What do other artists use? I have a few categories for what I would really like to know...
Skintones: What colors/shades/tools do you use?
Inking: What works? What doesn't?
Erasers: What was a great buy? What was a waste of time?
Colors: What makes a VIBRANT color? What is good for bulk jobs? What is great for minute detailing?
Personally, this is that I've found:
Skintones: I use normally four Copic shades: E-50, E-51, E-53, and E-00 (Eggshell, Milky White, Raw Silk, and Skin White). Now, these look kind of yellow at first glance, but once on the page and put with each other, they blend and work together. Skin White is great for cheeks and lips, as it's more pink, and for a "natural" lip color, I tend to use another copic, "Flesh" (I can't remember the number off top of my head), then put Skin White over it, and it goes very well. This really only works, though, for fair to average skin tone, I can't seem to work out a "tan" look. Suggestions?
Inking: For a quick job, if there's no coloring or real shading, then Sharpie pens work. For those artists out there that just gasped and shrieked "BLASPHEMY!", trust me, it works. ^^ If you have more time, and you want to color or grey-scale it by hand (I do it sometimes, when I'm not lazy), Copic Multiliners are suggested, as well as Sakura Micron ink pens. They tend not to bleed with your colors. HOWEVER!!! I must say that if you're using Faber Castell brush pens, then they WILL BLEED! I didn't realize this. Had to restart a while commission once. I learn fast.
Erasers: Pencil erasers. They is the bomb-diggity, yo. Okay, stupid comment aside... There are erasers that have the wood of a pencil around them, and you can sharpen them to a point and are great for getting fine details, like if you're working with pencil shading, it works really slick. That, and click erasers work well. The big pink erasers that we all got in Elementary school work fantastic (and so do the white ones! Though my dog comments that they taste pretty bad...). Kneaded erasers are pretty cool too (and entertaining!) and when they get black, just toss it in some soapy water, knead it a bit, pull it out, dry off, knead some more, and resume use.
Colors: Actually, I find for the most part, that Prismacolors seem kind of dull for most of their colors. It might just be my weird taste, but they seem that way, when they dry. Copics are like this too, and I often have to take a Crayola (Yes, dimestore Crayola) and go over it to bring that vibrance back into it. I do want to say that as far as my opinion goes, Roseart is not near the color vibrance or quality, but again, my own opinion.
Watercolor: Yeah, I know. Those dinky little trays of 12 colors you get in grade school. But you can do cool stuff! If you take a dried out marker, get it a bit wet, rub it around on the watercolor of your choice, and dip your "brush" back into the water for a moment, you have a marker with watercolor that you can spread around with the ease of a marker applicator! Now, I don't suggest taking a dried out orange and coloring purple with it. It might actually reactivate the dried ink and run into the watercolor! So just keep in mind: blue with the blues, yellow with yellows, etc.
Feel free to throw in your own tips and advice for traditional artists!