There is some stuff that comes in an orange bottle called "hunter's hide tanning formula" and is also sold as "trapper's hide tanning formula", and that stuff is easy to use and makes a nice hide. All the directions are on the bottle. The hide comes out soft and with a nice tan or khaki color.
You could also use the deer's brain or hog brain from a butcher, soaked in hot water. Dunk the hide in it and wring it around a few times to make sure the brain/water solution is saked all the way through the hide. Then work the hide back and fourth (keep it moving) until it's totally dry. That takes about 8 hours from what I've seen. After the hide is totally dry, it should be soft and white. If it's not soft, you need to do the brain solution over again. Once it get's soft and dry, you can smoke it to give it some color and make it more water resistant. To smoke the hide, you can sew the hide into a tube form and set it over the smoke of a fire away from direct heat.
Make sure you use a wood that smells good when it burns. Hickory and oak smell nice. You want to use punky, rotten wood that gives off a lot of smoke. I smoked a possum hide one time using an unknown wood, and for some reason the hide smelled like hotdogs
I washed the hide with shampoo and water and reworked it until it was soft again and now the hide smells like head and shoulders.