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For the 2011/2012 Christmas season, I decided to make a few illustrations as gifts. Normally I would use pencil on paper or ink, whatever. This time I decided to use Copic markers on canvas. I Gessoed the canvas of course and then put down some light pencil lines before marking up the rough with a grey Copic. My goal was to start with a blank canvas, a bottle of Merlot #8, a few markers and middle of the night hours. Yep, so,… my process is simple. Draw, color, color more, color more again, rinse and repeat. I like to start with the eyes and nose in order to establish line weight and the colors I’ll use throughout the illustration. I took these pics with my Vowel Phone 4 under crappy light. I’ve worked my way to her mouth at this point. Oh – so exciting. So I’ve inked in the hair and I’ve started working up the body outlines. I really don’t have a strategy at this point except to finish as quickly as possible. I think it was like 3 in the morning at this stage. Clothes and chest time. I decided to stay very monochromatic with the illustration. So yep, the clothes and skin have the same tones. Yes, almost out of wine and shading in the skin for the arms. Time to add more shadow and depth the skin and clothes. Copic People! Copic! The final product and I’m happy with the final illustration. — Time for bed.