SHADING


I have been asked by a friend of mine to make a tutorial on how to draw dolls. I have never done this before, so please bear with me. I'll try to make it as simple as possible, for all of you who haven't done this before. I know a lot of people have only been doing Drag & Drops, and are unfamiliar with drawing 'by hand'. Remember, this is how I do this. It's not necessarily how you would do it. You will find your own style in time.

Please also remember that this is a very basic tutorial. I have other methods too, just have to find time to write about them :D

I am using Paint Shop Pro 7, but if you have a different graphics program, you should have no trouble following this tutorial.

Preparing your doll

OK, the first thing you want to do, is find a base to work on. You can find bases all over the web, or you can make them yourself. For this tutorial, I'm using one of my own. :)



When you find a base you're happy with, make a copy (duplicating) pressing ctrl + D. Now close your original base image. The next thing you want to do is to increase the color depth to 24-bit color. You do that by choosing colors\increase color depth\16 million colors (24 bit) on the menu bar. Now you will have to decide what kind of clothing you want for your doll, if you haven't already. Then you choose the colors for your clothes. I like to have a lot of color palettes ready, that way I don't have to pick my own matching colors all the time. You might call me lazy, but I think it saves me a lot of time! I want to keep this simple, so I'm not making a complicated dress for this one. Just a simple one. I have picked 5 colors, because it gives the clothing more depth and it looks better.

Here's my palette, can you tell I love green? :)
You can just copy this palette, or pick your own colors.



Before you do any drawing, make a new layer. You can do that in several ways: click "layers\new raster layer" or (the simple way) click the "Create layer" on the layer palette. A window will pop up, and you can name the layer or set the layer transparency. We're not going to do that now. Just name your new layer "dress". Close this window when you have given a name to the layer.

This is what the layer properties should look like:



Now, pick the darkest color, and start on the outline of the dress. Remember: if you make any mistakes, just hit the undo button, or press ctrl + Z. This is the settings I use on my paintbrush:



If you want to see what your doll will look like in the correct zoom, make another window. Click "window\new window" or press ctrl + W. This window will change with every thing you do. This way you don't have to zoom in and out all the time to see if the doll looks OK.

This is how mine is looking now:


As you can see, I have kept it very simple.

Now, take your magic wand, and select an area inside the outline. Then pick the third color (the one in the middle if you have 5 colors) and flood fill with it. Make sure you don't have any gaps in the outline, though, or you will fill the entire image!

This is how mine looks now:



Now for the funny part: the shading! Although the doll is looking good now, shading and highlighting will add life and depth to it. I usually start with the second darkest color. Keep the dress selected with the magic wand, as we will be doing some blurring and softening of the colors later.



As you can see, I start with drawing along the outline and make some lines to the skirt of the dress, to make it look like folds. This is not absolutely necessary, but it makes the dress look good. Now take the second lightest color, and add highlights to the dress. I'm still following the outline and the folds on the dress.

This is how mine looks now:



Take the lightest color and make some more highlights wherever you want them. This is how I have done this:



Now we need to blend these colors together to make a smooth dress. I will use the retouch-tool for this one. You will find the retouch tool on the tool bar along with the paintbrush, flood fill and so on. It looks like a hand.

These are my settings:



Just drag the retouch tool over your dress, blending the colors. If you're not happy with it, just hit the undo-button, and start over again. This is how mine turned out:



This does not have to be perfect. The point is to make a doll YOU are happy with, not everyone else. If you think it looks good, then mission accomplished!

You can also play around with the other tools in the retouch-tool, like darken or lighten RBG, or lightness up or down, but for now the soften tool will do.

There's so many ways you can add life, texture and pizzazz to your clothes. I will try to make more tutorials later.

I am sure you will find LOTS of tutorials on other sites, that are much better than this one, and that explains different methods of shading. Look around! And above all, HAVE FUN!! :D