How I Design My Crap

I do all my drawings on plain paper first (sometimes lined notebook paper for rough sketches, usually normal white printer paper for nice sketches), in pencil. Sometimes I ink them with pens (especially if I want to color it in). Then I color if I'm going to do that. The khaki-colored lolita skirts to the left were sketched, inked, and colored, but I never bothered to clean them up more. (I actually never even finished the one I got started... ;_; )

Afterwards I scan it into my computer and use Paint.NET's line tool to trace over all the lines. I usually use a width of 2 or 3 pixels for outside lines and get finer widths as the details get smaller. Since I can't really go smaller than one pixel wide I usually try to figure out how many levels of detail I want and then use that number for the first width line.

The Secret Garden lolita dress has a looot of detail, so its outside lines started quite wide. I also varied colors for borders on some of the areas (notably the skin and hair) to further differentiate.

The important thing is to use a layer above the sketch to trace (I like to trace different levels of details on different layers so then I can adjust and change my design more easily) so then when it comes time to color you can just turn off the sketch and add another layer under your lines for your color. Again, I like to have multiple layers so that I can adjust single colors as needed. It especially helps if some colors specifically go over others-- like in my

duct tape dress, the silver-gray goes under all the other colors. I happen to be extremely lazy, so I don't bother to shade. I pick a color, add it to my palette, and switch to the right layer. I use a biiig paintbrush to fill in the right areas and use an eraser to trim down anything that spills over the edges. I make a new layer for the next color and continue.

It's kind of long and a little bit complicated, but it's really not too bad. Once it's all colored I save it as a .pdn file to preserve the layers, then a .png to show it off to the internet! :)

The best part is that once it's done I can  modify it thanks to the multiple layers if I change my mind or decide it needs something else added. You can see the changes made to my Pirate Hello Kitty design as it got improved through suggestions by forumgoers on Cosplay.com.