I'm really new to decorating cakes and stuff. I've been looking through the galleries and most of you are super talented. What I'm having trouble with is coloring my icing. I make Wiltons BC, and use Wilton gel coloring, but it's always too pale and pastel. I never get vibrant colors. Am I doing something wrong?

add more coloring.

I know when you are first learning they say to add the color with a toothpick, which is fine if you just want so very pale colors, but if you are going for darker brighter, use a clean knife to dip some of that color out. Just remember not to reuse the knife in your colors or you stand the chance of contaminating your colors with some icing(if you do get a little icing into the jar of color it will mold after awhile, this is why you need to be very careful of this)

I agree. All my students come in and ask me how to get darker colors or make red and my first respondse is add more color. I'll often add red to the their icing to show you just need more coloring for darker colors.

I use toothpics, but I really get that toothpic in there and swirl it around and get quite a bit on it. You can also use popsicle sticks and that way you can just toss them after you use them.

I use Wilton colours to get most of the shades I need. However, for some deeper colours, I use Americolor gel paste. It does black and red, in particular, much better without using so much colouring.