What I offer with this tutorial is the easiest fastest way that I have found to create shading.  I am sorry but you will not be able to use this technique if you use MS Paint for creating your dolls.  I am using PSP 7 but most all paint programs have similar features that will allow you to use the same technique.  The process is exactly the same in Photoshop as it is in PSP.   I hope you enjoy this tutorial and feedback is much appreciated.

Step 1

The first thing that you need to do is choose your base and color palette.  The palette should consist of at least 3 shades of the same color.  Here I have chosen 4 shades of blue.  You can find more color palettes here.

Step 2

Next choose New Raster Layer from your Layers menu.

Step 3

Now you will make an outline for your skirt using the darkest color from your color palette and select the outline with your magic wand.

Step 4

Now flood fill the skirt with the same shade that you outlined with.

Step 5

The next step is to go to your selections menu and choose modify/ contract.

Step 6

Now set your number of pixels at 1.

Step 8

Repeat steps 5 through 7 with the next two shades in your color palette.

That's all there is to it! I told you it was simple!