Colour A Snowman Tutorial

The first step when you are about to paint an image from a colouring page is to clean
up your graphic. Depending on how "busy" your image is, this might take just a couple
minutes, or it could take you somewhat longer.

What you need: Jasc's Paint Shop Pro - Download 30 day trial Here
Snowman picture - Download Here

Colour Key: Optional

#C6E7FA - bluebird

#FFFFC0 - bird's beak & feet, snowman's hat band, chicks, bell on dog's collar

#C00000 - bird's hat, holly berries, snowman's scarf, dog's collar

#004000 - holly leaves, snowman's mittens

#D03863 - snowman's nose

#C5C1C1 - dog

#005C82 - book, kitty's hat

#D69016 - chick's beaks and legs

#C0FFC0 & #03A503 - left chick's hat

#C0FFC0 - left chick's scarf

#FFC0C0 - right chick's scarf

#F4CC8C - kitty

1. Open your image, which you will usually find in gif or jpeg format. First thing to do is go to
Image/Canvas Size. Open a new blank canvas the same size as your image/transparent/16 million
colours. Click somewhere outside the graphic you are going to "colour" with your Magic Wand tool.
Click Selections/Invert > Edit/Cut > then paste the graphic onto your new blank canvas as a new layer.

2. The next thing you will need to do (this step will just save you a lot of aggravation later), is to zoom in on
your graphic a couple of times. Go over the entire picture's line edges to make sure they are all "connected".
You will most likely notice spots where something is just not touching on the outline. You will be clicking
inside your lines with your magic wand to select areas to colour and if you have a broken line, the whole
graphic will select when you use the magic wand, instead of just the area you want to colour. Hope that
makes sense. Couldn't think of how else to explain it. Ah.....how about a little screen shot?....hehehe.
See below.

3. Now you're ready to colour your image. For this tutorial, I have listed colour numbers as I used
them, however you are certainly free to adjust/change them to suit yourself. To "colour" your areas,
grab your magic wand click in side the dark lines. With the colour you're going to floodfill in the foreground
of your PSP colour pallette and your background set to black, flood fill your selected areas. Most of these that
I've done, I found I had to go back and touch up certain spots after I've flood filled. You will find little
squares of white once in awhile. If these are on your image outline touch them up with black, using your paintbrush
tool, size 1. If it's inside, you would obviously touch up with whatever colour you're currently using. Some areas, such
as the stripes on the dog's hat in this picture, I found it easier to just paint with my paintbrush set at 1.

4. Once you've completed your colouring, you're finished. You can now resize and tube your image.

TIP: Rather than selecting every bit of your graphic one area at a time, hold down your shift key while
using your magic wand if you are selecting different parts of the graphic that you want to fill with the same
colour. For instance, the little pup in this graphic. Click with your magic wand inside one ear, then hold down
your shift key and click his other ear, face and paws and then you can flood fill him all at once.

NOTE: As shown by a lady in one of my graphics groups, these colouring tutorials can
be jazzed up big time! Please click HERE to see Texas Patches' rendition of the snowman,
complete with textures and shading.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions please Email me.