How to Mirror Face Paint in Tomodachi Life (The ZL Flip Trick)

There's no dedicated mirror mode in Tomodachi Life face paint. But the community discovered a workaround early on that's nearly as fast once you know it: draw one side, select it, duplicate it, flip it, drag it to the other side.

Why there's no built-in mirror mode

Nintendo designed the face paint editor as a freehand drawing canvas. The Select tool was intended for repositioning elements, not mirroring. But the combination of duplicate (+) and flip (ZL) was a happy accident that the community turned into a core technique.

The step-by-step workaround

1. Paint one complete half of the face. Do the entire left side — hair, eyebrows, markings, shading — exactly as you want it to appear. Don't worry about the right side yet.
2. Select your artwork. Use the dotted-box Select tool and draw a selection around everything you just painted. You can select multiple unconnected areas by drawing a larger box.
3. Duplicate with +. Press the + button. This creates an exact copy of your selection.
4. Flip horizontally with ZL. Press ZL. The duplicate flips horizontally, creating a mirror image.
5. Drag to the opposite side. Drag the flipped copy to the other side of the face. On a 32×32 grid (8px brush), the centre axis runs between columns 15 and 16. Align carefully.
6. Deselect to merge. Tap outside the selection to lock everything in place.

Tips for clean mirroring

• Use the grid lines. Turn on the 8×8 reference grid in the display settings. Line up the flipped copy with the grid for perfect alignment.
• Mind the face edges. The Mii face is oval, not rectangular. Elements near the edges of the face may need manual adjustment after mirroring.
• Both halves live on the same layer after deselecting. If you want to edit just one side later, you'll need to use the Select tool again.
• Mirroring works best for hair, eyebrows, facial markings, and cheek blush. Complex gradients and shading sometimes look unnatural when mirrored. Check the expressions preview.

Using the grid tool for symmetry

The Tomodachi face paint grid tool has a symmetry toggle. Turn it on and the preview shows what your design looks like mirrored. This lets you plan symmetrical designs before you paint a single cell in-game. Toggle symmetry, align your reference image to the centre axis, and the grid will show you exactly which colours go in each cell on both sides.