Dolls By A WebPixie

Make a Doll Base
(With out PSP or Photoshop)

***Warning this has lots of large image files on this page and may take some time to load***

Tired of the PSP and Photoshop tutorials that you cant use because you don't have the money to buy the programs? well here is your answer you can now make bases for free. Using what is on your computer and a free download.

This tutorial Uses MS Paint and Irfan View.

I now make all bases this way because after using Photoshop to make then i had allot of extra pixels on the outside of my doll that weren't transparent which i wouldn't notice until i was done making all of the dolls, but this way of making them gives me a nice clean transparency and also keeps the good quality of the image and still be a gif(the quality can sometimes be lost because of saving as a gif in MS Paint)

This is the fist tutorial i have written so if you have any problems following it please tell me and i will do my best to Re write it! (i will also try and keep typos to a minimal) Now on to the tutorial!

how to go from this:

to:

Step One, Find yourself a picture! The pictures is a thumbnail for a plus size clothing store, underwear and swim wear sections are best to find images because you can see the body. nude images work especially well. remember you can use full size images too and just resize them to be the size you need.

Once you have found your image you will need to open MS Paint and Irfan view. Open your image in Irfan view. once you have done this Re-size it if you need to and then change it to a gray scale image.

now that you have done this copy the image and paste it into MS Paint.

make your pallet or canvas size bigger then your image so that you have room to work, you will also need room at the top for you color pallet. I recommend that you make the canvas a color other then black or white, i personally like dark blue, its easy to see the color difference easy and its a premade color at the bottom so you don't have to worry about discoloration or the color being broken down into dots(which will mess up when it comes to making the transparency)

you will now add a color pallet to use for the skin tone at the top, feel free to use this one


don't worry about the size when you zoom in to make the doll it will be allot of help

your image window should now look like this

Now that you are at this stage you can start actually making your base. The first thing i like to-do is make the head. I find the easiest way to do this is the oval tool, use the eye dropper and make the main color the darkest color on your pallet and the background color the one next to it

after you make the head you can either choose the smallest paint brush or the pencil too to trance the outline of the body(i personally think the pencil tool is easiest but its a matter of preference) Zoom in to At least 6x

if you mess up stop right away and either hi control + Z OR go to edit and undo. in MS Paint you can only go back 3 steps so do not wait to hit it or you will have to go erase and draw from scratch. when you are done it will look something like this.

now that you have made the outline the next step is to fill in the background. It is easiest to do this now so that you don't have to worry about it later. make sure you are zoomed in to at least 6x change the background color to the dark blue and select the eraser i like to use the next to biggest one that way you can get all of the background from the picture and then move done to a smaller one to move next to the outline when you do this you will also need to touch up the outline.

notice in the picture above that at diagonals on the image there is a really thick line to fix this you will remove all corner pixels, for an example of what i mean look at the following picture, at the top right are some fixed pixels to compare to

all of the pixels indicated by the green are ones that must be removed.

this can sometimes be time consuming but as you go on you will learn to-do it faster, and it saves allot of trouble later. after you use the eraser tool there will be allot of paces that were too mall for it such as between the arms, simply use the smallest paint brush or the pencil tool just use the same color

once you get it all done its time to move onto the next step it is the 2nd most time consuming step, you will not will the entire inside of the body with the 2nd color(the same used to fill the face) filling the entire thing in again makes the next steps easier, i like to use the paint brush tool for this(different sizes for different areas) be sure to take off the corner pixels that may be left on the inside

once you get all of the areas filled in its time to start shading/coloring take the next for(#3) and use the paintbrush to highlight over the 2nd area. leave the edge of the 2nd color showing tho, that way the shading is there, it may look a little odd at the moment but trust me it will look nice when finished!

(sorry about the transparency on the next few screen shots, i had forgotten to take off save as a transparency when saving, which is why at the end i give the tip to remember to turn it back off when you are finished, if you don't understand then don't worry you will)


next do the exact same thing with the last color again leaving an edge of the color ahead of it

now that you have done this its time to save! but wait! don't save in MS Paint i have had such bad experiences in this just the rectangle selection took and select the doll and then go to edit copy or Ctrl+ C

go back to Irfan View, now paste the doll. Now that you have done this save it as a gif file somewhere. once its saved go to file>open> and open the file(this is a very important step)

to make sure its opened you should see the file name at the top if you still see Clipboard then its not opened and it wont work.

now go to Image> Palette> Edit Palette

you will now see a bunch of colors find the dark blue swatch and click on it if you aren't sure as to which color it is then double click it and select a pink or green or something. click on and you will see the color change, if you whole background changes then that is the right one, it you accidentally changed your dolls color simply press ok close Irfan and reopen it and the image, as long as you don't save the image then it wont stay.

If its the right color look down and the bottom and find out what index number it is

remember this number.. usually when i make mine exactly like this it is 0 however check just to be sure.

now press OK and go to Save As... once you are there click on Options right below Cancel.

make sure you are under the JPG/GIF tab and check the box that says Save Transparent Color, in the box blow it type the number form earlier

now press OK and Re save the image as the same file name. Now go to File and Reopen.

Congradurlations you now have your first doll base body.

Would you like to know how to make different skins?

if so go to lesson 2: Making Skin tone variations in Irfan View