Copic Colors - February 2018

Last month, I heard of a cool new monthly art challenge that is right up my alley: #CopicColors!  Obviously, it involves Copic art markers but in particular, it challenges people to create/color a drawing using nothing but the three featured colors of that month.  The colors are posted on Copic's website and they sell a three-pack of those colors for a limited time each month.  I LOVE my Copic markers, so there was no way I wasn't participating once I learned of this!  I even added it to my livestreaming schedule; I now do my monthly Copic Colors drawing every third Monday of the month :D

Pencil sketch and marker test.

Since this was my first time doing the challenge, I had to decide on my personal completion rules.  Turns out, there aren't any official rules at all, just the announcement of the three colors each month.  A lot of people approach the challenge in different ways--some use NOTHING but the markers, some allow the addition of the colorless blender, some only use a couple colors, and I've even seen some people add a contrast color for effect.  Here's what I decided to use as my personal rules:

• Black and white ink are allowed, as well as graphite and eraser for underdrawing.
• All three colors must be used.
• No other colors may be used.
• Colorless blender is allowed.

And finally, most important for me:

• Colors can be substituted as necessary.

You see, for my very first Copic Colors challenge, one of the featured colors isn't available in the Classic line of markers, which is the set I own!  There's no way I'm buying markers from a different set just to do this challenge, so I decided that I can choose the next best color from my set when a color isn't available.  (Of course, if the color is available in a Classic marker but I just don't own it, I will happily expand my collection!)

Lineart, on marker paper, made using a brush pen.

Since the colors for February were pink and brown, I decided to draw chocolate-covered strawberries :3 I even found reference images that had pink-tinted white chocolate along with the dark chocolate, so it was too perfect.  I decided to use marker paper, and that was for two reasons: 1) c'mon, marker challenge, marker paper! and 2) the paper is translucent which allows me to trace my sketch.  I used a black brush pen for the main lines.  Even though I was also allowing myself to use white ink, the sheen on the chocolate areas wasn't very strong, so I only used it on the white heart sprinkles.  I tried to use my colorless blender marker, most especially to get a nice variation of tone from the single brown marker, but it totally died midway through the project!  You can see the difference in the final piece: the left-most berry is so much more smooth and blended than the center and right.

You can watch the entire creation of this piece on YouTube!  As I mentioned earlier, I added it to my livestreaming schedule, so my Twitch stream recorded it all in real time :D

Copic Colors Challenge, February 2018, ink & marker

I think, for my very first try and considering that I had to substitute one of the three colors, my February Copic Colors drawing came out nice!  If my colorless blender had survived the project, I would be more happy with the brown application, but I made do with what I had.  It was just an extra challenging challenge, this time!

(P.S. I bought a refill and brought my blender back to life right away, lol.  Should be good to go for a long while, now!)