Microsoft Paint is one of the programs that, most of the time, comes with PC computers. Its relatively easy to use, but it is still very limited, compared to lots of other free painting programs out there. When using MS Paint to make/create cartoon dolls, one can only do so much...If you want more advanced options you will have to download or buy a new painting program. But it gets the job done for newbies and its a good starter tool.
   Whenever I edit in MS Paint, I always put a pic of the palace palette in it too...Even when I'm making dolls that I'm going to be putting up on my webpage. It just helps you see available colors and is a very good palette to be using anyways (starting out at least in my opinion). Right click on it and save as to your own computer.

   Here is the bottom tool...its just a palette of 28 colors (which you can change by double clicking on them). The boxes on the left side represent the foreground and background colors that you are currently working with. To set any color as the foreground (box in front) or the background (box beneath other box) color, simply right click on any color in the palette for the background color, and left click on any color for the foreground color.
   The little text box at the bottom explains what some things mean or function as.

1. Free-Form Select 2. Select 3. Eraser 4. Flood Fill 5. Color Dropper 6. Zoom in/out 7. Pencil 8. Brush 9. Airbrush 10. Text 11. Line 12. Curve 13. Rectangle 14. Polygon 15. Ellipse 16. Rounded Rectangle 17. Misc. Options for       each tool

   To start editing your dolls, open it up in ms paint. Click on the pencil tool, and you will be able to edit one pixel at a time. Zooming in really helps your eyes out too, so go to View Zoom Large Size to zoom in rather close.
   Now if you are using MS Paint I'm going to consider that you are relatively new to editing your own dolls. If you'd like, I've already provided naked doll bodies, and now I have blank female clothing for you to begin to experiment with and edit freely on. Get them here.

   To start off, make sure you have the palette that I provided in the begining of this tutorial open in MS paint. Then, either choose to try to totally create new clothing on a naked base doll, or choose one of the blank peices of clothing I have provided (I know there isn't much of the blank clothing - but if I get enough demand for it I'll post up more ^_^).
   First off let me tell you - black outlines are *so* out. And I know that sounds retarded but natural looking, well - just looks so much better! So as you can see there are black outlines on the black clothing and on some dolls, so try and change them to the darkest color that you will be using on them.
   Click on the dropper tool, and click on what color you would like the peice of clothing to be in the darkest shade you would like to use for it. Then, click on the pencil tool to start to draw. You will be working pixel by pixel.
   Now, just experiment with shading. Here is an example of what I have done with this shirt. And this does not mean that this is the only way to shade - this is just showing the way I, MYSELF would shade this. Everyone developes their own techniques, sometimes you can recognize an avatar/doll of someone's by their dolls that they create. And that what most of this is: patience, patience, patience. Its like any other artform, one must practice at it to become better.

   You can see how I shaded it myself, and the color palette that I used to shade it with. Now, just try and shade another peice. And then another; and then another and another and another. :) Believe me, its not *that* hard, you just have to TRY it for yourself!

   Have any more questions? I'm astonished to say this but the Help files for microsoft paint are *very* easy to understand! Thats quite amazing, most MS applications's Help files really suck most of the time. But anyways, go to Help on the menu bar and click on Help Topics if you have any other questions.