I'm continuing my Christmas 2005 series. This is my second pixel village for this year. I wanted a Russian-flavored village, and this is what I came up with. If you'd like to do my other pixel village, you'll find it here.

My pixel outline in psp format. You may download it here.

My color chart. Right click on it and save it to your computer.

My image is just a guide. Feel free to change the colors, apply cutouts or not, or add other effects to your liking. I put everything on its own layer (and name each one). That way you can easily go back and change colors later and correct any mistakes you've made. It makes a lot of layers, but it also keeps things organized and will save you a lot of heartache.

It makes it easier if you enlarge your graphic (use your magnifier tool) so you can see the pixels clearly. Feel free to save my images in this tut too, and enlarge them as necessary to see.

The basic procedure for each piece will be the same. You'll add a new layer. Set your brush size to 1 and paint the outline of the piece in a darker color and then paint the inside in a lighter color (Hint: to do the inside coloring, make the outline layer active, choose your magic wand and click inside the section you want to color - then apply the color on your new layer).

I've applied a cutout to some pieces, usually using the same color as its outline color. To apply the cutout, select and float the selection (selections>select all>selections>float). You'll see the marquee ("marching ants") around the selection. Apply a cutout (effects>3d effects>cutout), using the settings in the screenshot (the shadow color will change for each selection). For some items, I repeated the cutout, changing the horizontal and vertical to -1 instead. Just play with the settings, it's a bit of a personal preference.

[Hint: When you're going to add a cutout, set your foreground or background color to the shadow color you're going to use. Then, when you apply your cutout, just right click on the shadow color box and choose the color from the recent colors displayed there.]

Step 1. Open up the pixel outline you downloaded. There are two layers - a background and the outline layer.

Open up the color chart you saved. Move it to the top of your graphic out of the way. When you need a color, just click on it with your dropper tool

Step 2. Here are the colors I've used for each section of the graphic.

Outline 1 Inside - 2 Cutout - 1

Snow

Outline - 3 Inside - 4 Cutout - 1

Trees

Outline 5 Inside - 4 Cutout - 6 Trunk - 7 Star Outline - 8 Star inside - 9

House 1 (the one on the right)

House, windows, door outline - 7 House inside - 10 Cutout - 7 Windows top, door inside - 11 Windows top, door inside cutout - 7 Window panes - 12 Window panes cutout - 1 Chimney outline - black Chimney inside - 13 Chimney cutout - black

Church

Roof outline - 3 Roof inside - 4 Roof cutout - 3 Church, windows, door outline - 14 Church inside - 15 Church cutout - 14 Church dome outline - 16 Church dome inside - 17, 18 Church dome cutout - 19 Church dome cross - 6 Windows inside - 12 Windows top - 18 Windows top cutout - 19 Door outline 19 Door inside - 18 Door cutout - 19

House 2 (the one on the left)

House, windows, door outline - 20 House inside - 21 House cutout - 20 Roof outline - 3 Roof inside - 4 Roof cutout - 3 Roof 2 outline - 10 Roof 2 inside - 11 Roof 2 inside 2 - 19 Window outline - 10 Windows top inside - 20 Windows inside - 12 Door - 10

Step 3. I decided to add a background sky and some snow to my village2, but that's optional. To do so, use color #22 for the sky. For the snow, just choose your paintbrush, size about 2, opacity about 70. Add a new layer. Paint on some dots of snow. Change the size/opacity of your brush up/down as you need to to make the flakes different.

Step 4.When you're satisfied with your creation, delete the color chart and merge visible layers.

And that's it, all done. I hope you've enjoyed the tut!

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This tutorial was created on December 1, 2005.
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ŠPracken, 2003-2005