>>7912590
You can trace your own drawing in a clean sheet of paper(like copy paper) with a fineliner and then color.

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>>7912590
There are some limitations on what kind of color you can achieve with the medium, depending on the density of the pigment you are using and the type of paper, so you need to scale your expectations accordingly. Unfortunately it'll require a lot of experimentation to find what works for you. if you don't want to waste you own line art you can also try printing out stuff or one of those adult coloring books to practice on.

>>7912590
>How important are materials?
Somewhat. You can always learn to work with crappy materials and make them work for you. Brilliant art has been made with ball point pens, children's crayons, mspaint, etc.
However, the ease of creation, and perhaps the heights the medium can go for you, are effected by the quality of the materials.

some materials matter much more than others. eg the difference in quality between cheap and expensive colored pencils is much more noticeable than with graphite pencils.
>>7916755
this

im my experience i like to buy these in [grade/cost]:
>colored pencils - high
>drawing paper - mid, or low if you know what to look for
>oil/acrylic - high
>gesso - mid
>canvases/fabric/sbars - low if small, high if big.
>charcoal - low / mid
>chalk - low
>graphite pencils - mid / high (theyre cheap regardless)
not sure about brushes as ive only ever used the same set of (high grade) ones

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This is colored pencil, and I broke many points carving the pigment into the paper.
And to get color without the texture of the drawing surface poking through, you have to bombard the area with repetitive strokes until its slick and opaque.

>>7916830
1983, eh? Awesome that you've held onto it. Know what brand of pencil you used? Your colors are super boldly done. Beautiful.

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>>7912590
For colored pencils, paper matters more than the pencils until you're at a professional gallery exhibit level.

You can make fine pencil color art with lower quality paper such as cheap journal paper or copy paper. But it requires different techniques. You can never get something like this >>7916830 on slick and thin paper. But if instead of smushing the color into the paper you lay it down as soft and consistently as possible you can build up layers and completely cover up the surface with soft tones like in the picture I posted. This works better with cel-shaded styles that separate tones.

For soft and complex transitions you do need good quality paper meant for art. The best paper for colored pencils is one with thick but not cushiony or easy to dent consistency, low to no pressed texture and a fine grit surface. Pastelmat by Clairfontaine is the most popular paper with these qualities. It's also $6 per A3 sheet on average.

For a similar but much cheaper experience you could buy a sheet of 1500+ grit polishing paper at the hardware store. Should be $1 on average. Just be aware it'll eat up a lot of pencil and you'll have to keep whatever you draw in a plastic binder sheet or spray it with fixative when you're done.

Other middle ground options in cost and quality are vellum surfaced bristol board or cheap hot press watercolor paper like Baohong or Fabriano's student grade paper, or even the watercolor sketchbooks you can find for $10 on temu/ali. Ok quality watercolor paper happens to be good to great quality color pencil paper so long as it's both 300gsm and HOT PRESS.

The school grade FC pencils you have are good enough to learn with. Don't worry about upgrading them until you use them up and are sure you love color pencil art.

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>>7916999
I think itwas Farber. Whatever the high school provided. And it wasn't paper that I did this on,a cardboard like white surface thicker than Bristol board, and I chose it for durability as I draw in normal pencil, driving dark areas with force, but I have been following up with black gel ink which does a superior job defining darks without causing dents in the pictures.

This was done on paper when I was 14 or so and colored pencil was employed. I think magic marker of some sort in places.

>>7912590
Materials are extremely important. Looks like you’re using colored pencils, and I’d recommend using Lyra graduate colored pencils instead. Lots of them are already dark and they’re good to learn with. Just keep trhing colored pencils until you find what works for you