How do you use a Colorless Blender ?

[Smasher]

Hello everyone,

I didn't go to an art school/uni or anything, but started drawing mainly perspective ballpoint drawings and having fun coloring them with markers (I use the brand called Touch).

And so I would like to know how to use a colorless marker. How do you do it ? And what is it for exactly ^^ ?

I tried using it on very dark gray squares I made, and the strokes look like I poured water on the squares lol !

I looked up on the internet a bit and it seems it can be used to make color gradients, but I can't get it to work !

Do you use the colorless marker on the already drawn color or do you draw on a place where you have already put the colorless ... color ^^ ?

Sorry for my english, it's not my mother-tongue.

Thanks for your help !

Regards,

Smasher

[a la bapsi]

yeah, you can use the blender on two colors already there. the blender's basically your marker's alcohol or whatever without the color. it "blends" by watering down..which is why it looks weird if you go a little overboard with a dark color. ;]
blending them right would take some trial and error. what i like to do is lay down my first color, use the blender to fade that first color into the white paper, then lay the second color down.
i don't know how the touch brand works, but prisma might work the same way--it dries very quickly..you'll have to be quicker. if you lay the second color down fast and well enough, you'll have a nice blend between the markers. ;D
iiii..think i'm rambling. :x

[Smasher]

Thanks for the infos :)

The problem is that when I try to blend a color to the paper's color (like dark gray to white) it doesn't apply, it just smoothes the end of the dark gray part but doesn't blend it into the paper :(. Even if I blend just after applying the dark gray !

[a la bapsi]

yeah. x_x that becomes a real pain.
for that kind of gradient, you'd have to use a lighter grey marker and smooth it own evenly. don't have to get every value of grey, though. you can probably just let the lighter grey dry, and add another layer over for a slightly darker look. :]
i think that's where the "lightest to darkest" rule applies.
try light shades, and apply your mids and shadows before the light color dries completely. o:

[Stoat]

I used to use film cleaner for the same job. I bet they still sell it at photography outlets. It's basically a very volatile solvent that you could apply with a tissue. It works the same as a clear marker, but it's industrial strength blending.

And I'm sure the fumes my damage wasn't brained at all.

[slipp3ry]

if you want to do a gradient, you're going to have to use different values of markers to make a gradient, and then use the colorless blender to blur them together. It doesn't 'smear' the marker, it kind of just lightens it and 'fattens' the marker. It is hard to use one accurately, like within lines. It will bleed out much farther than where you touch the marker . Most markers will do this already.. like prismacolors, if you use a dark color, and then color the light color over it.. it will 'blend' them together (note it will make the color much lighter). But you arent going to be able to smear the marker with the colorblender to make gradients liek you would with paint or such, just doesnt work that way.

[Smasher]

Thanks for your replies guys I'll check that out !

[rpace]

Back in the 90s when I used markers quite a bit I had well over 150 -- probably over 200. The blender worked best with colours and values already close together. The blender is actually quite limited in how far it can stretch colour. I did make a few custom markers back then as well -- this was between the old metal lidded markers and Copic. Markers were quick, easily controlled colour, but at over 3.00 a pop they weren't that cheap to maintain. I think I was dropping about 50.00 a month on replacements or job-specific colours.

When it comes down to it, the computer and photoshop are cheaper, faster and healthier in the long term. I still have some markers, but only use them at conventions or in the rare assignment where they're more applicable due to location or surface.

~R

[Smasher]

Yeah they're not cheap if you want nice ones !

Using a computer is more cheap and also more forgiving, if you screw up something you can always go back and also the layer system is great for trying and comparing ideas of rendering in my opinion.

But using a marker is still more traditional and I love that and the smell is great xD!

[rpace]

Erm, I know two guys who died from marker fumes -- granted, they had to be pretty dumb about ventilation to get that result -- so it's a bit of a distraction when I catch a whiff of marker.

One guys was doing renders on site in his car in winter the other was doing an all-nighter of storyboards when the ventilation in his studio building was turned off. Never saw the first guy actually work with markers, but I had worked with the second and he generally worked caps-off, which really fumed-up an area fast.

~R

[Smasher]

WOW ! Didn't know that :(. Thanks for the tip !

[rpace]

Don't know how neccessary a tip it is as I'd hope markers made now are significantly less dangerous than markers from the late 80s and early 90s.

~R

[Nyx702]

Something else that really determines the blending properties of the markers is the paper type... I am not sure what paper you are using but a highly porous paper will be significantly harder to blend. They make specific "Marker paper" or try Velum. Anything slick and smooth will be easier to blend.

[Jason Ross]

Lay down the colorless blender FIRST then lay the transition color on top then go back in with the blender. That's how I learned it.