Rendering with Prismacolor - tutorial

Hi everybody,

I said I would do a tut on prismacolor, so here it is. In this tutorial I'll show how I render a chrome rim using colored pencils. They don't have to be prismacolors, you could use Crayolas if you wanted to, they just wouldn't blend as smoothly.

Materials: For this I'm using:

- assorted greys (you actually only need one grey to do the job, unless the drawing is more complicated and has a larger variation of tone. In that case you'd need several greys to get a realistic result

- HB mech pencil

-2 blues (1 light, 1 light/medium), brown and red

- Black and white

-A good sharpener... keep your pencils sharp!

- Sketch paper (doesn't have to be something super-high quality like Stonehenge, as long as it's got a bit of roughness to it)

- White gouache paint, paintbrush, water and tissue
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Step 1 - basic outline

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/5200/tutorial17tv.jpg

Just a basic outline right now. I won't render the tire in Prismacolor just to keep it simple. I decided to do a Do-luck Double Six rim. :D

btw, I did this outline darker than normal so it would show up clearer on the scanner. Normally I would use a 2H or an H for the outline.
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Step 2 - Planning out reflections

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/2280/tutorial2red9qh.jpg

Chrome is kinda like a silver-ish mirror that can bend in all kinds of different shapes. It reflections pretty much everything in its environment. The inner part of the rim will have a reflection from its spokes. Btw, I'm assuming this rim was taken outside, so there will be reflections from sky, ground etc.
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Step 3 - starting to render

http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/7028/tutorial33lt.jpg

All the parts of the rim that are facing upwards will reflect sky. In this example I'm assuming that the sky is blue. If this drawing were in a sunset, the blue reflections would be orange/yellow/red instead. Remember: The reflections on the inside part of the rim are "in reverse". Use light pressure when adding the blue
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Step 4 - burnishing

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/1185/tutorial48wg.jpg

In this case, I'll use white to burnish, since I'm working with a very light color. Go over the blue areas with a bit harder pressure than when you added the blue. Be careful not to touch too much of the darker outline areas with the white, or it might smear into the light areas and give you problems.
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Step 5 - More rendering

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/3867/tutorial5red9ve.jpg

In this step I'm working with parts reflecting ground. I'm using just a regular brown. I find if you leave the area close to the horizon reflection a bit lighter, it'll make your chrome look shinier
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Step 6 - More burnishing

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/3516/tutorial60wh.jpg

white isn't the only color you can burnish with. This is where you use your greys, depending on how dark or light you would want the area you're working with. (If you're only using one grey, use white to lighten and black to darken)

here I just went in with warm grey 30%. Notice the areas still look grainy. That's because I'm not done layering yet.
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Step 7 - Burnishing again

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/1893/tutorial70tr.jpg

Added in some dark grey (warm grey 70%)... but now it looks too dark, right?
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Step 8 - And again...

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/4140/tutorial87wc.jpg

I re-added some warm grey 30% in certain areas to lighten. Wait, now you can hardly see the brown....... guess what I'm going to do in the next step...
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Step 9 - More layering

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/2108/tutorial96xj.jpg

Added some more brown. Don't add too much or it'll look fake.
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Step 10 - Darks and finishing up

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/4227/tutorial108eo.jpg

Here I added black to key points in reflections and parts behind the spokes. don't forget the brake discs and calipers. Remember that the spokes usually cast a shadow on the brake. keep your black pencil sharp Oh, and I added some red for the calliper.

*If you find that a black area looks too dark, use grey or white to lighten it.
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Step 11 - Highlights (optional)

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/7107/tutorial116po.jpg

I added white gouache paint to the parts of the wheel where between the horizon sky reflection to give it more depth. Gouache can also cover up mistakes (to a certain extent), since prismacolor (and all colored pencils) are very hard to completely erase. I usually water down the gouache a bit so it's not so think. Btw, the beauty of gouache paint is that if you're not happy about something or you made a mistake, it's water soluble so you can just remove it w/ water, or cover it up with colored pencil or graphite.


Here is the final result:

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/8919/tutorial12final8ph.jpg


Hope this helps. Any feedback and advice on how to improve this tut would be really helpful.

Thanks

Alex

thats a great help. nice one. give it a go on my muscle cars i'm working on. any feedback on my drawings would be cool. i haven't long started

sweet!

nice I looking for this kind of tutorial for a long time but now here it is thanks for sharing man :)

Nice tutorial. It's good tut for beginners that are working with color pencils.