Alright, so you drew a cool pic, but you wanna add some color, right? Well, first ink your picture if you haven't already. Inking just means that you go over the original sketch(it's pencil, right? it better be! ^.~) in some kind of pen. You can get some brush pens at your local craft store, or even use a plain old bic pen if you like. If you really think you're hot stuff you can get a real pen and nibs(pen tips) and a bottle of ink. Personally, I use the Micron brand of pens. They come in a variety of tip sizes so you can get a thick or thin line. Okay, next, you went over all the important lines with your pen. Now you want to erase everything else! You want only the ink to be showing on your paper, no messy pencil lines. Then, ready, set, SCAN!

Hopefully you have some kind of scanner or a good friend with one. scan your image in at whatever dpi you like. (If you have no clue what "dpi" is, don't worry, just do a basic scan.) Got it?

Well, she's lookin pretty good, but the lines aren't quite as black and nice as I remember them being on the paper... well, let's fix that... Go to your Image menu, the Adjust, Levels. (Auto Levels will do a good job if you don't know how to do it yourself.) If you ARE adjusting the levels by yourself and not leaving it to the program, just play with the keys till you think it looks good.

Okay, now to get that line art on it's own layer! It's ok, we'll go slow. See that red circle? If you don't already have a window open with Layer, Channels, and Paths like the one above, just go into the View menu, the select Channels. Now, once again, the red circle. see the little button i circled? click it! it will select everything BUT your lineart. Hit your "Delete" button and it will get rid of all the little specks of dust and any remaining pencil lines you may have forgotten. Click the little circle button again and it'll hug your line art just a bit tighter.

Now go into your Select menu and go to "Inverse" (or, if you like key commands, just hit Shift+Ctrl+l ) This will select just your line art. Now Hit Ctrl+c or go to "copy" then hit Ctrl+v or go to "paste". Remember that "Channels" box? There should also be a "Layers" menu on it. You should see 2 layers now. your "background" and your "layer 1".

Delete your "Background" layer. Yep, get rid of it. Now, make a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+n or go to the "Layers" menu up top and select "new layer". you should now have *dramatic music* TWO LAYERS. one with your lineart, the other is empty. Put the empty layer BELOW the lineart. that's right, just drag it down, so it's like the above pic.

Now, again in your "Layer" menu. Go to "new" then "Background from layer" This will change your background back to white, but will still have nothing on it. It will now be named "background." You should see just your lineart on a white canvas. do you see it?

Next, LOCK the line art layer, by clicking the little box. got it? This keeps your lineart from being tampered with. It can't get messed up or accidentally colored on, etc...

Alright, now, go to your "edit" menu and click "fill" make sure you have the color black selected or your lineart will be... whatever other color you had selected. This just makes sure all the little cracks have been filled it with black and your lineart is as nice as it's going to get. Phew! That was the hard to explain part, now we get to color!

Make a new layer, this time, it should go between the lineart layer and the background. The layers might get confusing, so it's a good idea to name your layers (line art, skin color, hair color, etc...).

Now, we're going to use the Polygonal Lasso tool. if you don't see it in that little box, click and hold until you see a menu come up, then select the one you want. In the lower right corner, you can see i've started tracing around her hair. You can start with whatever color you like first, this is just an example.

OK! You selected the entire area you wanted to color! (don't forget, you can always add on to stuff you selected by holding "Shift" while you click with the polygonal lasso. don't try to select it all in one swoop! You can subtract too, by holding the "Alt" key. When you've selected it all, color it in either with a large brush, or by going to "edit" and "Fill". Make sure if you use the "fill" feature, the color you want to use is selected.

Keep making new layers after you color the previous ones. MAKE SURE the new layers you color or use are BELOW the previous one. I colored the Hair first(see, each layer is named!), Then the Body Suit, then the Yellow Material, and so forth. BE SURE TO LOCK EACH LAYER AFTER YOU ADD COLOR!

Now, you can go back and color each layer however you want. you can use a brush, or whatever tools you like. don't worry, if your layer is locked, you can't color outside the lines! How sweet is that?! Plus if you end up changing your mind for a color, it's as easy as finding the layer and re-filling it with a new one. Now, onto adding shadows and highlights. First, decide where your LIGHT SOURCE is. that means, decide where the light is coming from. the light in this pic is coming from the upper left. so anything in the lower RIGHT will have a shadow. make sense? I'm going to do a cell-shaded look for this pic, so get out your poly lasso again. lasso the places you want to put shadows. you can be messy! remember, it won't let you color outside the lines if your layer is locked! now! Fill in what you selected with a darker color...

Now for some hair highlights!

Well, it looks a little sharp, so let's soften those hard edges a bit... Go to "Filter", "Blur", and "Gaussian Blur".

Adjust the Radius until you like how it looks. all the blur tool does is make the edges a little softer. I usually have it set at about 1.4 pixels.

Keep going till you've colored all the layers and added shadows and highlights!

From there, you can add backgrounds, filters, effects, whatever you want! Happy coloring! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial!