Drawing, Coloring, and Shading on Microsoft Paint

Microsoft Paint is a very basic art program that comes default with any version of Microsoft Windows. It's simple to use, and many people know the basics of the program. What many people don't know, however, is that this basic art program is capable of producing incredible works of art. You don't need a $600 professional art program to create top quality digital drawings - all you need is a few tips and tricks up your sleeve, and a free copy of MS Paint.

As a side note, I use a mouse, and my instructions are reflective of that. Using a tablet might be different, and it probably a whole lot easier. If you have a tablet, good for you! I hope you can learn something anyway. And for those of us who are stuck with a good old mouse... well, this only proves that nothing is impossible with a little (okay, a lot) of practice.

To begin, open a new file in MS Paint and resize the drawing space to your liking. Pick any color other than black (I wouldn't recommend white, either, if you want to see what you're doing) - let's just pretend you're using blue for the purpose of this tutorial. Make a rough sketch of your drawing with the pencil or brush tool (whichever you're more comfortable with). Don't worry about how messy it is. When you're done laying down some basic guidelines, I recommend picking another color (like red) and going over your sketch to edit things and flesh out the lines until you are satisfied with the way it looks.

You're ready to draw the lines! For inking your line art, select the color black and the curve tool. This tool takes a little while to get used to, but once you do it's very easy to perfect. To se it, hold down the left mouse button and drag from one end of a line to the other. This creates a straight line between the two points. Shape the line by clicking next to it and moving it around until it looks good to you. You do this twice, once with the first half of the line and then with the other (as determined by the direction you stroked it in) so remember where you start your line!