Olila’s Second Life - Tutorials & Diary Diary & Tutorials

The Skin Tutorial - Part 4 is based on the earlier parts of the Skin Tutorial. You can find them on this page: Tutorials by Subject.

Ok, now we are going to create some ‘body-parts’ for the head like nose, ears, and eyebrows. For the really ‘basic shadings’ we did in the earlier parts of the Skin Tutorial I used grayscale.

For this part I’m going to use some different techniques to make you aware of that there is many techniques one can use when creating a skin and that the best is to choose one or several that works best for you.

And please remember: The final result of this skin isn’t going to be a ‘really-high-quality skin’. This is to get you going making your own first draft.

For this tutorial I’m using Photoshop CS, but I hope you can make it work with older or newer versions or other graphic programs, like Paint Shop Pro, Gimp etc. - if you know your way around those programs.

First: Colours

We are going to use two colours for some of the basic body-parts. One Light and one Dark.

For the light colour I used: R:249 G:200 B:173 (#F9C8AD):

For the dark colour I used: R:65 G:46 B:29 (#412E1D):

OK! Let’s start!

1. Nose

Open up the Skin_Head file you created in the previous steps. Create three new layers for the nose.

We are going to use the first layer for some dark shadings.

For this part of the tutorial - let’s be smart - and use one of the layers in the UV-MAPS folder. Open that folder and make ONLY the layer: Fills Vector SO visible and select it.

Select the Magic Wand Tool ad click in the nose area to make a selection.

I used the settings: Tolerance: 50 / Anti-aliased / Contiguous.

Now select the Fill Tool.

IMPORTANT! Select the layer: Layer 1.

Fill the selection with the darker colour you created before.

Repeat this step with the other side of the nose. So that the file will look like this.

Let’s blur it a little! Select Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur from the top menu bar.

I used the setting:
9 pixels.

Click OK.

Back in the Layers palette: Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ of the Layer 1 to Multiply.

It will look something like this:

Make the UV-MAPS folder visible and select Layer 2 and use the Brush Tool. Choose your brushsize and an Opacity around 50%.

Draw the nostrils and a darker shade under the nose. I used brushsize: 17 and 45.

Back in the Layers palette: Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ of the Layer 2 to Multiply and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 50%. Now the whole thing will look something like this:

Select Layer 3 and use the Brush Tool with the lighter colour we created before. Choose your brushsize and an Opacity around 50%.

Draw the highlights for the nose. I used brushsizes 45-27.

Back in the Layers palette: Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ of the Layer 3 to Lighten and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 20%. Now the whole thing will look something like this:

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Create a new Folder (Set) by clicking the pic of a folder in the Layers palette. I named that folder: NOSE. Drag all the new layers into that folder to make the layers easier to handle.

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I also renamed the layers to: Light, Nostrils & Shade, Dark.

Nose ready!

Now the file will look something like this:

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2. Ears

For the ears I’m going to use a totally different technique!

Since ears are really hard to draw I’m going to use a picture of an ear - one I got from a resource on the web - but I’m sure you can find an ear-picture you can use.

This is what my pic look like ( ignore the ’sample-stamps’ ):

Open the picture in Photoshop.

Duplicate the Background-layer by rightclicking the layer (not the thumb-nale) and choose ‘Duplicate Layer’.

Use the ‘Lasso Tool‘ or the ‘Eraser Tool‘ or whatever tool you prefer to get rid of the parts around the ear you don’t need. Something like this:

At this point it’s smart to adjust the size of the ear. Select Image/Trim and click ‘Transparent Pixels’ and OK. Then select Image/Image Size and set the Height to about 210 pixels (Constrain Proportions checked) if you are working with your skin in a 1024×1024 pixels file.

Use Select/Select All (Ctrl+A) and Edit/Copy (Ctrl+C) to copy the ear-pic into your clipboard.

Open up the Skin_Head file and create a new layer and make sure it’s selected. Use Edit/Paste (Ctrl+V) to put the ear in that file on a new layer.

Open the UV-MAPS folder and make the layer: UV Vector Smart visible. Use the ‘Move Tool’ to put the ear in the right place.

Use Edit/Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to “tweak and twirl” the ear so that it will match the UV-lines. This can be a bit tricky… So take a copy of the layer before you start. And have patience because this is going to take a lot of “Trial and Error” if this is new to you.

When ready it should look something like this. I turned off the Skincolour-layer to make it easier to see. Apply!

At this point I used the ‘Eraser Tool‘ with a rather big soft brush and a middle opacity to soften the edges of the ear. Like this:

Now duplicate the ear-layer and create a new layer on top of that.
Fill the top-layer with a colour - never mind witch - I used an ugly green.
Link the copy and toplayer together and flip them horizontally by hitting: Ctrl+F.
This will mirror the first ear! You want TWO ears, don’t you?

Now you can delete the - in my case ugly green - top-layer. It was only used to mirror the ear. Link the two ear-layers together. Then merge them together (Ctrl+E). I called this layer: EARS.

Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ of the Layer: EARS to ‘Luminosity‘ and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 30%. ‘Luminosity’ makes the layer adjust to the colour of the layers underneath.

It will look like this:

I created a new Folder (Set) by clicking the pic of a folder in the Layers palette. I named that folder: EARS and dragged the layer EARS into that folder to make the ear-layers easier to handle in the future.

Ears Ready!

3. Brows

To create really good looking natural brows the best is to draw every straw by hand if you got that kind of skills! But for an easy way out - one can use brushes! Create your own or find suitable ones on the web.

The default brushes in Photoshop won’t do the trick as is. But for now: I’m trying to make the steps of this tutorial as basic as possible - so I won’t use any new brushes here - only one default one - but I will tweak it a little - and hope it’s useful learning!

Still working on the Skin_Head psd-file!

Make the layer Eyebrows & Eyelashes visible to use as a guide for the brows. The ‘Blend Mode’ should be ‘Multiply’ by default.

Create two new layers for the brows.

Select one layer and use the Brush Tool with the dark brown colour from before to create a base for the eyebrow. I used a hard brush with the size 9 and Opacity 100%.

Draw the base of one brow - the one to the right.

Something like this?

Now blur it! Select Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur from the top menu bar.

I used the radius setting:
6 pixels.

Select the Brush Tool and the default brush that looks like a straw - called ‘Dune Grass’ - it’s 112 pixels.

Now comes the tweaking part!

Open the ‘Brush Palette’ (to the right in the tool bar). ‘Brush Preset’ should already be selected. Set the Master Diameter to something like 18 pixels (if your canvas is 1024×1024). Uncheck all “dynamics” and click the ‘New’ icon at the bottom. This will save these new settings, making a new brush.

Name your brush and click OK.

Open the ‘Brush Palette’ again.

Make sure your new brush is selected. This time select: ‘Brush Tip Shape’.

Now change the angle of the brush by typing or “moving the arrow on the wheel”. I used -28°. Click the ‘New’ icon at the bottom again to save this second brush.

Use this same technique to create a couple of more brushes in different angles.

I created 4 using: -40°, -55°, -85°, 13°. So now I have 6 new brushes in different angles to work with.

You can find your new brushes at the bottom when you open the current set of brushes from the tool bar.

Start working on your brow “straw by straw” on the second empty brow-layer (or several, witch actually works better) with the new brushes using the first brow-layer as a guide. I used ‘Black’ for colour and ‘100% Opacity’.

I finished the whole thing by using the ‘Eraser Tool’ to take away parts that I didn’t like and to soften the edges here and there. This is what my brow looks like:

Mirror the brow-layers the same way you did with the ear: Duplicate the brow-layers and create a new layer on top and fill that one with a colour. Link the two copylayers and the toplayer together and flip them (Ctrl+F).

Delete the top-layer. Link the two copyed, flipped brow-layers together with their originals and merge them together (Ctrl+E). I called these layers: ‘Brows’ and ‘Brow Base’.

Select the layer ‘Brow Base’. Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ to Soft Light. Or you can keep the normal ‘Blend Mode’ or maybe don’t use this layer at all?

Select the layer ‘Brow’. Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ to Luminosity and set the ‘Opacity’ to 40% - 100% depending on how dark you want your brows.

I created a new Folder (Set) by clicking the pic of a folder in the Layers palette. I named that folder: BROWS and dragged both Brow-layers into that folder to make the them easier to handle in the future.

Brows Ready!

With Nose, Ears and Brows my file now looks like this:

That was that for now!

Tutorials by Subject

Updated: October 2008