Trick for shading when colouring with Promarkers

Hi everyone,
Anice here. I'm back for my monthly post for the Get Funky Blog. This time I thought I would share with you  a really clever, and very easy, tip for when you are colouring in your digital stamps. This is not my idea, I saw it when I was browsing on some craft sites a while back.  I can't for the life of me find the post to give appropriate thanks.  I will keep looking and if I find it I will come back and update this post.

OK, on to the tutorial.  I'm still learning how to use my Promarkers for colouring and something I have struggled with is 'What part of the image would have light hitting it and what would be in shade?' As I said I found this little tip and it has helped me.

What the heck is this? I hear you ask. (If you look closely you will be able to see me taking the picture hehe!)  A piece of acetate with a sun drawn in one corner and 'rays of light' drawn from it using a permanent marker pen.  Stay with me all will become clear soon.

I printed two of the same digital stamps, in this case Bot Fire Away on to my chosen colouring paper. Then I placed the 'sun' acetate over the top of the one on the left with the sun facing him.  Straight away you can see    where the sun would hit him and where the colours should be lighter and where in shade.

The right hand side Bot I placed the sun behind him.  You could place the 'sun' anywhere above underneath to one side or the other it wouldn't matter, you will still get the same information about where the light would hit him.

I decided to colour Bot with blues, if you are interested which ones I'll mention it later in the post. Now, as I said I'm still learning, so give me a little space over the standard of colouring!  Here is the left hand side Bot with the sun in front of him.

And here is Bot with the sun behind him..

And here there are together with just the robot bodies coloured..

It's interesting that they are the same image but they look a bit different with the shading in different places, maybe it's just me.  What do you think?

Here are the Promarkers I used to colour Bot.

Frozen Lake (Limited Edition Winter) Pastel Blue, Denim Blue and a Blender pen.

Here's how they looked once they were both finished.

I told you it was a simple idea.  Let me know what you use to help you decide about shading when you are colouring your digital stamps/stamps. I'd love to know.

Anice xx