Basic Coloring Tutorial By Missy Noll, AKA Akutenshi

Alright so you want to learn how to color pictures like the two feature below? There are many things that you need to keep in mind when coloring, your colors, your light sources, and your desired end result.This tutorial will help you get down the basics of coloring. We won't be starting off with a Silver Dapple Buckskin of course but we will work our way up to it :D.

Finished Images

Alright Step One get out your line art. I happen to be using this one so if that makes using this tutorial easier for you go ahead and use it :). I have also created a color palette. This will be most useful to you that have troubles picking out colors from and image.

The second step is to lay down your base color, this is the color that all the other colors (highlights and shading) will be placed on. We are going to make our horse chestnut for the sake of simplicity. Notice that I have another image open, this is my color reference, I use it to pick out all the colors of my horse as I am coloring. Also I am  very messy when it comes to coloring the base  color, I do this because it helps keep the lineart full when I blur all my colors together,

Now we are going to add in the first layer of shadows. Keep them to the opposite of your light source. In this case the left (our left not the computers screens :P). Put them in places to define muscle mass and toning. This will be our biggest layer of shading, as we go on to the next layers we will be using less and less of the chosen color. NOTE: Zoom in when you are doing the head, and use a smaller size brush then you use on the body. I use a 13 px brush when I do the facial details in shading.

The next layer of shadows contours the first and helps pop it out a bit more. It also helps to add more defination to details like the tendons and muscles in the legs (which will be getting more and more detailed as we add in more layers of shading to them. Once again zoom in on the head and use a smaller brush.

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