Drawing against the clock

Every drawing round has a time limit, and it's often shorter than the idea in your head would like. The good news: in ColorMari it's not the prettiest picture that wins, but the one everybody laughs about and everybody recognises.

First the idea, then the pen

Take the first few seconds to read the prompt and decide: what matters most? For "A penguin loses its umbrella in a storm" that's the penguin, the umbrella and the wind - not the landscape behind them.

From rough to fine

1. Silhouette. A few large shapes show where everything is. A circle for the head, an oval for the body.
2. What tells the story. The umbrella flying off. The lines of the wind. The startled look.
3. Colour. Filling large areas with the bucket is quicker than colouring them in.
4. Details - if there's time left. Shadows, patterns, background.

If time runs out at any point, the picture still makes sense.

Small shortcuts

• Keyboard shortcuts save the trip to the toolbar: B for the brush, E for the eraser, Ctrl + Z to undo. All of them are in Drawing tools and shortcuts.
• Layers keep figure and background apart. Then you can fill the background quickly at the end without painting over the figure.
• Faces say a lot. Two dots and a line turn a circle into a character with feelings.
• Arrows and words are allowed when they help - a "SPLASH!" sometimes replaces a minute of drawing.

When you're done early

With Finished? you tell the round you're finished. If something else occurs to you afterwards, you can take it back and keep drawing until the round ends. Once everyone is done, the host can start the next round early.

And if it goes wrong?

Then it's usually the picture everybody laughs about most in the end. That's part of it.