Quick Cloud tutorial

AHHHHH! Its hard to blog lately. We've been really busting our butts over at the Studio, and there are no computers there (intentionally!) so boo! I have been trying to get this tutorial posted for a spell now, and I got a few minutes right now so I'm gunna do it by tunder!

Side note! I did a second Guest Blog post for CopicMarker.com! Its about using coloured Multiliners! Check it out!

Sorry for the shadowy images! I didn't have good light at the time.
I hope its okay anyway!

So I have been getting a lot of compliments on the sky's I've been doing in my Hello, Albertosaurus comic lately, and I thought I'd do a little walk through of how its done.

I start off with a blank sky. Here I've coloured everything else already.

Imagine the paper is white! LOL!

Next I take a light light hard to photograph blue, such as BG0000 and block in where i want some rough clouds to be. Try to compose them better than I did.

Its faint, but I hope you can see the lines!

Now I take that same colour (BG0000) and start doing feathering strokes out from the edges of the cloud shapes I made. Be loose, and be varied. try not to make them look too symmetrical.

Feathering strokes! Lift up your marker at the end of each stroke so it has a softened edge!

Roughly cover in the rest of the sky as well. I never worry about my first layer being too even, since i layer so much I blend it all together at the end. This is also the lightest colour I'm going to use here, so anything else will help cover up streaks. Here it is with the first layer done.

Delicious variety. I might go over the streaky parts to smooth it out a little before going to next step.

Okay, next up, a slightly darker colour. in this case I believe B01, or B00. I don't recall exactly. This is where i pin point some snuggly cloud areas where I want to accent some cloud shapes. I'll go in and add a bit of the darker colour, then blend it out with the lighter colour.

You don't have to be precise, leave some lighter colour around the edge of the clouds to give them shape

After you've blended those with your original colour (also feel free to use any number of colours - if its easier for you to use every single colour in a sequence, DO IT!) go over into the white a but more with your light colour to add some sort of depth to them. make em 3d fluffy.

Here it is while blending, jsut before going into the white parts more.

Needs a bit more smoothing, and going into the white will soften those edges!

 Here is a close up of the finished clouds.

Just keep blending until you're happy with it!
Again, the photos are bad, but I hope you get the gist of the technique!

Here he is! Yeti! Now, you can make it less painterly and smooth it out just by practising the technique a little. I tend to keep a bit of a painterly feel to my illustrations sometimes.

All done!

I used X-Press it blending card, or Aquabee Marker paper for this, I don't remember exactly, OOPS!
I also used probably a couple colours not in there. but in general a mix of the BG0000, B01, B00, B02, B000000. I mix and match and don't really keep real track of it, sorry.

Hope this is useful :)