Swatching is often one of the first things people do with a medium – Copics are no different!
For many years we had numerically-ordered charts as above – and yes there’s a use for them for certain! Sometimes I do refer to them, because they give me different information than other charts. You can find a bunch of them on Sharon’s resource page on her blog; she’s an amazing colorist, go follow her, too!
I designed the Copic Hex Chart, mostly because I wanted to see all the closely-related colors right next to each other. I would get tired of getting up from the sofa to go refill a marker mid-project, and wanted to know if there was a color really close that I could substitute, putting off the reinking effort. I began with one group of colors for skintones…that grew to the browns for hair, and a year and a half later the whole thing was done! At the time of this writing in 2019, no colors have been added – but since the Too Corporation has been undergoing huge changes in the last few years, who knows if that will change at some point!
It quickly becomes intuitive, and some have said just the process of coloring it opens their eyes – but here are a few tips for you to consider:
I’d like to request that posted photos of the Hex Chart be done carefully; only picture a part of the chart, put markers over it, etc – you can make beautifully shot photos, but just be sensitive that untoward folks can’t steal your photo and not pay for the chart. It’s only a few bucks – and while some may think that’s a lot, it makes a huge difference in keeping my business going. The value of it to an artist is far beyond the cost of one marker. It always makes me sad to have to do get a lawyer to go get someone to remove a posting of my chart, but the law says I have to defend my copyright or lose it. Wahhh!
When testing out color combinations, I’ve often just grabbed a scrap sheet to try colors out on – then found that I had no record of what I had tried last week, and regretted it! There’s a few color charts available within the classes here on the site (no extra charge) – but there are also some free charts:
Here’s just one of many many videos in which I used the Hex Chart to come up with my colors; do a search on YT and you’ll find lots more where people discuss how they use ut.
Join our creative community! Our Student Facebook Group is for all classes here …and while there are no finished projects in this class, you’re welcome to join the group and get an idea of what kind of beautiful works can be created from learnings in classes on this website!