A quick question from a newbie, how do you determin the outline color?

[Zygen 6,066]

Ok so first I'd like to say I'm not just a novice when it comes to pony art, but to art in general really, but I drew a really really medicore(in my opinion) drawing of a pony and put it on the art forums. Afterwards I kinda felt like trying to see how much I could improve, so i'm thinking about trying to draw some more except this time hopefully I'll end up improving. Who knows I might just totally suck at art .

 

Anyways so long story short, I had a question about Outlines. How exactly do you know what color to make the outline? Is it just a darker shade of the main color? or lighter? Or is it a specific color? Whats the science behind it?

Also I assume that I would draw the outline before coloring in(Just correct me on this if I'm wrong.) And what about how big should it be?

 

Thanks in advance. I know I'm quite the art newbie, but I haven't really tried art all that much so who knows. Maybe I'll enjoy it atleast as a casual thing to do in my spare time.

Thanks again!

[Negative 67]

Everyone has their own drawing and colouring style. Whether you draw the outline first or colour first, it's which one you feel more comfortable with.

 

About the outline colour thing, with most ponies the colour of the outline is usually darker than the coat colour and if the colour is close to black the outline will change to a lighter colour, example: Nightmare moon's coat is black and her outline colour is purple. You can't get darker than black or something close to it (It won't be noticeable if you try to go darker with a colour close to black).

 

 

Another exception would be my OC, Negative. Because her colours are negated, her outline is lighter than her coat. I'll show you the difference between Negative and Positive (same pony except her colours aren't negated).

Positive (black background) has a darker outline colour which occurs in most pony characters, Negative (white background) has a lighter outline as her colours are inverted from Positive.

 

Positive's shading is darker because when I inverted the colours it would appear as lighter.

 

Sorry for dragging this post, especially about my OC. I was just giving some examples of exceptions ;-;

Edited November 21, 2012 by Negative

[Zygen 6,066]

Everyone has their own drawing and colouring style. Whether you draw the outline first or colour first, it's which one you feel more comfortable with.

 

About the outline colour thing, with most ponies the colour of the outline is usually darker than the coat colour and if the colour is close to black the outline will change to a lighter colour, example: Nightmare moon's coat is black and her outline colour is purple. You can't get darker than black or something close to it (It won't be noticeable if you try to go darker with a colour close to black).

 

 

Another exception would be my OC, Negative. Because her colours are negated, her outline is lighter than her coat. I'll show you the difference between Negative and Positive (same pony except her colours aren't negated).

Positive (black background) has a darker outline colour which occurs in most pony characters, Negative (white background) has a lighter outline as her colours are inverted from Positive.

 

Positive's shading is darker because when I inverted the colours it would appear as lighter.

 

Sorry for dragging this post, especially about my OC. I was just giving some examples of exceptions ;-;

 

Oh alright that makes sense, just darker color then the coat as long as it doesn't go to the point where you can't really get any darker.

I assume the same thing with the mane? Like it has different colored outline I assume, and follows the same rules.

 

And don't worry i drag on posts all the time . not a problem to me