Simple Copic Background Tutorial

Hello everyone! Today I'm sharing a little tutorial on an easy, simple background I made for Copic Marker Europe. I love images with white space around them, but I also like how different you can make your image look by filling that space and adding a coloured background. Even with no background stamps near at hand, you can create simple ones. Today we are simply going to place our character in a room and imagine a wall behind her and carpeting on the floor.

The stamp I'm using for this tutorial is an "old" Gorjuss Girl stamp called Bear Hugs by Sugar Nellie.

Step 1

Stamp your character and with ruler and a Copic Multiliner (mine is black 0.05), draw two lines representing a skirting board.

Step 2

Choose a Copic for your background - mine is YR61 - and colour doing small circular movements. The aim is not to have a totally smooth wall, but rather mimic variations in the paint. 

Step 3

For the carpeting, select 3 or 4 markers in the same shade. I'm going to use E40, 41, 42, 43. First colour the whole floor surface with your lightest marker (E40), then make little dots in the foreground with your darkest colour (E43).

Step 4

Take your next colour, one shade lighter (E42), go over the E43 dots you have just done and widen the dotted area going towards the background. 

Step 5

Do the same with your E41, going over the E42 area and widening that dotted area even more.

Step 6

Take your lightest colour E40 and keep doing dots until you reach the skirting board.

Step 7

Colour the board (E44 here) and your character (details of colours below).

Step 8

With Copic Opaque White or a white pen, add little dots on the wall. (I have also added my sentiment, by Paper Smooches.)

Then trim your image as desired and put on a card :)

Skin: E000, 00, 11, 71

Hair: 100, BV04, C5, 7, 9

Blue: B34, 37, 39

White on Dress and Socks: W0, 1, 3

Bear: E30, 31, 33, 35, R20

Background: YR61

Floor: E40, 41, 42, 43

Board: E44

Thank you very much for your visit, have a great day! Hugs,

Delphine xx