Snap-hiss Dolls

Shading white/black

I'm a toolshader, and I use a complex graphics program. You won't be able to follow this tutorial if you're using MSPaint or something similar. Sorry, it's just how I doll. I'm a GIMP user, but I've done my best to make sure this tutorial is followable by photoshop/PSP/whatever users as well. However, I'm going to assume you already know how to use your program pretty well; this tutorial won't teach you how to do things like select or use the airbrush or change tool settings.
The first thing to do is to draw the clothes on. Here's the outline. Base by Fainelloth Dolls.
Now shade the clothes, but instead of shading with white or black straight away, use shades of grey instead. It doesn't really matter what shades you use, but I've used a dark grey for the skirt (which will be black) and light grey for the top (which will be white). It doesn't matter how you shade, just do what you normally do.
Okay, now we'll turn the clothes the right colours. In your program, there should be a tool called Levels. In the GIMP, you'll find it at Layer>Colours>Levels, in Photoshop it's at Image>Adjust>Levels. This is what it looks like in the GIMP, hopefully it's similar enough in other programs. I know many people use Brightness/Contrast to change greys to whites or blacks, but with Levels, you can control it a lot more and get better results. Levels is quite a complicated tool, but with enough playing about, it'll be very useful. I taught myself how to use this, so I hope I make sense as I explain it. The triangles along the bottom of the 'Input Levels' bar can be dragged. The left is the black tab, the right is the white tab. They control how much white/black is in the image.
We'll do the top first. To make it whiter, drag the white tab a little to the left. Do play around with it, there's no 'one perfect setting.' Then drag around the middle tab a bit until you get it just how you want it.
Now the skirt - this time, we'll use the black tab. Drag it to the right a little, then play around with the middle tab again until it's how you like it. A nice technique is to move both the white and black tabs - if they're close together, you'll get a shiny look, like in the second picture.
Pure white and black and grey can often look a little bit weird and unnatural. To make the clothes look a little more normal, we're going to use Colour Balance (GIMP: Layer>Colours>Colour Balance, Photoshop: Image>Adjust>Colour Balance). Just a tiny change can make a difference, you don't need to go overboard. Drag the bars around to add a tiny bit of colour so the clothes are ever so slightly cream, or light blue or whatever. I've gone with a touch of green on the skirt and top.
And now the white and black clothing's done, you just need to do the rest and you're done! Here're some examples of dolls I've made with this technique.