How do you color in MLP coloring books?

[Delphian]

I realized that I prefer to make up new colors for ponies rather than color them in "correctly." I also like to make variants to ponies like giving Pinkie Pie red and cream hair. So... am I alone in this? Do you like making up your own pony colors or do you prefer the cannon colors and try really hard to match them perfectly?

Examples:
Here's Cheerilee with spring green and yellow colors.
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And here's Pinkie with red/cream/pink hair.
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[Leave a Whisper]

Any color that strikes my fancy.

[Ponybookworm]

Scan the pages, turn the pictures into blanks & use the blanks as bases for designing Customs. I like to scan them then also I can share them with everybody, plus the original books are still untouched

[Taffeta]

I had the G1 retro colouring book for my birthday.

I'm colouring the ponies in accurately and having fun experimenting with how to do their hair in different ways. There's plenty of other stuff in the pictures for me to experiment with colour on as well - butterflies, rainbows, etc.

Mildly annoyed when a pony has the wrong species, although impressed that the book includes randoms like Daisy Sweet and Talk A Lot in among the rest.

When a pony isn't identifiable , I'm choosing (for example, Majesty).

I'm colouring the actual book because it's a retro thing, it's not an original.

My original books from childhood, I coloured ponies mostly their proper colours, but I wouldn't colour any of those now and would copy the sheets if I wanted to colour from them.

I colour with pencil crayons. Felt tips go through the paper. I learned that as a kid xD

I have no G4 books.

As a kid I coloured some of the Design your own Pony pages in the fact file. I also traced these (the flutters especially) and invented a whole line of my own flutters - one of which I later made as a custom, but who knows where any of those images or the custom is now. We're talking 20 years + even since I made the custom (She was a Morning Glory with rainbow hair).

I also had some big posters of alicorns (non-MLP) and I used those to create a whole set of Alicorn MLP characters...decades before Hasbro decided alicorns were a thing. Not to be biased or anything, but I liked mine better >.>

[tailrustedtealeaf]

I love to color! I color in G4 and G3 coloring books but mostly G4. At this point I'm just coloring them in as random species. I have a Springtime coloring book I brought to AP Macroeconomics and colored in each class. It was fun and I still aced the class.
Here's some pages from that one:

Spoiler

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This was supposed to be Cadance but it's so light.
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An issue I found with the Bendon coloring books is the ink tends to rub off of the back of whatever you're coloring and transfers to the page its touching. Not a huge issue when there's a page of activities with a page of coloring but VERY annoying when it's majority coloring.
When I go on vacation to the beach for a week I take one coloring book. This is from when I grabbed a book from Walmart because I didn't have any on me!

Spoiler

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The G1 retro book came with me to work for a bit. I color in each pony faithful to their original iterations but if I've already colored in that pony previously (I go in order) then I'll see if they have a fun Nirvana and color it like that.

[Ponyfan]

This topic reminds me that I need to get that G1 retro coloring book.   I have a custom MLP coloring book that Gothic Sugar made. I make copies of the pages and then color them.  I try to color the ponies accurately.

An issue I found with the Bendon coloring books is the ink tends to rub off of the back of whatever you're coloring and transfers to the page its touching. Not a huge issue when there's a page of activities with a page of coloring but VERY annoying when it's majority coloring.
When I go on vacation to the beach for a week I take one coloring book. This is from when I grabbed a book from Walmart because I didn't have any on me!

I've noticed this too. I have a Bendon Strawberry Shortcake book and when I was finished the ink had rubbed off on the blank piece of paper that I had behind the page I was working on.


Ponyfan

[banditpony]

I'd make up new colors No pinks allowed on any pony.

[Ponybookworm]

I'd make up new colors No pinks allowed on any pony.

[Mermaid]

I photocopy mine so I can color them over and over again! A lot of the times I’ll color them in like other ponies! Here’s a pic of a recent one I did! https://i.ibb.co/gWZcpVS/03-D3-AF45-FE89-426-B-B08-F-0-BAF541-E8180.jpg

As you can see different ponies inspired my color schemes! Ribbon,posey, tropical breeze, rainbow dash, minty...

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

I'd make up new colors No pinks allowed on any pony.

Poor Pinkie Pie.

[Ariana]

This topic reminds me that I need to get that G1 retro coloring book.   I have a custom MLP coloring book that Gothic Sugar made. I make copies of the pages and then color them.  I try to color the ponies accurately.

An issue I found with the Bendon coloring books is the ink tends to rub off of the back of whatever you're coloring and transfers to the page its touching. Not a huge issue when there's a page of activities with a page of coloring but VERY annoying when it's majority coloring.
When I go on vacation to the beach for a week I take one coloring book. This is from when I grabbed a book from Walmart because I didn't have any on me!

I've noticed this too. I have a Bendon Strawberry Shortcake book and when I was finished the ink had rubbed off on the blank piece of paper that I had behind the page I was working on.


Ponyfan

Same! Only with Bendon for some reason. Maybe cheap ink?
What I do is put a piece of blank printer paper behind the sheet I'm coloring, to absorb the ink so it doesn't transfer onto the next page. It works pretty well.

[slyons]

I do whatever my heart desires at the time...Do I want a Gusty?  Unique? A Rastafarian pony? Which ever colours get picked!

...What I do is put a piece of blank printer paper behind the sheet I'm coloring, to absorb the ink so it doesn't transfer onto the next page. It works pretty well.

Same! I keep the pages inbetween the coloured pictures too, so nothing rubs off 

[Satin Slipper]

Usually I color by the lines then the inside...

[Minty_Magic]

I’m boring, I usually remain faithful to whatever pony I’m coloring. The more I color in my retro coloring book the more willing I am to start messing around though. Since a lot of the same ponies get featured over and over I have started giving some of them rebel stripes in their hair or slightly different color schemes If the cutie mark is visible though I feel weird going totally different from the pony!

[Esbayne]

I don't do coloring books too much, but when I do I like to use them for color shading practice! Shading and realism (ESPECIALLY in color!) is my favourite part of drawing and I always like to challenge myself to see how realistic I can make the picture look, and it definitely helps when it's a template like that, so I don't have to worry about working up a good enough drawing to shade to begin with! I'm usually a weenie and shade in black and white because drawing the thing (whatever it may be) takes so long to begin with that by the end I just want to do some simple black & white, but still maintain the realism. I love color shading, though! Coloring books give me the opportunity to do it more than I would on my own drawings.
This is making me want to grab that retro book you guys are talking about.