Paperdolls ver. 1.0
by Dan Bickell


This is something that I threw together after a few suggestions that people
might enjoy this type of thing.  When I create the graphics for my Quake
skins, I make them as a number of seperate components, which I can re-color 
and play around with and then put them all together, kind of like playing 
paper dolls.  I was making a few female skins for the Quake Women's Forum
female skin pack, and it was suggested to me that it would be a lot of fun
if people could get a hold of all my component graphics to play paper dolls
with and make up their own skins.  So, I put them all together, and made some
new ones too.


"Neat. How's it work?"

Well, it's a collection of graphic components.  You unzip these into a 
directory, and then you can use your favorite graphics editor to cut-
and-paste the components on to the base graphic. 

The base graphic is nude female.  A nude female doesn't look very good on the
big-bulky-man-of-a-model Quake player model, so your job is to dress her up
so she will look pretty and feminine.  There are about 40 different pieces of
clothing, hair, shoes, accessories, and weapons to add to the base graphic to
make up your own female Quake player skin.

I'm assuming you know the basics of Quake skin editing, or you wouldn't be 
interested in this type of thing. But, if you don't, I attached an updated
copy of my FAQ which will explain everything you need to know.  As explained
in my FAQ, Paintshop Pro shareware is the editor of choice for Quake graphics,
so all examples will be with Paintshop Pro (PSP), which is easily obtained by
anybody with internet access- just use a search engine and look for "paintshop
pro" or go to http://www.jasc.com which is the company that produces it.

"Ok, so how do I specifically go about cutting and pasting this stuff together?"

There are features built in to PSP (and most other good graphics programs) that 
make this really easy.  

In PSP, the first step is to load up the base graphics (basegirl.bmp for regular 
Quake format, or basegirl.pcx for QuakeWorld format).  Then, browse the 
directory with all of the graphics in it and pick out what you want to dress
her up with. 

In all of the components, the background color is the fullbright
white collor (RGB 255 255 255).  You can use PSP's selection tools to select
the component (just grab a box slection around the whole thing) and "modify" 
out the background color.  Just select the background color (the fullbright
white mentioned above) as your foreground color, and then after you've made
your selection of the desired component, select "modify" under the selections
menu, and then "transparent color" under the "modify" menu, and select your
foreground color (that fullbright white), and PSP will automatically cut the 
background out of your selection, and you'll have just the component that you
wanted.  

Now, you can copy that component, and switch to your base image, and paste it
where you want.  These components were designed pretty carefully, and they will
rarely need any changes made at all, and if so, only a few pixels to clean up.

"Anything else we should know?"

I designed several of the components with the player shirt/pants colors, so 
these can be used in the game to change colors.  All of the hair components
are in player shirt color, so you can change your hair color in the game.
There are 3 brightness variants of the hair, each with 2 styles.  Several
other components use the player pants colors, such as both the new weapons
sets, and many of the pieces of clothing.  

I recommend dressing your woman up as you would the real thing.  Think of 
layers here.  You'll have to put on undergarments on first if they're to
show underneath something else like a jacket.  If you want the pants to go 
over the top of the shoes and socks, you'll have to put the shoes on first.

There is a graphic named "doodads.bmp" that has logos and little accessories
that make nice little final touches to the graphics.  Use them.  I encourage
you to make up your own designs to personalize your skin.  Lots of the 
components have nice big open spaces that are just crying for a clan logo or
something.

Included among the components is a credit graphic, and it is also on the base
images.  All I ask is that if you make a skin with any of graphics from this
set, that you please include this credit graphic on the skin somewhere.  You're
more than welcome to put your name and whatever else you want on your skins, 
just as long as you put my credit graphic on there too.   

I included 2 examples of skins created solely from these this graphics set, 
with no further modification what-so-ever to show what can be done with this 
stuff.  One is a sexy dominatrix, the other is a cute girl in shorts and a 
Victoria's Secret sweatshirt and keds.  

Of course, I know some people are going to make some skins involving nudity, 
and I encourage this.  Afterall, it seems that nude male skins are quite
popular among Quake players, so why can't women do the same thing?  But...
I have to stress that the best way to do this would still be to cover up
as much of her as you can (just leave off any undergarments) or she will look
nasty on that player model.  Making female Quake player graphics is a real 
challenge, because of the shape of the player model being so un=feminine.
You have to add clothing strategically to add bulk in the right places and
give the illusion of a slender feminin shape under these clothes.  

For everybody that might be offended by this nudity- get a life.  It's a damn
computer game, dammit.  Go take your prude self somewhere else.  I don't see 
anybody complaining about the nude male skins out there.  And I sure as hell
wasn't going to do some anatomically-uncorrect Barbie doll looking thing either.
So there.

I do plan to release more components and further add-ons in the future.
If you have suggestions or need help, feel free to email me at:

danbickell@loop.com

Enjoy!
going to make some