HHC37 Stars OR Stripes and Copic Tips: Dragon scales!

Today's challenge at the High Hopes blog is hosted by our fab Diva Lacey! She wants us to use stars OR stripes on our card/project this week. Or you can use both, as I did! The stars could be an embellishment, or stamps, or part of the designer pattern, or you could even hand draw them, or use punchies, any way you wish! Stripes could be from strips of paper, hand drawn, on the DP or paper pieced onto the image. If you check out her creation for this challenge, you will see that it displays the stamps that are up for grabs in the weekly blog candy giveaway on the High Hopes Blog! To enter the contest, simply join in the challenge and link up a photo of your creation to the comment section on the High Hopes Blog under this week's challenge. Why not join in? You could have a chance to be a winner!
The stripes I used came from tissue paper! I bought a sweater at one of those fancy stores, and they always wrap what you buy in this striped tissue paper. I always keep it because I like using it on cards! I glued it down onto a piece of white cardstock using a glue pen. Easy peasey!
The stars were on a piece of dp from Sandylion. I got that at the dollar store where they sell them two 12 x 12 sheets for a dollar.
The sandwich was cut out and popped up near the top, and I used a craft knife to cut around the dragon's thumb and palm so that I could slip the plate inside and make it look like he was really holding it!

Copic Tips:
I stamped the following images separately: Huggable Hank, Dagwood Sandwich and Chef's Hat in Memento Tuxedo Black ink by Tsukeneko onto Manga Drawing Pad paper by Canson, and colored with Copics.
I finished coloring the dragon first and then used a technique I learned from Marianne, the Copic pro extraordinaire (check out her blog for more amazing tutorials and tips). She actually does all her dragon scales one at a time, using the tip of the brush tip on the colorless blender pen. Here is an example of one of her dragons done with this technique. But I wanted to do it the fast way, using a terry cloth rag soaked in blender solution. I think her way may be more tedious, but in hindsight, it is a better way to go. You'll see why in a minute.
I dabbed some Copic colorless blender ink onto a terry-cloth rag and pressed it firmly onto the image and held it there for about two seconds. This made the paper very soaked with blender solution, and the green colors began to pool in various random circular patterns that resembled scales. HOWEVER! the paper was SO soaked, that the green ink began to bleed OUTSIDE THE LINES of the image and made an inky mess!!! I knew I could fix it though. I just had to wait until the paper was fully dry. That took a lot longer than usual, because I had really soaked it! Just to be sure, I waited over an hour. But then I just pushed the color back into the image with back and forth motions with the blender pen. I had to do this several times, waiting several minutes between each time so that I was doing it always on dry paper. Yes, this takes patience!
My second "mistake" was that I didn't color the dragon dark enough. Anytime you use the blender solution, you are removing color, and since the soaked cloth was pressed over the whole dragon, the colors really lightened up a lot. I think the scales would have shown up a lot more if I had colored him in a few shades darker than I actually wanted him to be, and then after doing this technique it would have lightened to just the right shade.
Finally, I did go over the image in a few places where the scales didn't show up enough for my liking, with the blender pen, and just like Marianne does, I touched the tip of the blender pen and held it for two seconds where ever I wanted an extra scale or two to show. I have found out that this technique shows up best when done on medium to dark shades of color, and hardly shows up at all on light colors. That's why I think next time I would color my dragon in a lot darker to begin with! I actually really want to color in another dragon, now that I have learned from my mistakes, and improve my technique! I would like to get the scales showing up a lot more.
Thanks for looking today and God bless you!