The Art of Aidan Atahan Zugul: Second attempt at color pencils...

Heres another attempt at color pencils. This time i used both sides of the drafting paper - this allowed me to get even deeper and richer colors and helped also with adding tone and shades to the piece. It was kind of a god-send working this way in layers really, as the pencils im using seem to get to a point where they make the surface of the paper slick and unworkable. Also this kinda gives you a second avenue for escape if you make a mistake or the colors just dont seem to jive together; the blue/black coat i got on him actually started out with me trying to render it in white - i failed but somehow managed to pull it back together using the second layer.

Of note, using an electric eraser on this surface is abrasive - you can pretty much rub out anything from this surface including watercolor paints as well as gouache, but when you rub out the color pencil the area you rub out becomes slippery and doesnt take the same amount of color as it did originally, you get away with a little more if you just use a regular eraser. I think im gonna look into using fixative at some point when i have to erase large areas - might help give some bight back to the papers surface; i do know however adding too much fixative almost fogs up the surface of the drafting paper leaving white misting - so gotta be careful there.

I also tried using complementary colors in the darker tones of each color rather than black - kinda gives the work a richer look. Layering in different hues of color in very light shades beneath the final color seems to make the colors shimmer optically - this is something i havent seen with printed digital works, not entirely sure why though.

A bit of a crux is that my palette is still limited to 24 pencils at the moment, and unlike paint i cant really get every color under the rainbow by layering - it would just take wayyyy too long than it already does to mix colors this way. On that note color pencils really do take wayyyyyy too long to finish pieces with, just the amount of layering gets quite annoying, but the end result i must admit is really worth it, and the digital scans really dont do the hardcopy justice. My biggest complaint about this medium at the moment however is getting darker shades of color without mixing black, like deeper shades of red would be a god-send at the moment, but alas im relegated to some post work in photoshop - you live and learn i guess....