Using Microsoft Paint

How to make a Picky Picky Game panel using Microsoft Paint

If you have a Microsoft Windows computer then you will have Microsoft Paint included with the rest of the Windows programs. It is hidden on the Accessories sub-menu of the Programes menu. (On Windows XP, by Program menu I mean the All Programms button.) This means even if you do not own fancy graphics packages like JASC Paintshop Pro or Adobe Photoshop, you can still do drawings.

Before you start drawing you need to set the image size. Do this by selecting Image menu, Attributes command. Make sure the Units chosen is ‘Pels’ (meaning pixels) and enter the correct dimensions for the Picky Picky Game: Width 180, Height 240.

The paint tools include a pencil (for drawing single-pixel lines), a brush (for drawing fatter lines), and a very simple spray can (which draws with a random pattern of dots).

You choose the colours by clicking on one of the colour wells in the palette along the bottom of the window. Two chosen colours are shown at the left end of the palette: the one drawn in front is the foreground colour, the other the background. You select and paint with the background colour in the same way, except that you use the right mouse button instead of the left. If you double-click on one of the colour wells, then you get a colour-picker for choosing a different colour to store in that well.

You can also zoom in to edit your drawing in greater detail, using commands in the View menu. With the pencil tool and a lot of patience you could even attempt to do by hand some of the anti-aliasing and blending that fancier graphics programs do automatically.

Once you have finished your drawing, save it as a Windows BMP file. You can upload this direct to Picky Picky Game, which will automatically translate it from BMP format to PNG (since BMP is not an Internet graphics format).

• Microsoft Paint primer