Pixel Art Paint Transparencies Glasses

	First you need to open a doll head base and had eyes. Then merge as single object. Keep it select make a copy of this and save it for later use. Now back to the first, while it is still selected, we are going to use the Hue and Saturation, under lightness put it at about 74 this will lighten your image and the bright color won't get in the way when you are painting your glasses and this image is just a guide line we are going to use.
	Now we draw with the paint brush, size one, square shape, no transparencies and no soft edge, both of these should be set at 0 always. For practice lets just follow this tut along, further on I will give you tips and hint for other style of glasses. Use the color black for the shape of your glasses. I did zoom in at about 800 pixels to be able to paint at ease here, you may want a bigger or smaller size for yourself.
	If you need to erase and that you have click out of mode, use the regular eraser but with same setting as your paint brush, square shape, size 1, transparency 0 and soft edge 0. For me it does work best with the straight line instead of the free hand, even if I have only one pixel to erase, specially if you are working with a pen and tablet, set the pen and tablet at none, you don't want size and transparency from it either. Ok, now that you have your black glasses, here we are going to have those fancy sun glasses that have a gradient look to it. These are the color I did choose from it, as you could see I have dark colors going to the middle with lighter one and the going to darker color again but this time the colors are brighter in tone. Remember to save often as a ufo.
	Here I did push it a bit further, since when the sun shine on the glasses and sparkle on it, we are going to try to get this effect too. Nothing to good for our dolls. By following the example on the left here try to do the same. First I did made light vertical stripe and then some little star, yes in pixel art this is how stars looks like. Once you're done save as an other naming in ufo. Just in case you would like to go back and run out of undo's. Now in your layer manager let's hide your doll's head before we continue to work on our glasses, this won't distract us.
	Now the painting of our glasses are done. We need the transparencies on them to be able to see the doll's eyes behind them. Very easy to do. First lest unselect our object, click on the background to make sure and then we fill with the fill bucket a color that we are sure that is not in our glasses and still pleasant to the eyes to work on.
	Now the fun part begin, Select your glasses, with the regular eraser, and this setting. Remember if you are using a pen and tablet, no size and transparency. Setting of the eraser: Shape; Square shape Size; 1 Transparency; 0 Soft Edge; 0 Line; Straight line Now, let's start erasing one pixel at a time. Look at the example on the left, you erase one pixel, skip the next and erase the one after and keep going on like this for the part where you want your transparencies. Don't worry if you have erase some places to much, you could always undo and if not could repaint those pixels in mode again and merge it with your object.
	Ok, one thing I forgot to mention earlier, depending on the doll head base you are working on, some gives you the opportunity to just do half of the glasses and once done with it, you duplicate, and flip horizontally, and position, then select both part of glasses and merge as a single object.
	Ok this is what I have done so far. Now let change our background color to white again.
	Ok now this is better. Save your work again as ufo. Hum, as I did zoom out and had a look at it, I felt that I did actually erase to much for the transparency part.
	So here is how you could correct this, if it ever happen to you. Zoom in, choose you paint brush with same setting as before. Then I color pick on screen the color at the bottom of my glasses, this is where I did erase to much. Look at the example on the left here, you could see where I have painted in mode the missing pixels. Also I did change the color on a few pixels next to it. Once you are done, select the glasses and the pixels in mode you just did paint and merge as a single object. Save you work.
	Now, let's open your layer manager again. Unhide your doll's head to see what it looks like so far. Cool, we are seeing her eyes behind the glasses. Now, select your glasses, copy and paste as a new image, hide the background and save your image as a transparent gif file. Make sure in the panel the soft edge is showing none.
	Lollll, yes I did start by showing you a more advance one, here is a very easy pair of glasses to do.
	Theses glasses only have two colors in them, the frame part and then the light reflection on them.
	This is what it look like when zoom in, A lot more erasing on these as you could see.
	You could try other shape of glasses too, have a look at your custom shape in PI, they have very interesting shape in there that you could use for your glasses. Hint: when you use the custom shape in PI before drawing the shape into your canvas, in the Path Panel under the option tab, make sure the anti-aliasing is uncheck. We don't want any softness that will produce jaggies in our pixels image. Here are a few idea of shape from your custom path in PI.
	Ok, a few more idea, where transparencies could be use. Here I have a street light. I decide to make the light reflection glow, on the yellow shape I did paint, I did erase one pixels, skip one then erase the next, just like a checker board. What is interesting to save all the parts you do as a ufo, you are able to have many use for it. On the 3 images here I did add a little dog and then try it behind my street light to check my transparencies. And if you are into animation, those images would make a fun one. Light on, light out.
	We have transparencies, on many other object too. On cars, windshield, windows and many many more even in some clothing, specially for the laces. Here is an other example, I hade made a little fair ride, the windshield is transparent, I did use the top of a little clown I'm working on to put it behind the fair rider. Have a look at it, see how you could see his clothing through the windshield. Ok, this is it about glasses and transparencies. Hope you did enjoy the tutorial, don't forget to post your result in the Pixels Art Workshop at PhotoImpact International Board. You must be a register member and the good news it is free. Here is your Award, don't forget to grab it.