Copic Tutorial – Folds 101

Hi everyone! It’s Alyce here and today I want to share with you a tutorial on how I colour folds in a dress. I have had a few requests for this but it is not the most easy thing to explain, so if you have any more questions please don’t hesitate to ask Also, My photo taking skills are not the best…I don’t have a tripod or a good light in my colouring room, and it was really hard to see how to take the images! Plus when I edited them they all turned out different colours LOL! So hopefully these are ok!

For this tutorial, I have used one of my favourite Purple colour combos: V000, V01, V04, V06, V09. The reason I chose this is that you get a really nice gradient and depth between light to dark, and that pesky shine/stickiness that you get with some colours doesn’t seem to happen with these purples. Whenever I colour folds or pleats, I use a minimum of 3 colours to get a nice blend and gradient.

The image is have chosen to use is Chantelle at the Races. I think she is a really good beginner image to practice on as most of the creases and folds are already drawn in, it is more a matter of accentuating what is already there.

Step One

There are two ways that you can colour your images: light to dark, or dark to light. When colouring folds I prefer to do light to dark as it seems to blend better when I do it and so that I can lightly ‘pencil’ in where I want the folds to be. I first take my lightest colour, in this case the V000, and go around the whole image where I think the creases will be in the dress. Don’t worry if you make a mistake here as you can always go back over and fix it up with the darker colours.

As I explained earlier, this image is great for learning how to do the folds as most of the creases are already drawn in. As a general rule, where the dress dips in (or down) around the base, this will be where the darkest colour goes. It will also be darkest to one side of where the crease lines are, depending on which piece of fabric sits on top of the other. The darkest shaded parts will look like they are falling behind. A good example of this is the folds to the side of the dress. The darkest parts give the appearance of which folds sit behind others.

The top pieces of the folds will be the lightest. In this first step, I use my V000 to mark in where the darker parts of the folds will be. I always leave the general shading of the dress until last.

Step Two

You can see now with this colour that we are starting to build up the depth of the pleats and we can shape in some movement. I always find it is nice to follow the movement of the outfit, and sometimes I will add my own fold lines to give more of an appearance of movement. This comes with a little experimentation so don’t be scared to put lines in where you think they might go

Step Three

Keeping on with the trend, I now go in with my next darkest colour, the V04. I add this to the darkest areas, though making sure to not extend as far as the previous layer.

Step Four

Repeat step three though with the next darkest colour, V06. This colour combination uses quite a few markers, but don’t be scared about this. Sometimes I like using more as it helps to give a really nice seamless blend and you get a nice variation to the colour when it is done.

Step Five

Now we go in with our darkest colour, the V09. I only use this right in the very creases of the folds, as this is where the darkets parts will be. If there is one layer of the dress that sits on top of another, like Chantelle’s dress, I like to go in under the top layer with the darkest colour to give a shadow appearance.

Step Six

After going in with the darkest colour, I then go back down the ladder blending as I go. For this step I have used the V06 and have blended over the top of the V09, extending to where the first coat of the V06 ended.

Step Seven

I then go back in with the V04, blending as I go.

Step Eight

Blending further with the V01.

Step Nine

Once I am down to my lightest colour I go in and blend over the creases that I have created, but don’t extend into the uncoloured areas of the dress. I find that if I do this first, it helps to give a really smooth blend at the end. Once I have gone over all of the creases with the V000, I then go back in and blend over the entire dress. When blending, I start where the colour is the darkest and flick out into the uncoloured areas. This helps to still blend the colours. Don’t be afraid if your darkest colours tend to fade a little in this step. This generally happens to me and the next steps I do is to go back and repeat steps 1-9 LOL! I find that doing the whole thing a second time gives a really nice vibrant colour and a really blended look. Those of you that know my blog know that my work is BRIGHT and this is the secret behind it If it has worked perfect for you the first time then that is great and you can finish there but I always like to go in and add the extra depth

Step Ten

So I just told you what the next step is…starting all over again! I didn’t want to bore you with another ten photos hahaha but basically I went in with my other colours over the same areas I had previously done them, just working up that colour intensity. And then once the whole thing is done, I go back over the top with my lightest colour to really blend it back out nicely. Here is a picture of the finished result!

Hope that helped a little bit! If you still have any questions please feel free to ask Now I am off to finish colouring her up and make her into a card! Thanks for stopping by!

If you would like to see more of my creations, please pop over to my blog

Copic Colours Used

Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, R11 | Hair: E21, E25, E29 | Dress: V000, V01, V04, V06, V09

Make it Crafty Products Used

Chantelle at the Races Digi Stamp

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