour you pick up onto scrap paper as the concentration of brown will be a bit harsh.
Just scribble the vanilla nib onto the brown nib to pick up some colour.



STEP 3

From the edges of the hair blend inwards towards the band of white you left so in this design I've worked underneath the headband and from all the hair edges inwards. Leave part of your original vanilla showing and don't go into the white just yet. Repeat this a couple of times to build up some tones and shade.
STEP 4

Making sure your vanilla nib is clean again (scribble off onto scrap paper) blend inwards from the edge again and start going into the white bit you left but leave some of it exposed.

STEP 5

It should look something like this now. You should have a small band of white where the light reflects and running light through to a darker blonde towards the ends. Job done!

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ADDING IN AN EXTRA COLOUR

STEP 1

Colour in your vanilla as before and instead of picking up the brown use pastel yellow instead so colour your pastel yellow over the vanilla leaving bits of vanilla and all of your white exposed.

STEP 2

Push your pastel yellow in with the vanilla and start pushing into the white area leaving some of it exposed. Repeat step 1 and 2 until you're happy with the tone.

STEP 3

Whilst the ink is still wet literally touch some of your brown in areas of shade (as below) This works much better if your ink is still wet from the blending of the previous steps.

STEP 4

Blend this in quickly with your vanilla pushing in towards your white areas and leaving some of them exposed.

FINISHED RESULTS

The image on the left is using just the vanilla and terracotta and the image on the right is using vanilla, terracotta and pastel yellow. Both are blonde hair but have different looks so it depends on what look you want to achieve. The left is more of a natural look and the right is much bolder.

I'm now adding in PASTEL YELLOW to make blonde.