The Meadow

Full Doll Tutorial

This is my new revised full doll tutorial. The previous one was getting a bit old and I’ve learned a few more tricks, and also I found it a bit cluttered. So I wished to construct my tutorial better. First, I will go through terms, effects and techniques I find relevant for my way of dolling. Also, i'll add my usuall settings. I’m using Adobe 7 for this. The small icons with a black corner means that it's interchangeable. Click and hold on the icon in adobe, and several alternatives will pop up.

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If you feel you are already very familiar with adobe and it’s tools, move on to techniques further down instead. Just take note of my settings on the last three tools.

Tools in adobe

File – New: this opens a new image. You can adjust the size and so on. If you look at contents and check on transparent, the image will automatically start as transparent. You won’t have to make the background transparent anymore.

Image – Mode – Indexed colour and RBG colour: Indexed is for gifs. If you open a gif in adobe, it will be automatically set at this. It will not allow you to shade or use colours different than those already in the image. RBG is the one I use for shading, with unlimited colours. Switching from indexed to RBG is simple, just click at it.

Edit – Copy and Paste: You can mark something and copy it. If you press paste, it will glue in what it has copied on a new layer.

Image – Duplicate: This creates a copy of whatever image you have up, but with the layers arranged and separate. It’s an exact copy. It’s handy if you want to try something out, and I have all the room needed for mistakes.

History: In adobe, there is three bocks to the right. Layers at the bottom, navigator on the top (can be used for easy zooming) and in the middle is History. It records what you do. If you press on an icon right after the last thing you did, it will be undone. Go all the way to the top of the list, and everything done after that will be undone. But it has a limit of how far it keeps it's records. If you are experimenting, a duplicate is still the best for that.

Layer – New – Layer: Layers are your friends in adobe. Learn to love them. What is on a layer has a separate “existence” it’s easy to remove it, or change the opacity. It’s wise to keep the base on it’s own layer, have several for clothes (like skirt on one, shirt on another) , and another for hair. I can use at least 20-30 layers through one doll. I use several layers in making one piece, however as I finish them I tend to merge them (Press CTRL and E simultaneously) Only merge layers when you are confident that they are done.

Opacity: as you can see on the layer image, there is an option called opacity. It directs the level of transparency. If you lower the opacity, it becomes more transparent. A handy tool for patterns and other effects.

The magic wand tool: you can also press W as a shortcut for it. I use this one a lot. It selects an area of which you can use. For example, you can click on one colour, and then change it to another, and only that one colour will change. The only option I use as a variable is Tolerance and Contiguous. Checking off anti-aliased will make edges more flexible. For example, a fill colour will bleed slightly out of the marked line. But with pixels, you don’t want this. If you check on Contiguous the marker will only mark the adjoined colours. That is, if something separates a colour, it will only mark one side. If you uncheck it, it will mark everything in that colour. Back to Tolerance. This sets how much difference in colour it will allow for. 0 means it has to be the exact same colour. Set it to a 100 and it will take mostly everything. You can also use this tool to make something transparent, but you must use the background eraser tool a bit on the background first. Only a little, then press delete and anything that is marked goes bye bye.
In my tut, I will simply refer to the tool as wand. “ I wand’ed it”

Marquee tool: It marks what you cover it with. Use the move tool and whatever solid it has covered, can be sepperated and moved independent of anything else on the layer.

Background eraser tool: This speaks for itself. Choose the tool, use it as a brush and it will make what it touches transparent. If you use this, then the wand, press delete, you wont have to use the brush that much.

Move Tool: will move stuff…Well, if you have your stuff on layers, the move tool will only move what is on the marked layer . It’s handy if the hair is a bit off, or if you have pasted in something that needs to be placed in the right spot.

Burn is a brush that darkens stuff. Setting range gives a bit different effects. I usually use Midtones. Exposure sets the degree of the effect. Somewhere around 10 % is best. But it may depend on the colour. Very light ones demands more exposure.

Dodge is a brush that lightens stuff. I usually use the same settings with dodge as i do with burn, but with a bit less exposure.

Smudge is a bush that smudges. When i doll i pixel shade roughly first. Then i use smudge on it and it blends it. A strength betwen 20-30 works in most cases. The size of the brush depends on the size of the doll. It should not be too big, but big enough not to fiddle in the corners with a 3 pixel brush either.

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Techniques: How i use these tools my way

The outline: I always make the outline in MSpaint. I find the curve tool all too useful to leave behind. It’s also easier to clean up stray pixels and correct them. I tend to work on items separately. I make the trouser, take them into adobe, work on them, then I go back to paint and make the shirt and so on and so forth. Now, the outline I can’t help you with much. But I will tell you how to get what you make in paint over in adobe and on to the base. Mark the whole thing in paint, copy it and head to adobe. Make a new image, it will adjust the size itself to match the item copied, and paste. Then use the wand tool with tolerance at 0, mark the outline, copy it. Then go to the image with the base and the layers for clothes. Paste it in there and then just move it onto the base.

The actual shading: The theoretical example I will use is a simple dress.
I have one layer for the base, another for the outline of the dress, and a third with the fill for the dress. On the layer with the outline, I also have a fill colour, it is the next darkest shade I use in the dress, second only to the outline.
On to layer three, the fill. I use around 5 colours to shade. It’s rough pixel shading, no need to be picky. Just remember where it’s natural for there to be shades and where it’s nature to be highlights. When I’m done with the rough pixelshading, I select the whole dress fill and smudge it. Now, if there was nothing behind that, the smudge tool would drag inn transparency, or rather, thin out the fill in the edges. But if you have a layer under, instead of the transparency or base being shown, the darkest shade becomes part of the fill.

Patterns: are one of the things most known about my style. I always use patterns. I have allready another tutorials about how one applies patterns to clothing and how one can make patterns. If you want to know how to do this, check that tut out first.

Battling the gif monster: As tool shaders, we often run into the dreaded gif monster. The gif format is the only format that allows transparency. But it also has just 256 shades of colours to go around. Any more, and it will take its liberties at forcing it to be just 256 colours. The first thing to suffer is usually the base. So how do you fight it?
By beating it to it. If you have a very large piece with a lot of colours, this is a solution to reducing the colours. What can best handle the gif monster is clothes. When you are done with the doll, take the clothing, merged together onto one layer, copy it, open a new image and paste it there. Now, it’s time to reduce the colours. Go to Image-Mode and click indexed colours. Here, you can actually adjust the amount of colours. This is gif mode. You can actually reduce the colours quite a lot before it visually damages the clothes. Go down as far as you can. When you ok it, it will actually be gif. Sometimes the variable called palette gets stuck at something that does not allow colour reducing, try and hit it onto one of the ones called Local.
When that is done, copy the gif’ed outfit, and paste it back onto the doll. Then you make the doll along with the outfit a gif image. Because the colour allready have been reduced on a large part of the doll, there is more colour shades left for the base and the hair to ocoupy. The tech works on hair as well, as long as you don’t have any semitransparent bits on it. Gif format will make those bits solid.

“Dramatic shading”: This is a sort of after shade. I’ve pixel shaded it, but I also always at the end use Burn and Dodge on the entire doll, base, hair clothes and props. I use en exposure appropriate for the mood I’m after and the colour I’m trying to shade. Sometimes I use it on separate items, because it’s easier to control it. Sometimes clothes of different colour just won’t play nicely with the same exposure and can look odd.

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A lot of theory. Now onto the visual bit. As I have explained my techniques quite thoroughly in the previous parts, I will be a bit short in my descriptions on the progress. I appologise for the constant slant to the left. Thetables turned funky and i could not find a way to fix it.

Dolls base from Bobby's Bunnysticks. The colour palette is from Pixel inc. (i'm cheap, so this doll is actually also for a challenge, ergo the set pallet. *wicked grin*)

Here is the outline i did in mspaint. I've already imported it into adobe. I have only a few pointers about making outlines. It's important to know that not all clothes are formfitted. Jeans widen at the bottom, shirts can be baggy and skirts can be poofy. Don't be shy of traveling outside the lines of the base.

To the right you can see the dress filled in, and look, it's animated.
1 frame: the dress is simply filled in. Wand, tolerance 0 with contiguous on, click inside the outlined dress and use a huge pencil with fill colour and bobs your uncle, most of the work done.
2 frame: I was inspired by Angy chans dress tut, and decided to try a new way of doing folds, taking out some of the middle lines.
3 frame: the darkest fill colour added
4 frame: the second darkest
5 frame: the lightest highlight added.

When shading, try to imagine some place shining light on your doll. On mine, it’s in front of her. I’m no expert on lighting and it’s affect, I even suspect my dress folds to defy nature, but I try all the same. If it helps you, you can even draw a wee circle on the image to signify the light source, and imagine lines from it, directing light and consequently shadow.

<- Here is an image of me in the process of shading it. The smudge tools strength is at 20, brush is 9 pixels. The dress itself is on three layers. Outline. Underlying shade and then the shaded fill, which is what I’m smudging.

And this is the result when it's completely shaded ->
Not very impressive right. So, this is where I start adding patterns. Unsure how this is done, check my tutorial on applying patterns.

I've used three patterns on this dress (the first is a subtle one in the same colour as the dress) The image to the left shows them all unshaded and at full opacity. To the right i've shaded them with burn and dodge and lowered the opacity to around 10-20. Also, remember when creating patterns, keep them on each their own layer until you are done. Then you can merge the patterns.

The most of the dress is done. It’s shaded, and it now has patterns. But I still kind of feel it’s plain. So I want to add some more clothing. At this stage I of course realise there is very little to add other places, so it has to go on top of what I have now. So I made this shirt thingy inspired by a Heian archers outfit.

But I’m still not happy. I want even more. I then though to try and make a scarf and it ended up being windblown. For a purpose I don’t think I can make reason of, I made an apron too…I might remove that later. My doll is looking weirder and weirder.

Since I decided to kill my single hair tutorial in favour for this one, I’m putting a slightly more emphasis on the hair bit in this part. It’s also the bit most dollers claim to have troubles with. The dreadful hairy problem.

<- The outline: There is a damn near unlimited hairstyles out there. This is a fairly simple one, long straight hair. However, since I’ve made the windblown scarf, it would look kind of odd if the hair just hanged straight down, or blew in the other direction. So I made it more dynamic, going for windblown hair. Now hair is not a single unit of mass. Often it’s more in chunks. There are also always a few way warded and stray hairs. Adding those makes the hair seem more realistic and less compact.

To the left is an animated progress. It’s set at a 2 sec delay.
1 frame: This is the hair pixel shaded roughly. Try and keep the shading flowing with the lines of the hair.
2 frame: This is the hair smudged. I know, most of the lines inside look gone now.
3 frame: I’ve done two things here. I’ve taken a dark shade, a bursh, and I do mean a brush, not pencil, a 1 pixel size, and drawn lines for the hair strand on a new layer. I’ve also done the same with a lighter shade, only I’ve been much more discrete with it.
4 frame: I’ve sunk the opacity on the dark and light lines, both to 19. It’s a bit higher than I usually do these days, mostly due to the dark colour.
5 frame: I’ve done two things here. I’ve used the burn and dodge tool. Black darkens easily, so the strength of burn was at just 8. I’ve kept in mind that the light comes from the right, so it’s darkest to the left. I’ve been very discrete with dodge. I’ve als added some more brush highlight on low opacity.
The last thing I did was make a new layer underneath the hair, taken the 1 pixel brush, a dark shade and followed the hairline and lowered the opacity. It gives shade under the hair and makes it looks less plastered on.
To the right is the finished hair in the right scale.

I’ve changed her skin and eye colour, and I’ve used what I call dramatic shading. I suck at names, so there you go. It’s pretty simple, I’ve merged the clothes on to their own layers, then I’ve used a large brush, both dodge and burn and shade it with those two tool. Again I try to imagine a light source that directs light and shadow. I also use it on the base.
To the right you will se an example of severe colour reducing. I had to because of the challenge, so it has taken some toll on the quality. However, going so far is not necessary. For clothes merged all onto one layer I would suggest somewhere around 130-160 colours, however it varies a lot with the piece. Some can go down to 50-80. It costs you nothing to play around and find the appropriate one.
And she is done :)