14 steps - Graphic Tutorial of darkshadow205's graphic

Hello again readers! Today I have the promised tutorial for you, the one for the 14 party!

If there's anything you don't understand or you want me to explain something in a more detailed way, feel free to ask!
I know there is a lot of text, but it's all useful and important, so if you are using this tutorial, read all of it!
*Warning: I didn't make this in one day, and by the time I did step 2 or 3, darkshadow205 changed her skin colour! I had to change it on the graphic, so don't be confused by the unexpected colour change!


All you need is a picture drawing/editing program that has the layers function, the paint bucket tool, the color picker tool and the tool called 'scissors' or 'polygonal lasso'. If you don't have these things on the program you are using right now, download another. I am pretty sure Pixlr doesn't have the scissors tool and I don't know about Paint.net. Gimp is used by many graphic designers, but for beginners I recommend Seashore - but I am not sure if it's only available for Mac computers like mine. It's a bit similar to Gimp, but much easier to use. It also has less functions, but it has the ones you need.

You can only continue with this tutorial (if you're going to use it, of course!) when you have found and installed the program you need. I have done mine in Seashore.

Now find a picture you are going to make a graphic out of. Mine is this:

1. Open the Beauty Parlour of the person you are making a graphic of. Zoom out until the head is about the same size as the one on the picture if you are using Seashore, because there you can't resize or turn anything. Take a screenshot, select a piece of skin on the shoulder or arm (the places where there is no shading) and paste it into your graphic. Use the color picker tool to be able to use the colour. Add a new layer and call it 'Skin'. Now select ALL the area that is covered by skin with the scissors tool and fill it in with the color of the Medoll's skin with the paint bucket tool.
I know it looks a bit weird, but don't worry.

2. Select the face from the screenshot, like this:

On the graphic, add a new layer and call it 'face'. Paste the face in it and drag it to the right place.

3. Add a layer and call it 'Dress'. Select the area covered by the dress with the scissors tool and fill it with any colour that you want. Mine is beige.

4. Repeat step 3 with the shoes (make a new layer, select them and fill them with colour)

5. Add a new layer called 'Hair' and draw the hair with the scissors tool or select the hair that is already on the picture with this tool. I am not doing that because curly and wavy hair is much harder to shade.
The reason why the background has changed is that I have hidden the 'background' layer. I usually hide it when I am done with using it, so it won't distract me. The checked background is transparent.

6. Add a new layer and call it 'Shading 1'. Adjust the opacity of it to around 5%. You can always change it later.

I will show how to shade on the hair, then you can do the rest without screenshots.

Make your main colour black, purely black. Now select zig-zaggy shapes on the places where the shadows fall. On hair this will be the edges, the hair parting, under the ears, etc. The picture below might help.

This is the finished result:

7. Add a layer called 'Shading 2'. Change the opacity to around 6%. Now make smaller zig-zag lines inside the big ones you made on the previous layer. See the difference?

8. Add a layer called 'Highlight 1'. Change the opacity to around 7.5%

Select and fill all the places where the light falls with white.

9. Add a layer called 'Highlight 2'. Change the opacity to 8.5% and do the same as with the layer 'Shading 2', only with white.

10. If you want the hair to shine even more, add a layer called 'Highlight 3' or 'Extra highlights', set the opacity to 9.5% and repeat step 9.

11. Apply this shading technique, step 6-10, to the rest of the graphic. Here is step 6 shown on the dress:

12. The only unshaded area is now the face. Apply the same technique and make shading on the eyes/eyebrows, under the nose, to the cheekbones. Make highlights on the nose, forehead, lips and cheeks. When you are done, if you hide the face layer it should look like this:

13. Save the graphic when you are done. Save it in the .xcf format or anything else that supports layers. If you save it in .png or something it will all become one flat layer, so if you want to change something you would have to erase the whole graphic instead of only one layer!
The problem is, that you can't upload .xcf pictures to blogger, so after you have saved it you have to save it one more time in .png and call it '*Graphic name* done' instead of just '*Graphic name*'. For example, I have a .xcf version of this graphic called 'darkshadow205' and I also have one in .png named 'darkshadow205 done'.
Here is the finished version:

14. If you want to add a background and/or text, open a new, blank canvas. Add a layer for a background, a layer for the text, and a layer for the graphic. Remember to separate everything with layers.
Now open the .png version of the graphic, copy it and paste it into the version with a background.

That's all, and I hope I didn't confuse you to death! I can always explain more if you need help.
I really hope you found it useful! :)

What do you think?

Maria/mgirl07