Guides / Images and colouring pages
Colouring pages
Turn a line drawing, or lines you ink yourself, into a colouring page, so paint stays inside the area where each stroke starts or the one you choose, and fill areas with one tap.
- Free
- Everything in this guide works in Free.
Start with a line drawing. Open Layers, tap Add image, then Image from Files, and find the drawing.
Start with a line drawing. Open Layers, tap Add image, then Image from Files, and find the drawing.
Start with a line drawing. Open Layers, click Add image, then Image from Files, and find the drawing.
Tap it. The drawing arrives as an image layer, fitted to the canvas, under your paint.
Tap it. The drawing arrives as an image layer, fitted to the canvas, under your paint.
Click it. The drawing arrives as an image layer, fitted to the canvas, under your paint.
Tap its thumbnail to make it current, and again for its controls. At the top is Colouring page.
Open Layers and tap the image layer. At the top of its controls is Colouring page.
Click its thumbnail to make it current, and again for its controls. At the top is Colouring page.
Turn it on, and Doodly Doodle finds the areas the lines enclose and says how many. The page then stays in place, on top as Multiply, so its lines show over your paint.
Turn it on, and Doodly Doodle finds the areas the lines enclose and says how many. The page then stays in place, on top as Multiply, so its lines show over your paint.
Tap the paint layer and paint a stroke that starts inside the big circle and runs out across the page. The paint stays inside the area where the stroke began.
Tap the paint layer, then Done, and paint a stroke that starts inside the big circle and runs out across the page. The paint stays inside the area where the stroke began.
Click the paint layer and paint a stroke that starts inside the big circle and runs out across the page. The paint stays inside the area where the stroke began.
For a flat fill, choose Fill an area from Tools and tap inside the square. It fills in the colour in hand, as one stroke.
For a flat fill, unfold the wheel, choose Fill an area from Tools and tap inside the square. It fills in the colour in hand, as one stroke.
For a flat fill, choose Fill an area from Tools and click inside the square. It fills in the colour in hand, as one stroke.
Tap Done to return to drawing. In the Canvas and paper menu, Inside the lines turns the keeping on and off, and Choose area keeps every stroke in one area you tap.
Tap Done to return to drawing. In the Canvas and paper menu, Inside the lines turns the keeping on and off, and Choose area keeps every stroke in one area you tap.
Click Done to return to drawing. In the Canvas and paper menu, Inside the lines turns the keeping on and off, and Choose area keeps every stroke in one area you click.
Ready-made pages
The books under Actions → Coloring books… are ready to colour, by number or freely: see Coloring books.
Making a colouring page
Any image layer with clear, closed lines can become a colouring page: a line drawing you scanned or photographed, or one saved from a colouring book site.
- Add the drawing as an image layer: Layers → Add image → Image from Photos… or Image from Files… (see Image layers).
- Open the image layer's controls: tap its thumbnail twice in the strip, or tap it in the Layers sheet.
- Turn on Colouring page 1. Doodly Doodle finds every area the lines enclose, closing small gaps, and says how many it found. The layer is renamed Colouring page (and back to Reference image if you turn it off), unless you gave it a name of your own.
Once it is a colouring page, the image stays where it is (its placement sliders lock, since the areas lie under its lines) and it sits on top of your paint as Multiply, so the lines always show over the colour. Turning Colouring page off lets it move again.
Painting inside the lines
With a colouring page in the painting, each stroke stays inside the area where it starts, however far your hand goes past the line. A stroke that starts on a line stays in the area it moves into. Marks and effects stay in their own area too, and never merge with marks in the next one. Paint on a paint layer, not on the image layer. A watercolour wash runs up to the line and stops there, pooling a little darker against it as it dries, and water, lift and smudge keep to the area too.
Inside the lines 1, in the Canvas and paper menu, turns this keeping on and off. It appears whenever the painting has a colouring page, and comes on by itself when you make one. The same switch is in Settings → Interface & input, and it stays as you left it from painting to painting. While it keeps your strokes inside, an Inside the lines chip shows under the top bar; tap it to turn the keeping off.
Choose area 2, in the same menu, keeps every stroke in one area: tap it, then tap the area. Strokes stay in that area even when they start outside it, and the rest of the page dims (turn that off with Show the area you're in in Settings). The bar above the page has Choose another, Add areas to choose several areas together (tap each to add it or take it out, then Done), so one stroke can cross them all, and Done to paint anywhere again.
Your own lines as a colouring page
Lines you ink yourself can work the same way. Draw closed shapes on a paint layer, open that layer's controls, and turn on Areas from these lines. Doodly Doodle finds the areas the lines enclose, closing small gaps, and moves the layer to the top so its lines show over the colour. Paint on another layer beneath it.
The areas follow their lines. Move a line, rub part of one out with the eraser, or draw another across an area, and the areas are found again from the lines as they are now; paint already kept inside an area stays with the new area it overlaps most. One undo takes back the change to the lines and to the areas together. Panel layouts make a comic page's panels this way, without any drawing, and their panels follow their borders too.
Filling areas
Choose Fill an area from Tools on the wheel's corner. A bar above the page reads Tap an area to fill it · drag across areas to fill each 1:
- Tap an area to fill it with the colour in hand, as one stroke that Undo removes.
- Drag across several areas to fill each of them, in one step.
- Fill behind 2 puts fills under the paint already there, so your strokes stay on top.
- Done goes back to painting.
Fill an area also works without a colouring page: a tap fills what your own strokes enclose.
On iPhone, the image layer's controls are in the Layers sheet, and Tools is on the wheel: tap the folded wheel to unfold it.
Plus: Colouring pages and fills are Free.
Try it in the app.
Download on the App Store Free for iPad, iPhone and MacSomething not behaving as expected?
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