Advice for drawing in MS PAINT

[DELICIOUS POISON]

Okay, I just typed out this handful of tips for someone drawing in MS Paint. I've seen a lot of people try to draw in MS Paint before, and struggle, so I thought this forum could use a few directions for beginners. I wrote it indirectly for a friend, as the email is addressing someone else, so imagine we're talking about someone who's fairly unused to computers, and does not grasp a program's functions immediately.

Well, to start with, I know it's hard to visualize a picture so well before hand, but in old paint programs like that, color comes first + then lines! Otherwise, the black lines will likely have white dots all through them, and they can be really annoying. This is where the tool that looks like a paint bucket comes in handy, because once you've drawn your black line over a bit of misshapen color, you can use the paint bucket tool to change the color left outside the line to white or whatever your background color is. Try it out - the paint bucket tool is called "fill" because it fills the area you click with it.

Secondly, if he used MS Paint (It looks like he did) he can double-click the colors to change them into something he wants. Just need to remember to save as a 24-bit .bmp file rather than a 16-color .bmp, or it will screw up the colors when he saves! If he is using custom colors in the picture, and he has covered up a color on the palette that he's already drawn with another color, he should use the tool that looks like an eyedropper. Using that tool, you simply click a color in the picture that you've drawn with, and presto! you've selected that color and you can draw with it again. Make sure to switch back to the other tool you were using, or you'll just keep grabbing the color.

Thirdly, if he is just doing a black and white pic, or wants to do the lines before color, he should use the tool that looks like a paintbrush. It has a few varying sizes and shapes of "brush" to use. Once he is drawing with it, he should keep in mind that using the right mouse button will use the secondary color. The secondary color is white by default, you can change it by clicking with the right mouse button on the color you'd like from the palette. This is very useful, because you can use it to shape the lines that you have drawn into something more attractive.

Lastly, if he wants to color an image after he's drawn it in black and white, and there are little white dots in his lines that he wants to get rid of, he should look up in the VIEW menu, up where it says FILE EDIT VIEW IMAGE COLORS HELP. There is a ZOOM option there, which will amplify the image and make it easier to work with.

Something I didn't remember to say in this email was this: If you are planning on using color after you draw the lines- DON'T SCRIBBLE. Just take your time with the lines you're working with - there's an Undo function if you screw up. You can access it in the EDIT menu, or you can use the hotkeys (press CTRL and Z at the same time).

Hope that helps a few of you, or at least provides some interesting reading material for those of you who will never try to use Paint to eek out something worth looking at.

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

My MS Paint skills are still lacking mightily. That's right. Mightily.

[Dylan]

Never use the pencil for outlines. Never. Why are you doing it? Stop it.

[DELICIOUS POISON]

Originally Posted by Dylan

Never use the pencil for outlines. Never. Why are you doing it? Stop it.

I can't emphasize this one enough.

Originally Posted by Saria Dragon

My MS Paint skills are still lacking mightily. That's right. Mightily.

I've seen you do some amazing art, though. It really comes from practicing using the mouse for drawing. In short, play moar Mario Paint. OH YEAH.