//Making and Shading images\\

I'm using PSP8 for this tutorial.

Open PSP and click on file make a 200x200px, make sure transparent is checked.  Click OK.

Click on the Preset Shape Tool and select eclipse.

Draw a circle inside your 200x200 image. Like below

Color fill your oval.  I set my colors to #B47122 and #FFFBF5 and with the Flood Fill tool I colored it.

Now select Mesh Warp

Drag your lines around until you get a shape you like to use for a head.  You don't have to try to copy mine, make whatever shape you like.

Once you have the shape you want, click layers, new vector layer.

Making the eyes

Now we are going to basically repeat the very first step.  Click on Preset Shape Tool and draw an oval the size you want your eyes to be.

Select the Mesh Warp again and make the eye the shape you want it. I have something creepy looking like below.

Over on the layers pallet right click on raster3 and select duplicate.

Click on Image, mirror

Now you should have 2 eyes.  Use the Move Tool to move your second eye to the position you want it to be in.  You should now have something like this

Select your Paintbrush, select an circle brush, for size I selected 13 ( you might have to go bigger or smaller depending on the size of the eyes you chose) Set Hardness to 35, Opacity I used 91%.  Change the color to black, and click inside each eye until you get the size you like.  This is what mine looks like.

See, its beginning to look a little cute :D

Now for some shading

I'm using the color #FDDDC7.  I'm using the same brush I used for the eyes, this time make Hardness 0 and Opacity 30, I used size 12 brush for this, adjust yours to whatever size you need it.  I've found that using a larger brush gives better shading, so I recommend using the largest brush you can while staying inside the lines.  Draw around the outline, giving more to one side than the other (this is for the shading effect).  Try to keep this as all one step by not letting up on your mouse while shading, it just looks better that way.

So now my little creepy thing looks like this

Click on the Lighten/Darken Brush   Using the same brush as before, I set it to size 17, Hardness to 13 and Opacity to 37.  When you hold down the right mouse button it darkens the picture, holding down the left mouse button will lighten the picture.  Start with the dark first.  Hold down the right mouse button and go around the outline of your picture ( I constantly click the mouse button on and off while doing this, I just like the effects better and its not just one long stroke this way).  Focus on darkening one side more than the other to give depth.  Now go back and left click the mouse button to highlight certain areas.  Just a little tip...try thinking about where the light source is coming form, all the shadows should be on one side and all the highlights should be on the other in EVERY part.

This is what I have so far.

OK, I jump around so you are too :)  Now that I have this much I want to go back to the eyes.  Go back to your layers pallet and select raster 3.  Do this by just clicking on it.  I chose to go with the color #239923.  All I did was use my same brush I had used before, I changed the size to 8 but I did NOT change anything else, and I just colored over the eye.  Then I went back to the layers pallet and selected Copy of Raster (the second eye) and colored it in.  I didn't worry about going over the black, the Opacity is still set at 30 so it really doesn't affect it.

This is what I have now

Select the again.  We are now going to darken and highlight the eyes.  Make sure to select the raster 3 first, then the copy of raster after that when you go over it with the Lighten/Darken Brush.  I set the Opacity to 50 for this.  Right click to darken, left click to highlight.  Remember your light source, shadow all the same side and highlight the other.  I'm a lefty shadow person, so I shadow the left and highlight the right.

This is what I have now.

Select the color white #ffffff and make a dot in each eye using the same brush as before.  I did set the opacity to 100 for this.  Just make a white dot till you like what you see.

This is what mine looks like.

Lets make a mouth (it really needs one don't ya think).

Click layers, new vector layer.  If you get a pop up just click OK.

I used this color #C54949 for the mouth.  All I did was use the same brush we've been using all along size 10 and made the middle part, then reduced it to size 6 to make it look like a smile.  I didn't change anything but the size from what we were already using.

This is what I got.

OK, now this is where I'm going to leave you...

Don't fret!  You know enough now to finish this picture on your on.  If I was to finish this tutorial out step by step, I'd just be repeating myself. 

All you really have left is shading and I've taught you how to do that, so go back over what you already have and add some more shading, maybe some more color.  If you add more color just make sure to set the opacity way low, like at 30. 

You'll need to add a body.  Do it the same way you did the head.  Just click on layers, new vector layer for everything new you are going to add. Click the Preset Shape Tool, use Mesh Warp, and the shade it.  Drag your layers in the layer pallet to get your depth.   Take it all one step at a time.  If you grow tired just save it in psp format so you can go back to it later and still have all your layers.

I went completely freaky on it and ended up with this

Now you'll need to go back and use your eraser tool around the edges to clean it up.

If this tutorial was helpful then please link back to me.