Oekaki Tutorial (for Paint BBS v.2.04)
1. Know your tools:

Starting from the top left and going clockwise here is a description of the tools.

F: The button marked 'F' when clicked will make that window full screen.

Redo: Pressing redo will of course negate a previous 'undo'

Undo: Will undo your last stroke. Pressing Undo multiple times will undo each preceeding stroke.

Paint: This function is like a paint bucket and will fill in an area with color. As with other paint programs if the outline of an area is broken, the paint bucket will fill in every connected space, so be careful.

Solid-Solid is one of seven function buttons on the tools palette that has several other options. Options also listed on this button are Watercolor, and Text. Each option can be reached by clicking on the solid button again.

• The Solid tool is used to draw a solid line.
• The Watercolor tool is used to create a semi-opaque line. (useful for paintbrush effects)
• The Text tool, of course, is used to create text. To use the text tool, you click on the area on which you want to place your text in the picture. A separate window will pop up. You enter your text in that window and when you're finished you press 'enter'. The text tool cannot format text and it may take several tries to get the text right where you want it. With practice you'll learn how to place text correctly. (text size can be controlled with the pixel width tool to be discussed later)

Tone-This button also has other options; Shade Off, HiLight, and Dark

• The Tone tool produces half-tone patterns in the chosen color. The tone coverage can be controlled with the Alpha slider (or the opacity slider as some call it).
• The Shade Off tool is used like a water or blur function. The Shade Off tool effects lines, pigments, and tones. It's great for blending and softening lines. The blur area is subject to the pixel size.
• The HiLight tool is used like a dodge tool. Depnding on the Alpha setting, the hilight tool can dramatically brighten an area. It's useful for highlighting metal, plastic, and hair. With practice, you can produce interesting lighting effects with this tool.
• The Dark tool is used like a burn tool. This will increase a color's saturation and tonal value. Repeated passes can turn a color black.

Rect-The Rectangle button also has the options LineRect, Oval, and LineOval. Naturally, this tool is for rendering solid or line shapes in rectangular or oval forms. Pixel width determines the width of the lines in LineRect and LineOval.

Copy-The Copy button also has the options LayUnit, AntiAlias, Reverse LR, Reverse UL

• The Copy tool is used to copy a chosen rectangular area on ONE LAYER and then move it to another area.
• The LayUnit tool is used to create a layer mask. Meaning that if you chose a rectangular area on Layer 0 with LayUnit and there was lineart in that area on Layer 1, any new drawing you added to Layer0 would overwrite Layer1. I haven't found a practical application for this, yet, but if you know of one, please let me know ^_^
• The AntiAlias tool is used primarily to remove the 'jaggies' or roughness of lines. It can be also used to blur large areas at once. The ShadeOff tool under Tone produces a more dramatic, however.
• Reverse LR is used to "flip" a chosen area on one layer horizontally.
• Reverse UL reverses a chosen area on one layer vertically.

Clear-The Clear button also has the options White and WhiteRect

• Clear will clear the entire canvas (both layers). The effects can be reversed by using the 'Undo' button.
• White is used on one layer as an eraser. Using this rather than coloring an area in with white from the color palette will ensure the area on the layer is actually erased. (indispensible on Layer 1)
• WhiteRect can be used to erase rectangular areas on one layer.

FreeLine-The Freeline button also has the options Straight and Bezie

• The Freeline tool, just as it suggests, is for freehand drawings.
• The Straight tool draws straight lines of course.
• The Bezie tool is used to draw smooth curves. Mouse users will find this particularly useful.

Normal-Also under this button are the options Mask, ReMask, And, and Div

• Normal, the default mode, allows free draw. One color will cover another.
• Mask will mask all black, meaning you can color 'under' black without interrupting the black line on that layer.
• ReMask will color over only black in a designated area on one layer.
• And colors under hues lower than the current chosen color. For instance, a dark blue will cover a light blue in one layer. Refer to the numerical slides also to see if one color is lighter than the other.
• Div colors under hues higher than the current chose color. For instance, brown will color over pink in one layer. As with and, refer to the numerical slides to see if one color is darker than the other.

The color palette-With the color palette, you have a nearly endless range of hues and tones to use in your oekaki picture. Experiment with the palette to learn how to customize certain colors. Make note of some of your favorite colors so you can draw with the same palette for a character each time. The general rule is, the lower the number, the darker (or less saturated) a hue becomes. The higher the number, the brighter and more saturated a hue is. When all of the numbers are equal on each of the sliders, the color will be gray. How dark or light that gray is depends on the number on the slider.

Opacity Bar (Alpha Channel Control)--Directly under the color palette slider bars is the opacity bar. Its default setting is 255. The lower the bar is, the lower the current opacity of a line, shape, or text will be. This tool is also used to control the coverage pattern of the Tone tool.

Pixel Slider-To change the width at which a line can be drawn, the area in which a tone fills, or the size of text, use the Pixel slider. Its default setting is 1, but it can go as high as 30.

Quick Reference Palette-Directly underneath the pixel slider are three squares preset with black, gray, white, or some predetermined combination with different pixel widths. To change these options, you can either alter them with the pixel slider or you can pick up a color from the canvas or palette with Ctrl+mouseclick and then then drop it into the palette with the same method. The current pixel width along with the current color will be assigned to that box on the Quick Reference Palette.

Layer0/Layer1-This function switches the active layer on the canvas. Many new users forget to switch back and forth sometimes, but practice will make a habit of knowing when to switch. Even we "experts" mess up once in a while, though ^^'

Send-Finally, the Send button is used when you've finished a piece and are ready to submit it. Another small window will pop up after you've hit the Send button to confirm that the picture is finished. If it isn't finished, or you hit the Send button by mistake, hit Cancel on this button to return to the program. If it is finished, confirm by hitting 'OK' to go to the next window. After you hit "OK" there's no turning back.