Preparing the base

For this tut I'm using my own base, the one I did for my dollmaker.

I open up the base in psp. The base is usually saved as a 256 color bitmap. Look at the palette to the right and you will notice you only have a limited number of colors in your palette.
image
In order to make a cool doll we'll need to convert the image to 16 mio colors. This will allow us to use all colors as well as layers and a wide range of tools and effects. So go to Colors -> Increase Color Depth -> 16 mio colors.
image
Now you'll see the full palette to her right.

What I do then is make the the base and the background 2 seperate layers.
I get the magic wand tool with these settings:
image and click anywhere on the background color. This selcts a big chunck of the background. To make sure ALL the background pixels are selected I then choose Selections -> Modify -> Select Similar. Now all the background pixels are selected.

At this point I check to see if any pixels from the base where selected too - this happens if parts of the base are the same color as the background. If this is the case you can deselect those pixels by using the magic wand with the CTRL key pressed down.
When only the background is selected I choose Selections -> Invert and now only the base is selected. I cut the selection from the layer using CTRL+x (or Edit -> cut) and paste it as a new layer using CTRL+L (or Edit -> Paste... -> as new layer).

At this point my layer palette looks like this:
image
(see psp tips and tricks for further info on the layer palette)
Now I rename the layer with my base from 'layer 1' to 'base, desdemona's lab' by double-clicking on the name.

I want the canvas to be bigger to give me room to make shoes and hair, so I go to Image -> Canvas Size and type in new values for width and height. I choose a size that is bigger than the current width and height, in this case 150x250. I leave the Center image... boxes checked and press ok.

Then I click on the background layer to make it the active layer, pick a color for the background that I'm not gonna be using for my doll and color in the entire background layer - before I can color in the background I need to get rid of the selection, press CTRL+d (or Selections -> Select none). Then use the flood fill tool with these settings:
image to color in the background.

Now before I do anything else I save my doll as a psp file. File -> Save as -> in this case I save as desTutdoll.psp

And now she's all ready to go...


>>> next page, Getting her dressed >>>