Gold/silver/bronze on colored pencil?

[mandyjo]

Hopefully this is the right place to ask this question. I'd like to add metalics to my drawings of dragons (a tiny sliver of gold on the ends of scales, silver streaks through plates on the back, etc) but I'd like them to look like real gold or silver leaf. I know there are gold and silver colored pencils, but those go on much too dull. It's more like they are filled with tiny gold or silver specks and only shine when seen from one particular angle. I know shiny gold and silver would not blend into the drawing, but I'm only planning to use them as tiny accents on very boldly colored drawings. Does anyone know of anything like this that I could use? If not, I'm also curious, what do you think of the idea?

[KarenCardinal]

Well, this is just my 2 cents but...
If you're wanting to give the illusion of gold and silver you should be able to do that in your value sketch before you add any color at all. You should be able to make the textures and reflections look real with nothing more than graphite (or your french grey pencils). Once you can do that, then you decide what colors to use to portray the mood you want.

Now if you are thinking of adding touches of "real" gold to your work... gold leaf is a wonderful tool that works really well with colored pencils.

I hope that was helpful!
Enjoy it all!

[mandyjo]

Yes I was wanting "real" gold. But it doesn't necessarily have to be real :) Just for tiny accents that would be about 2x8mm. I'm happy to hear that this looks OK! I've never seen it done before, I was just thinking, hmm it might be kinda neat to put gold in the drawing, especially since dragon drawings are novelty pieces. Thanks!

[KarenCardinal]

I think I see what you're getting at... sounds great!

I would definately look into silver and gold leafing (is that how you spell it?)

It's wonderful for accents, works great with cps and isn't that expensive.

I hope you post of picture of some of your works!
Enjoy!

[Arlene]

There are a few wways. You can use a gold ink or gold acrylic paint. You can use a gold leaf or you can make the illusion look real with your regular colored pencils. Here's my drawing When Time Stopped and notice the gold on the cups. All that was done by doing an underpainting not of grays which would have dulled the color (sorry karen!) but with the complementary color. I then used different reds, oranges, greens and yellows to achieve the effect.


http://scribbletalk.com/showthread.php?t=40

[KarenCardinal]

You're right Arlene... grey underpainting would be duller than complements. I was just saying the effect should look real without any color at all. You should be able to draw it with grey pencils and still make it look like silver or gold.

I didn't think about acrylics. I guess I'm not used to thinking of gold as a color so much as an illusion. Touches of ink, acrylic, leafing, etc. could be very interesting though to bring a sparkle to an area. :D

[Toni]

I have a little bottle of liquid gold leaf, comes in a small jar like model paint. It's applied with a pen and nub. I really like it.

TJ