What is a cheongsam?

"The cheongsam is a female dress with distinctive Chinese features and enjoys a growing popularity in the international world of high fashion.
The name "cheongsam," meaning simply "long dress," entered the English vocabulary from the dialect of China's Guangdong Province (Cantonese). In other parts of the country including Beijing, however, it is known as " qipao ", which has a history behind it.
When the early Manchu rulers came to China proper, they organized certain people, mainly Manchus, into "banners" ( qi ) and called them "banner people" ( qiren ), which then became loosely the name of all Manchus. The Manchu women wore normally a one-piece dress which, likewise, came to be called " qipao " or "banner dress." Although the 1911 Revolution toppled the rule of the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty, the female dress survived the political change and, with later improvements, has become the traditional dress for Chinese women."

Taken from http://asiarecipe.com/chidress.html

Now that you know the origin of the cheongsam, let's get on with the tutorial :)

For the purpose of this tutorial I am using my Lucy base
However, this tutorial would easily apply to any doll base without problem.
This is the photo reference we are going to use for our cheongsam.

Reference from here : http://www.chinabridal.com/

I generally dress the base before I start on the hair, but you are welcomed to get your base hair finished first, either way lets start by drawing the outline of our cheongsam.

The color palette I have used -

Use whatever color you like, you can always change it later , and begin drawing the collar and front closure of the dress. This is probably the most identifying aspect of the cheongsam so it is important that you not go off on your own here ( although if you are not trying to draw a cheongsam specifically then go all off on your own! )

Lets get her skirt outlined. Notice we are only doing one side ;) Also see that the hem of the skirt is not flat or squared, it is actually somewhat circular. This is not a hard and fast trait of the cheongsam but it does stay with the feminine quality of the dress...

Lets draw a sleeve. I am using a different color only so you can see it better. You should use the same color you used for the rest of your outline...

Now use your lasso tool set to Freehand and select everything except the collar and the closure from the collar to the top of the breast area.. Just select like below :)

CTRL+C and Paste As New Selection. Then line it up with the half of the dress already there. You may have a few doubled pixels, just use your push tool or eraser to straighten those up..

So your doll thus far should look similar to this :

Now we need to open a new image, size 125 x 125. We are going to draw our pattern on this. Our reference uses lavendar plum flowers. Anything floral, birds or maybe oriental dragons if you are feeling frisky, would work... Just remember to keep it small so it fits in the dress and still looks proper. You could also use a single design on the skirt of the dress or on the bosom of the dress would be pretty too.
Here is a flower that fits nicely which you can use.. Recolor it to match your dress of course...

Once you have your pattern or image, copy it and paste it as a new layer onto your doll.. If you are doing a pattern then duplicate that layer and position it diagonal to the first. Keep doing that until the dress looks right to you.

As you can see I have added them all over the place.

Its time that we go back to the layer with the dress outline. Use your wand tool to select inside the outline.. Hold down shift and click inside any areas that are not automatically selected when you click inside the dress. It should look like this then ..

Now go to SELECTIONS >> INVERT.. And go up to each layer with the pattern on it and hit DELETE. What we are doing is deleting the pattern outside of the dress line.

Now go back to SELECTIONS and INVERT again. Go back to the layer with the dress outline on it. Add new layer.. Color in your dress the basic color you would like it to be. On the color palette Ive provided it would be color #2.

Now go up to the top layer ( it should be one of the pattern layers ) Add a new layer. Use color #3 to draw shading similar to below Im using green just so you can see it well.

Now go to your layers >> properties >> blend mode : multiple, opacity 45...

This is how you would do it in the layers palette

Anyway, after you do that, add a new layer

Use color #4 to highlight similarly ( again I am using yellow so you can see the highlighted areas better )

Layers >> Properties blend : screen opacity : 35

This is what it should look like now

Next lets add a slightly brighter highlight New layer... color #5 as below :)

Layers >> Properties >> blend : DODGE opacity : 7

This is pretty isnt it? But we arent finished yet. Lets add some more detail...

Go down to the pattern layers. Add a new layer above all of the pattern layers.. Use any matching color to add some trim to the hem of this dress...

You probably noticed as you were drawing the trim that the shading and highlights etc.. that we had done already, being over the layer you are doing the trim on, already shades and highlights the dress trim :)

Add your hair, and some shoes and you are done :)