I had such a wonderful time learning to color Disney characters over the holiday! I was coloring these Disney characters to give to my niece and nephew as a Christmas gift. Olaf and Ariel are their favorite characters, and it was such a pleasure to bring them to life on paper and to see their faces as they opened their gifts.
So, how did I do it? Well as I was learning to color these Disney characters, I used a standard HB drawing pencil to create the lines on them. I traced a Disney reference photo for this part of the process to ensure that the shape of each character was accurate. Next, I ran a kneaded eraser lightly over the lines of each drawing so that they would not be visible once I was done coloring the characters.
Once the lines had been drawn, I started to apply layers of colored pencil to each area of the Disney characters one at a time. For instance, when I started on Ariel, I colored her hair, then her face, then her tail, and so on. I used Polychromos colored pencils from Faber Castell to draw these characters.
The other thing that was important was to understand shading. For example, where would Ariel’s hair look lighter, and where would it look darker? I then picked 4 shades of red for her hair. The lightest shade of red felt more like a pink tone, and the darkest color was a deep maroon. I decided to lay down my darkest tones first then slowly worked my way to the lightest colors in layers. Then I layered on 2-3 more coats until I have a smoothly blended picture. I then repeated this same technique with Olaf!
Materials Used for Disney Characters:
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- Strathmore Colored Pencil Paper Pad 400 Series [Amazon] [Blick]
- HB Pencil: General Semi-Hex Graphite Drawing Set [Blick] [Amazon]
- Kneaded Eraser with Case: Faber-Castell [Blick] [Amazon]
- Polychromos Colored Pencil Set – 60 Pieces: Faber-Castell [Amazon]
- Polychromos Colored Pencil Set – 120 Pieces: Faber-Castell [Amazon]
If you’d like a deeper understanding of this coloring technique, I would also suggest checking out Kit & Clowder. Alyce does a great job of walking through coloring exercises, and she even has some great free classes!
Thanks for stopping by to learn how to color Disney characters. Got any more fun ideas when working with colored pencils? Leave a comment below or follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest for the latest updates! You can also find more colored pencil tutorials here!