How Long Will It Take To Finish An Obito Drawing With Colour?

If you're planning to color an Obito drawing, expect the time to depend more on the choices you make than on the character itself. I’ve colored a handful of Obito pieces over the years — some fast fan sketches, some slow moody portraits inspired by 'Naruto' — and the difference between a 45-minute speedpaint and a two-day polished illustration usually comes down to detail level, medium, and whether I'm adding a background or cinematic effects. To give you a practical range: a simple flat-color finish with basic shading can take 30–90 minutes; a mid-detail piece with careful lighting, textures, and a small background is often 3–6 hours; a fully rendered, polished illustration with complex lighting, smoke, debris, and a full environment can easily be 8–20+ hours depending on complexity and breaks.

Breaking it down by stage helps me estimate better. For digital work I usually chunk it like this: sketch (15–45 minutes), cleaned lineart or refined shapes (30–90 minutes if you do lines, less if you paint over sketch), blocking in base colors (15–45 minutes), basic shading and highlights (30–120 minutes), refined rendering (another 1–6 hours depending on realism), effects and final color corrections (15–60 minutes). If I’m doing painterly work with no lineart, those times shift toward longer rendering but fewer discrete steps. For traditional media: pencils/inks first (30–90 minutes), base color with markers or watercolor (45–180 minutes), layering and details with colored pencils or gouache (1–6 hours), plus drying time if you use water-based media — drying can feel like dead time but should be accounted for. If you’re working with Copic markers specifically, I’ve found a mid-level portrait usually takes me 3–5 hours because of layering, blending, and time spent preserving highlights.

A few tips that cut down time without killing quality: limit your palette early so you make fewer color decisions, block in big shapes and values before worrying about small details, and use reference images (I keep a little collection of Obito expressions and mask designs handy). Digitally, use layer groups, masks, and selection tools to speed edgework and painting; gradient maps can quickly unify colors once your shading is solid. For dramatic effects like Kamui smoke, I’ll paint a rough version first and then refine only the areas that read strongly at thumbnail size — you’d be surprised how much detail you can skip and still get a powerful result. Also plan your workflow: if you know you want a dynamic lighting setup, add that in the middle of the process rather than tacking it on at the end.

Personally, a mid-detail Obito portrait that I’m proud of tends to sit in the 4–6 hour range for digital, and something ultra-polished with a background and effects has taken me two full sessions (so around 10–12 hours total) when I’m nitpicking. If you’re just starting out, give yourself permission to be slower — speed comes with repetition. Most importantly, have fun with the design choices (masked Obito vs. ravaged Obito lighting is a blast), and don’t forget to take breaks so you don’t overwork your eye — I always come back to a piece clearer after stepping away for a bit.