First of all let me say that I will at any time encourage you to make your own Kaos from scratch. That will make them more personal, it will give them that personal touch that allows people to recognize them as your creations, and it will keep you safe from committing copyright infringement. This tutorial will teach you how to make your own mini Kao base which you can use for Kao animations in the future. Even though this is a tutorial for a mini Kao base you can easily make it larger than mentioned in the tutorial if you want to.

This tutorial is for Paint Shop Pro 7 Jasc.com. It is not difficult to follow even though the things you will be doing are not the easiest. You should be safe though as long as you follow the tutorial conscientiously, every step, and don't venture out on your own unless you are an experienced user of PSP and only use the tutorial as inspiration.

Some of the functions that you will learn:

In PSP:
- Using the preset shapes tool to draw an ellipse.
- Deforming a vector shape by dragging the corners.
- Duplicating, mirroring and merging layers.
- Using the mover tool.
- Using the flood fill tool, the paintbrush and the eraser.
- You will see how much of a difference one or just a few pixels can make when drawing pixel art.

First of all there are some things you should know about Kaos. They originated from Japan, and I've been told that the word Kao means face/expression in Japanese. Kaos have some characteristics that define them, characteristics that almost always need to be there for the Kao to be a real Kao!

1. The shape is important, they are oval of shape, broader than they are wide, and a bit wider at the bottom than at the top. This shape can be varied, but then the new shape must serve a purpose towards the theme and most of the other characteristics must be in place.

2. Kaos are animated. Usually they bounce up and down but this movement may be varied if it serves a purpose.

3. Cuteness is a must! Almost always will the Kao be cute, even if it is made to look like a vampire, a ghost, a zombie or any other sort of monster, there will be some cuteness about it.

4. Kaos are supposed to be approximately 28x20 pixels in size, just counting the body (some are a little larger depending on who created them). However, a lot of mini Kaos and micro Kaos are being made and those are usually considered as Kaos as long as the other characteristics are in place. The Kao base that results from this tutorial will be a mini Kao with a size of approximately 22x15 pixels.

Okay, those were the four most important characteristics. Now lets get on with the tutorial:

1. Open a new image in PSP using these settings:

2. Chose the preset shapes tool and use these settings:

3. Set your foreground colour to black and your background colour to nothing such as this:

4. Now carefully draw a small ellipse of about 22x18 pixels size on your canvas (you can read the size on the status bar in PSP at the bottom of the screen). It doesn't matter if the ellipse isn't totally symmetrical, you'll have a possibility to clean up errors later. My canvas now looks like this (zoomed in once):

4. The ellipse looks good, but it doesn't have quite the right shape. We need to make it a bit broader at the bottom than at the top. To do this first hold down the shift key on your keyboard. Then place the cursor over the top left square in the the selection surrounding the ellipse. Hold down your left mouse key (the one you normally use) and drag down about three or four pixels to make the ellipse more flat on the left side. Remember that you can always use the undo button if you make a mistake. Repeat the same procedure on the right side to get a flattened ellipse. It doesn't necessarily look good, mine doesn't, but I can see the possibilities in it. Here it is (zoomed in once):

5. Upon closer inspection I decide that the left side of the ellipse looks nice and the right side doesn't. It's way too flat. So I decide that I will use the left side as a model for my Kao.

6. Layers>merge>merge visible. Your ellipse is now on a raster layer and the selection around it has disappeared such as this (zoomed in once):

7. It's not a pretty thing, but I will correct that now. Chose the eraser tool and use these settings:

8. Zoom in as much as you need to see the image clearly and then start erasing the side of the ellipse that you don't like. I erase the entire right side so that the ellipse looks like this (zoomed in once:)

9. Doesn't look like it's worth much now, does it? But just wait. Layers>duplicate. You won't see anything happen but you will actually have to identical layers.

10. Image>mirror. Now you should see something happen. You should actually see two halves of the ellipse. Mine look like this (zoomed in once):

11. Now we have to move these two parts together. It is very easy. Just chose the mover tool , place it over one of the halves, hold down your left mouse key and drag it into place. I make mine overlap a bit because I think that gives the best shape.

12. Layers>merge>merge visible. Both halves of the ellipse are now on just one raster layer.

13. Place the mover tool over your ellipse again and move it approximately to the center of the canvas (maybe a little bit lower, but do allow room at the bottom). Mine now looks like this (zoomed in once):

If you think it looks a little bit edgy you can erase some pixels here and draw some new ones there or draw in missing pixels by using the paintbrush set at size one, shape square and all other settings at 100. I chose not to do this as I am satisfied with the shape that my Kao base has now.

14. The next part is easy. Set you foreground colour to a medium gray colour.

15. Chose the flood fill too and chose these settings:

16. Now click inside the lines of your Kao base. It should now look something like this (zoomed in once):

17. The next thing I do is to shade the base, just to give it a bit more life. It's easy. Chose the paintbrush and these settings:

18. Now set your foreground colour to a slightly lighter shade than you have now and draw some pixels towards the top of the base so as to appear that it is hit bit light at the top. Then set the foreground colour to a shade of gray that is a bit darker than the base gray and draw some pixels on the opposite of the base. It should now look something like this (zoomed in once):

This is not an advanced shading technique, but it does make a slight difference and in my opinion it is enough for such a small Kao. Now we just need to draw the hands and the shadow beneath the Kao.

19. Lets start with the hands. Use the dropper tool to chose the same medium shade of gray as you use on the base. Then chose the paintbrush and keep the same settings from before. The hands consist of 2x2 pixels of this gray with an outline of black. First draw 2x2 pixels of gray on each side of the base, but not too close, leave room for the outline. Then chose black as your foreground colour and draw an outline, leaving the corners blank. Such as this (zoomed in once):

Of course, it is only good if you experiment with the shape of the hands. It's totally up to you to decide what they should look like. I find that in my taste this shape works well with a Kao of this size. But that's just my opinion.

20. The last thing to draw is the shadow beneath the Kao. This is actually an important part of it even though sometimes it is forgotten. I just set the foreground colour to medium gray again and draw a suiting shape beneath the base. It's totally up to you what you want it to look like, but it should be something that you can make smaller when you want to animate the Kao. Mine looks like this (zoomed in once):

That's it! You've finished the base now just hit save as, name it and make sure you save it as a .psp file. That way you will be able to use this same base every time you make a new Kao. Below is the Kao base in a .gif file in case you're too lazy to make your own. Just right click and chose 'save as'. If you want it in a PSP7 file just click on the base to download it.

Note: All pixel art can be drawn just by using the paintbrush at size one. However, a lot of people find it difficult to draw shapes like this. Also, if you follow the tutorial you will learn a few functions in PSP that you didn't know before, especially if you are new to PSP.

(This entire tutorial © January 31st, 2003 by Guðrun Jacobsen).