Illustration Marker Tutorial- Prismacolor, AD Chartpak, Pantone, Copic Drawing Demo

Link- http://merrillk.com/?part=fineart&articles_id=6935&act=artist1&artist=69&collection=114
Illustration markers are incredible tools for artists! They add color quickly and accurately without a time consuming set up or a messy clean up. They can be used alone or in combination with other artistic media. This tutorial will teach you what you need to know about illustration markers. You will learn how to use them as I demonstrate by drawing a basketball player. Lets Get Started with thos tutorial!

Lets start by giving you some background knowledge.
1a.) Brands- The most popular brands are Prismacolor, Copic , Ad Chartpak and Pantone. I will do a drawing demonstration of Ad Chartpak in this video.
1.) Markers- When you use illustration markers, think of yourself as a watercolor artist. Watercolor artists create their work with beautiful transparent colors. If you choose to try illustration markers, you will definitely be able to apply and make multiple layers of transparent color. But there is a difference......the ability to mix. The colors are pre mixed and they do not blend together like wet paint as you can see in this demonstration.
2.) Special Markers- There are two different types of special illustration markers; Blender markers and gray markers for tones. The blender marker is a little deceptive. It is simply a marker without color in it. It is comprised of the fluid that the marker is mixed in. When it is applied on paper, the colors will bleed together. Notice how the line in between the two colors has disappeared. You will see more examples of how to use the blender in my demonstration. The gray markers are used to build tones. They come is Warm and Cool chromas. The warm gray markers lean towards the warm orange half of the color wheel and the cool ones lean towards the cool blue half. As you saw in the previous section, we cant mix marker colors on a palette like paint, so these gray markers become extremely important. These markers give an illustrator the ability to add tones......and tones make an artwork interesting by giving it depth. As you can see, these markers have a range of tones from one to ten. Ten is the darkest tone and one is the lightest.
3.) Paper- In order to use Illustration Markers to their full capacity, you will need Bleedproof paper. It is specifically made for markers, and it prevents markers from running. Notice the difference in the amount of bleeding of the printer paper on the left, compared to the Bleedproof paper on the right.
4.) As a final point before you see the demonstration, I wanted to make you aware of an article that I wrote that goes in to depth about the nuances of illustration markers. I will recommend color palettes, compare brands and describe techniques for illustrators. It is a good resource for people who wish to learn about illustration or for any person who is in the market for illustration markers. I will leave a link in the video description.