In this class I will show you how to illustrate an adorable rock family portrait with alcohol-based markers and coloured pencils, with a heavy focus on techniques for rendering their varying textures. I’ll also go through prep work, as well as briefly touch on sketching and inking techniques to help you along with your beautiful project.

This class is for students of all skill levels with an interest in nature and alcohol-based markers such as copics. There is no need to be proficient in drawing, as the subject itself is a relatively simplistic one. The focus of this course is rendering, not sketching, and I will guide you every step of the way!

Honing your skills and adding techniques to your roster of knowledge will improve the uniqueness and variety of your illustrations, helping you not only to stand out from the crowd but develop new ways of tackling your projects. For example, the method you would use to render the texture of the rocks in this course may prove useful when drawing similar subjects such as gemstones, wood, roads, even thicker skinned animals.

Materials Recommended

Ohuhu’s Set of 36 Grey-tone Alcohol markers (feel free to use what you have, but I purposely used only markers from this set to make things simple and affordable for those just starting out with alcohol markers)
Coloured pencils (not required, but highly recommended. I use Derwent Coloursoft)
White gel pen (I have both the Sakura Gelly Roll 08 and the Uni-ball Signo UM 153)
Black pens for the lineart (there are so many options, but I like to use Sakura Pigma Micron in 03 and 05, and PITT artist pen in S and F.)
Pencil that can be easily erased (HB)
Eraser
Paper: I will explain more on this in the lessons, but it should be smooth, thick (at least 200gsm) and meant for pen/ink and marker, like Bristol. For this project I used Ohuhu’s Marker Pad in size 8.9 x 8.3 in.

Provided resources

Materials list
Reference photos used

Marielena Mata

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