My three kids have gone through the dinosaur phase roughly 97 times now. It hits them out of nowhere.
Suddenly every stick in the yard is a femur bone and my living room is basically a Jurassic dig site. Our small team spent weeks getting the scales and teeth just right on these original designs.
Kids tear through these pages fast. You print one out and they need another one maybe three minutes later.
Keep the printer tray loaded. These range from cute little hatchlings to fairly intense stampedes.
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Featured Dinosaur Coloring Pages
Dinosaur Coloring Page Highlights
The Size Parade
Five different species are lined up in order from a tiny hatchling to a massive long-neck. It really helps kids grasp just how huge some of these animals were compared to the others. My youngest always colors the smallest one bright pink.
There is a smoking volcano in the background. It is a good spot to practice shading smoke and clouds. It gives the whole page a very authentic prehistoric vibe.
Desert Dig Site
This is a half-buried T-Rex skeleton lying out in the sand. Kids who love the science side of things usually grab this one first. It looks just like a real paleontologist’s excavation pit.
A cactus sits off to the right side. You don’t see those in standard free dinosaur coloring pages very often. It adds a nice pop of green if they get tired of coloring brown dirt.
The Great Stampede
Action shots are sometimes hard to color well. But this T-Rex and Triceratops charging forward kicking up dust is honestly pretty thrilling. The dust clouds are thick and take up the bottom half of the picture.
I recommend using lighter grays for the dust so the running dinosaurs still stand out. These printable dinosaur coloring pages work best with bold markers anyway. Or rather, they demand strong colors.
Prehistoric Birthday Cake
A two-tiered birthday cake is completely covered in little dinosaurs and a volcano topper. It is sweet and honestly quite silly. The frosting drips down the sides giving them lots of little details to fill in.
This is a fun one to print out for a party activity. It makes a great warm-up craft before they eat actual cake. Leaving the icing white while coloring the tiny dinosaurs makes the whole image pop.
The Watering Hole
We have a Brontosaurus, a Triceratops, and a T-Rex all hanging out by the water. It is a peaceful scene. Well . . . as peaceful as a T-Rex can be.
The reflection in the water is a good challenge for older kids. They can try mirroring the colors they used on the animals above. I’ve found dinosaur coloring sheets like this really hold their attention for around 20 minutes.
Ankylosaurus River Crossing
A whole herd of Ankylosaurus is wading through a misty river. The armor plating on their backs is covered in little spikes and bumps. It takes a bit of patience to color each heavy scale.
The misty background mountains are very calm. Honestly the contrast between the spiky dinosaurs and the soft mountains is nice. All this detailed linework comes down to one thing: don’t overcomplicate it.
Triceratops Battle
Two massive horned dinosaurs are locking heads in the middle of a plain. It looks like a serious territorial dispute. The thick outline strokes make it easy to stay in bounds.
You can really play with the textures on their facial frills. Using two entirely different color schemes for the fighters makes the image pop. Sometimes kids just want more action in their dinosaur color pages.
Kawaii Baby Dinosaurs
Five adorable cartoon baby dinosaurs are standing in a line holding hands. It is ridiculously cute. My students absolutely love the little Pterodactyl on the end.
There is another volcano in the back here but it feels much friendlier. These are perfect for toddlers just learning to grip a crayon properly. They will probably color the entire page a single shade of purple anyway.
Tips for Coloring Dinosaurs
1. Skip the Standard Green
Most kids immediately reach for the green crayon when they see a dinosaur. I get it. But nobody actually knows what color they were.
Encourage them to use purple or orange or even bright pink. A neon pink T-Rex is incredibly cool. And what does this mean? It means they can go completely wild with the color wheel. It makes these free dinosaur coloring pages way more creative.
2. Layering Dirt and Dust
A lot of these images have thick dust clouds or rough dirt floors. Flat brown can look a bit dull on paper.
I always tell my kids to scribble a little black lightly over the brown. It adds grit and physical texture to the ground. It is like glazing a ceramic pot. The dark wash makes the details pop. You can even smear it slightly with a thumb if you are using soft crayons. Just have baby wipes ready.
3. Shading the Scales
Dinosaurs have rough and bumpy skin. Coloring them perfectly solid doesn’t always look quite right.
Try pressing hard with the crayon on the edges and lighter in the middle. It gives their bulky bodies a round, 3D effect on the page. It might cause some inconvenience if the crayon snaps. But the final result is usually worth it. Will this shading technique work perfectly the first time? No idea. But today it is worth a shot.
4. Blending Sunset Skies
The backgrounds usually have big open skies above the mountains. Don’t just settle for a plain blue sky.
Prehistoric skies look amazing with yellow and red sunsets. Start with yellow near the horizon line and blend up into orange and red. It instantly makes the printable dinosaur coloring pages look like a real painting. Try it out tomorrow.
5. Focus on the Eyes
Eyes give the characters all their personality. For the kawaii ones, leave a little white circle empty in the dark pupil.
It makes them look shiny and alive. For the realistic ones, a yellow or orange eye looks incredibly fierce. It is a tiny detail that changes everything about the face. Don’t rush this part.
6. Mix Markers and Crayons
You don’t have to choose just one single medium. We use markers for the dinosaurs so they are bright and bold.
Then we use soft crayons for the landscape background. The contrast is fantastic. The waxy crayons are softer so the bold marker lines really jump off the paper. Grab some dinosaur coloring sheets and test it out.
7. The Volcano Lava Trick
Almost every dino picture has a smoking volcano in the background somewhere. Making the lava look hot is actually pretty easy if you layer it.
Put down a solid layer of yellow first. Then lightly color red over the top of it. The yellow shines through making it look like it is actually glowing. It is my favorite trick.
8. Adding Water Texture
For the watering hole scenes, the water shouldn’t be a solid block of blue. Water has moving ripples and reflections.
Leave some thin white streaks totally uncolored. It makes the water look wet and deep. You can also add some dark blue lines near the dinosaur’s heavy feet for shadows. These little touches make your dinosaur color pages stand out from the fridge door.