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Since so many people ask how I color My Pictures, I decided to make this XD Though I usually dont use this program as I hate it. I usually use OpenCanvas 3, but since its alot harder to use then Adobe, and most people dont even know what it is, I decided to go ahead and use Adobe 7 for it.

News: Added a new picture you guys can color for practice. It is at the bottom of the tutorial

This Tutorial was created in:

(( X3 You can probably use the same steps I used for this tutorial in other art programs that have the usage of Layers ))

-You are allowed to save the line art onto your computer and color it for practice. This is ONLY for practice, you are not to go and enter it into the beauty contest or use it for other purposes.-

Getting started

1) Ok! What you need to get started is to draw/scan a picture. I drew the picture of a faerie cybunny a while ago, but decided to use it again (( I removed its wings for this tutorial )) With My Wacom Graphire 3 4x6 Tablet. Whoo thats a long name!

2) Open a Photoshop program! I'm using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for this one, but I do believe you can use pretty much any program for this simply tutorial (( except for ms paint as it doesn't have layers xD ))

3) Lets get coloring! X3 Coloring is simple and fun if you know how to use your programs and tools right. What you need to do is make sure you have your layer window open, If you dont then on the top tool thinggy, where file, edit, image, etc.. is, look to the very end of it and you'll see 'window' click on it and a drop down menu will show up, make sure that 'layers' is checked.

4) Now with the layers window open, you'll see that the lineart of the cybunny is named background, below that, you'll see some buttons, one a little trash can, and the other that looks like a page being flipped or something. Click on the little page one and you'll now have a new layer.
At the top of the layer window, you'll see a little drop down menu again. It says 'normal'. Click on it and go down a little until you see 'multiply' and choose on it. Now choose a color (( I choose the color of a faerie cybunny )) and begin to color, As you can see, you wont color over the lines as long as you have the layer set on multiply.

5) Now that you have parts of the picture that were the color of the cybunny, its time to shade! Shading is easy, just create a new layer and set it to multiply, and with the airbrush tool, go around the parts where you think the image would have shadows.

Keep on creating more and more layers to get the shading darker. When your done shading, its time to add highlights! Create a new layer but keep the setting on 'normal'. Change the color to a light purple or whatever the color of the cybunny is and begin to color where you think the light would come in. When your done with that, create another normal layer and change the color to white then begin adding more highlights. After about 3 layers of multiplying and 2 layers of highlights, the picture to the left is what I came out with.

6) Its time for more coloring and shading! x3 Just get the color of the faerie cybunnies neck fluff and begin to color, shade and highlight. While I was at it, I added a cute little blush to the cybunnies face X3 I also decided to go ahead and add the hearts. (( Make sure you add the hearts after your finish shading the fluff )) Just create a normal layer and color the hearts on. As you can see with the layer set on Normal, the colors stay ontop and go over everything. When your done with that, go ahead and begin to color in the inner ear with a pinkish color. Dont forget to shade and highlight it XD See, coloring is getting kinda repeative isn't it? Color in-Shade-Highlight X3 Easy to remember!

7) Now its time to re-touch! X3 I'm going to go back and add more shading to areas that need it and add more highlights. I do this often when I start to think the picture looks bad or am maybe thinking about trashing the picture all together xD Adding some re-touches usually helps me change my mind and makes the picture look better. I added about 4 more layers of shading and 2 more of highlighting.

8) Now its time to color the eyes! I have many styles of coloring them, but I choose this one since I thought it was the easiest.

First color in the color of the eye, I chose blue since I thought it would look nice on the cybunny XD.

Now add another multiply layer and add a pupil and shade a little at the bottom of the eye.

Create a new layer, instead of putting it on multiply, put it on 'color dodge' and color along the part of the eye we didn't shade.

Now create a normal layer and switch colors to white and begin to add shines of light for the eye, making it look all sparkly X3

9) And there we have it folks! ^ ^ You've completed coloring the picture! You could go back and add some more re-touches or even change the color of the lines X3 or add a background if you like.

10) To change the colors of the lineart, create a layer right above the background layer (( click on background layer then click on new the layer button )) and select the setting 'screen' Now get a dark color, lets get the colors we got by shading, use the eyedropper tool and click on the dark purple, when you have it begin to color the lines X3 And for a simple background, just color some grass, use a normal layer and a light green to give it some nice effects. For the sky, I just used a nice blue color and colored lightly around, then used the eraser to kinda get rid of the blue yet let lightly stay there.

Well I hope this Tutorial helped you or someone XD I'm not very good at explaining things, but hey, I tried. If you have any further questions about the tutorial, then go ahead and neomail me X3

Extra Practice
Here is another Picture you can practice with. ONLY as practice. Do not do and post it somewhere and claim you drew it.