Detailed Logging Rig Coloring Page

Add this to your collection of logging rig coloring pages if you want the view nobody draws. The rig is seen from directly behind, so you are looking straight into the ends of the logs: three tiers of trunks stacked between tall posts, two chains running down over the load, and the loader crane folded above with its hook hanging free.

How this coloring page was created

The concept we entered into Colorin AI was 'a detailed logging rig seen from behind, hauling a stack of tree trunks strapped with chains between tall posts'. Asking for the rear view was the whole idea. From the side a logging truck is a long low shape with logs you see edge on. From behind you get the cut ends and the full width of the load, which is the more interesting drawing by a distance.

Chains rather than straps was the second choice, and it is the one that gives the page its work. Straps would have been two flat bands. Chains came back drawn link by link.

What makes this logging rig coloring page unique

The logs are the body of the drawing. Three tiers stacked across the deck, each trunk showing its sawn end and long wavy grain lines running back along its length. No two are the same width, which is what stops the stack looking like drawn pipework.

Two vertical stanchion posts stand at the outer edges, holding the load in, and the two chains drop over the top of the stack and hook to the deck at the bottom. Each chain is drawn as roughly twenty individual oval links, and following them down through the logs is the most absorbing part of the page.

Above the load the knuckle boom loader sits folded, its arm segments pinned together, with a heavy hook hanging from a swivel and shackle at the very top of the sheet.

Below the deck, the rear of the trailer is fully detailed: two light clusters of three lamps each, a centre hitch assembly with visible bolts, ribbed mud flaps and dual wheels on both sides. There is no forest and no road behind it, which keeps a busy load readable.

Coloring Ideas and Techniques

The log ends and the log sides need two different approaches, and getting that right is what makes this page. On the sawn ends, work in small circles from the middle outward so the rings suggest themselves. On the long sides, stroke along the grain lines and let a few lighter gaps stay in for bark texture.

Vary the brown from trunk to trunk. Nine logs in one identical shade turns the stack into a wall. Three or four browns, some warmer and some greyer, and the load holds together while each trunk stays separate.

The chains are best left almost white with a single darker line down one side of each link. That is enough to say steel, and it keeps the chains visible against the dark timber instead of disappearing into it.

Give the trailer frame and the mud flaps a strong flat color, red or deep blue, so the working part of the rig sits clearly apart from its cargo. Finish with the six rear lamps in red and amber.