msp-tut1

It will take some time to word everything in a precise but understandable manner (and also to remember the cooler stuff). As I do the work for the tutorial, I decided to use a regular mouse and take screen shots along the way. A mouse is a tad harder, but the control is still there.

    Remember that if you scanned your image that it's important to use a brightness/contrast setting somewhere to get solid white & black. It'll save alot of time and trouble. Scanning programs and AOL versions 4 and up should have a basic image editing interface. Simply open your picture up under the FILE toolbar. Lots of other various softwares have this ability so keep your eyes open or explore if you're not sure you can do this.

     Open up MSP usually by going to START>PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES and it will be somewhere in that general area depending on you version of Windows.
Once you (a)open up your scanned .bmp file, (b)directly draw your picture, or (c) something else, it time to start coloring!
    I personally like to start coloring the skin, so thats what I'll begin with here. The default color pallete does not have an even remotely possible skin tone, so we have to make one ourselves. This picture here shows how I went about it. I circled in red just about everything I clicked and I'm pretty sure they have been numbered correctly.

Double click on a color you do not think you'll need such as a weird yellow or a gray. Then click a blank slot and 'Define custom colors'. Start fiddling with the cursor by moving it around the orange/yellow area. Lighten it up on the right and you're all set to click 'Add to custom colors'.
[Click OK}

Next select the paintbrush tool; I personally use the middle size brush. The key to coloring, especially in a program like this, is to preplan almost everything. That's what to do next, outline widely the parts of the face/skin you don't want colored in (i.e. the white of the eyes). In lamer terms....turn your person into an alien! lol