I have always loved coloring. So this lesson was fun for me. I have tried several things and think I have come up with the easiest way for some people to paint these fun little things. Of course it will still take work and time on your part. And actually you have to pay more attention to your work area than you would think, or it could mess you up. So we are making small pixel painting. This is pretty much easiest to do if you have DIP10 or later. Because before that it is hard to get a pixel at a time painted. Although if you find some already made outlines, it could work in other versions. I am starting this lesson from the beginning. Which means making your own outline. Yes, you can make it homemade, but I like a little help. So I looked at some of the line drawings in my clipart software. And found a few things I really liked. So I saved them.

Download the BIGbunny picture here.

Download the cleaned up bear hugging bearto color.

And here we go!! I found a little bunny that was cute.

But he is too big to start with. His actual size was

So I resize it down to this

When you do this, you will notice a kind of blur look,

and now the hard work starts! You have to "clean" it up before you can add color. To do this, you will need to zoom in and out, plus use your paintbrush to add and take away some parts of the outline. To zoom in and out, you can use the wheel on your mouse, or the lever on your toolbar. I zoom to the actual size at 100% to see what my outline and painting looks like, and to see them I zoom into 1000% or so.

After resizing your clipart, if you zoom in, you will see something like this

The green arrows show the light grey squares you have to decide to either make darker or take away altogether. It is up to you and what you like. Sometimes you will have to zoom out and check out what it looks like, then maybe tweak it. To make your pixels darker or take them away, you will go to EFFECTS/FREEHAND PAINTBRUSH. You can click on the white square, and you will get a choice greys including white and black. You will also need to put your brush size at 1.

To use your paintbrush, you will have to remember that it paints to the bottom right of the tool. So if you want a certain pixel, you will have to place your tool at the upper left of that pixel, to be able to target the pixel you want. Here I have started cleaning up the ear of my bunny

And here is bunny all cleaned up

The next part will be a little tricky. First you will go to your toolbar and go to EDIT/FLATTEN ALL LAYERS. And after that, you will need to use your magic wand

Make sure the settings are this to start with

Click on the black outline, make sure all the squares have little ants marching around them. You may have to look very close and zoom in even closer. If you find that there are some that are not selected, then go to your selection window and click the + sign and then click on those little black squares.

If you have parts that were selected but you want them not, like in the eye, you will need to click on the minus sign and then click those areas.

Once you have all the black areas selected, will go to EFFECTS/FILL/with black. This will help all your pixels to be the same color black. Now you will need to choose these settings for your magic wand

Now click on the white areas around the outside of your graphic. If it selects parts of the outline, you will again have to look close and use the -/+ to add to the selection or take away from it.

Once you have only the background selected, you will go to EDIT/DELETE and get rid of the background. Now you will be selecting parts of your outline, to fill with paint. But before you add color, you will click on one area, and make sure it is just the area you want. Once you have it all selected, you will then press CTRL+d twice to make 2 duplicates of that area. In your stack, you will see something like this

To make shading easier, I have chose to bevel in a way that looks more like shading. That is the reason for the 2 duplicates. You will click on the top duplicate and fill with the lightest color you want, then click on the lower duplicate and fill with the next darkest color. Then you will click the top duplicate and go to EFFECTS/EDGES/SOFT and apply the soft edge so that the bottom darker color shows through. After you have done this, you will see something like this

When you have it the way you like, you will need to select another part of the picture. Always remember to click on your orignal outline to be able to select your next part

And now select another area

If at any time you are selecting a part with the magic wand, and adding or taking away some pixels, and you hit the wrong part, always use the undo arrow then move on

If at any time, you don't like the 2 color you choose for shading, you can go back in and fill with another color

And here is the little guy all colored!

And a few other things

There are many other ways of coloring. I have tryed them all and you can too, and choose the easiest one for you. Here are some other examples.

This one is done freehand painted, and I just went in and colored each space with the paintbrush, also covering up the outline.

And here is a totally freehand. I set the paintbrush at 50% and then painted in shades and lights. It is a less controled painting method.

For anyone wanting some good links for ideas, you can read a few pages I found interesting! Pixel Painting Lovers List
Homemade pixel instructionsI found this one very good!
Complete Guide to Pixel PaintingAnother site I found very helpful!

And remember you can always search google.com for Pixel + Painting + Tut, or outlines.