Pink Wing: Some Tips and Tricks when Coloring

Process of making this drawing

I started with making a sketch on a white piece of illustration board. I wanted a girl in an outfit with an eye catching mix of color. I want her to look fashionable but I ended up making her look a little deadly in the process.

I then stuck a piece of tracing paper over the draft so the coloring would be easier and no erasing will be needed, since everything will be done on the tracing paper (the draft below is just a guide).

Then I inked it with a Saji pen from Japan that I bought via Ebay. I have to order this pen from Ebay cause manga pens like this aren't really common in my area.

I started coloring her half way while inking. The draft below the tracing paper is really helpful here. Cause of the draft under the tracing paper, coloring while inking was possible. Another good thing about tracing papers is, they don't eat up so much ink unlike those vellums and illustration boards. You can buy papers that are made really for markers that I use for coloring but I find them expensive and hard to buy so I just stick with the cheap tracing paper. And yeah, this tracing paper is kind of dark, there are lighter tracing papers out there. They are more pricier but if you prefer them, go for it!

I prefer inking while coloring to see more of the details as I do the plate. In making manga, there is a big difference when making a monochromatic plate from a full colored plate. In a monochromatic plate, they usually use shades and other elements like hatches to make the illustration pop. To tell you, it is harder to make full colored plates and takes more time than the common black and white plates or illustrations, that is why you will somehow be amazed with manga artists that do this colored plates all the time while doing a ton of monochromatic plates. Specially those artists that publish under Shounen(boy) genre magazine companies.

I used a darker color over the blush shade, it's a poor choice since it should be a flesh color. I don't have that flesh color, so sorry. Maybe next time.

See those long lines there that I made for the arms, her dress and her knife? Those are good lines created by the Saji pen that I bought, this pen is one of the three basic manga pens that are commonly used by professional manga artists. To tell you, it took me some time to master its flow but when I did, I saw why they are more preferred than the common pens like Sakura micron, Uni pin and Technical pens.