Using Patterns

Although I have written this tutorial for Paint Shop Pro, any program that support layers, like Adobe Photoshop, Serif Photoplus, Corel Photopaint or Ulead PhotoImpact, can be used. It does assume that you are familiar with whichever graphic program you are using.

1. Start with your completed doll that you want to add the pattern to. Make sure that your dress (or whatever else you want to add the pattern to) is on it's own layer.	2. We now want to select the dress. Click on the Magic Wand tool and click on the outside of the dress. Go to Selections/Invert Selection and the dress should now be selected. If there are any little bits that need to be added to the selection, hold down the SHIFT key and click on the to add them to the selection.	3. Create a new layer named Pattern. Open the pattern you want to use. If you don't have one, take a look at my patterns page to download some.

4. Click on the little black arrow on the style palette & choose Pattern as your foreground.	5. The pattern selected will either be the last used or the default "Bean Thing" (which I've never found a use for!)	6. Click on the image of the pattern on the Style Palette and the Palette dialogue box will appear.

7. Click on the drop down arrow and a menu of all available patterns will appear.	8. Scroll to the top of the list and select your pattern. In this case, it was pattern 029. Click OK.	9. Select the Flood Fill tool and fill your selection with the pattern. Press CTRL+D to drop the selection.

10. We can keep the pattern whatever colour it is at the moment, but I'm voting to change it. Click on the black triangle in the style palette and set the foreground colour back to a solid colour.	11. Set your background colour to the patterns current colour (in this case, black) and set the Foreground colour to whatever you want the pattern to be. Click on the Colour Replacer tool.	12. Paint over the pattern with the colour replacer and it should change colour.

13. Now, from here on it, be prepared to experiment! On the layer palette, play around with the Layer Blend Modes and Opacity. If you don't like the look, you can always change the colour of the pattern. Here are some examples.	14. Colours as above Blend Mode = Soft Light Opacity = 90%	15. Colour = #325F2B Blend Mode = Overlay Opacity = 100%

16. To create a metallic effect, make the pattern a browney orange colour, e.g. #735C2B & set the Blend Mode to Normal	17. Click on the Retouch Tool and match the setting above. You make need to make the Opacity and Size a little bigger or smaller depending on the size of your doll.	18. Lighten the pattern where the highlight is on the dress. You may need quite a few strokes to get the required effect. You can increase the opacity, but I prefer having a lower opacity & going over it several times as I feel I have more control.

19. Change the settings on the Retouch tool to those above.	20. Darken the bits of pattern that would be in shadow.	21. If you are really feeling adventurous, you could use this technique in combination with my Shiny Dress Tutorial. Don't be scared to experiment!

Eventually you'll settle on a look (or three) that you like!
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