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To make this base ready for hair, begin by making sure your base doll is in RGB mode. To do this, open up *Image* then *Mode* and then choose RGB. This enables you to work with layers on your base doll.
Open your *Layers* palette and make a new layer above the base doll, and name it "hair top".
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On that new layer, choose a dark color to outline the hair shape and use that to define where her brow line will be and draw where her hair will part.
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Then continue on and draw the shape of her hair. Since this method uses both a front and a back cel for KiSS hairstyles, only draw the part of the hair that would be layered over her head, clothing, shoulders, etc on this topmost layer. Do not worry about tracing along the shape of her head and face, the second hair cell will fill that in.
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Now we are about to make another layer. If you turn off Layer Visibility on the base doll layer (the little eyeball on the layers palette) this view of only the line work of the hair top is what you would see....We are going to use this "hair top" layer to make the bottom hair layer too. Go into *Layers* and click "Duplicate Layer". This will make a copy of the "hair top" layer. Name the duplicate layer "hair bottom".
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Then on your Layers palette, drag the newest layer, "hair bottom" down so that it is positioned below the base doll and turn off the layer visibility on the "hair top" layer.
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Now on that "hair bottom" layer, draw in the rest of the hair that would be behind the base's head. Make sure not to leave any breaks (open cel spaces) in the hair outline.
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Use the selection wand to select the background around the hair shape and then open *Layers* and click "inverse" This selects the entire hair shape. Then choose a color only slightly lighter than the outline color and use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the shape.
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Now deselect the layer visibility on the "hair bottom" layer and make both the base layer and the "hair top" layers visible. Select the "hair top" layer to work with next.
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Follow the same steps used to fill the "hair bottom" shape and color the hair on the "hair top" layer.
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Now use the Lasso Tool to select a shape to highlight. Consider the shape of the highlight carefully. It should follow the curve of the skull and also the flow of the hair. But it should also be applied with an understanding of where your light source is.
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When you have selected the area you want to highlight go to your Paint Bucket Tool, right click it and choose Gradient Tool. Then, above on the toolbar choose the "Reflected Gradient" style.
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Choose a color for highlight in the same family of colors as the dark tones, but much lighter. It should seem too light. Set the light color as the foreground and the dark fill color as the background. Place your cursor in the center of your area selected to gradient fill and then drag the cursor out along the direction of the flow of the hair. The Reflected Gradient style works from the center point, placing the foreground color there.
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Repeat the selection and gradient fill process until you have covered every area that you judge needs highlighted.
Looks odd at this stage, doesn't it?
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Okay... Now choose the Brush Tool. Not the Pencil tool. Set the size to 1 pixel and set the Flow to about 40% to 50%. And choose the dark, outline color.
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Start at the hair part line and draw long strokes along the flow of the hair. Keep starting at the top and drawing with a downstroke until you like what you have.
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Finally, choose a color in the same range as the others but very close to white. Reduce your flow to about 15%, but keep the brush size at 1 pixel. Then go to the lightest area of the highlighted spots and work that color between the lines you've just added.
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And Voila! Turn on the Layer Visibility for the "hair bottom" Layer and there you have it! Hair, the Elfkin way. Not the easiest way perhaps, but it's how my little ol' brain worked it out. *chuckle*
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As for making them cels, well that's easy enough. Create another layer under the "hair bottom" Layer, and fill it with the transparent color. The save the images as .gifs or bitmaps aligned to the palette of your choice. BTW, this is the actual size of the hair, for the tutorial, I blew it up large so you could see.
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