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

This tutorial will show you how to create an upper body tattoo for your Second Life avatar in one semi-transparent colour. I’m going to create the tattoo from pictures in black and white. To create the transparent parts I’m going to use an Alpha Channel.

For this tutorial I’m using Photoshop CS, but I’m sure you can make this work with older or newer versions, PS Elements and other graphic programs, like Paint Shop Pro, Gimp etc.

BUT! Your program must have functions for layers, transparency and Alpha channels - and you have to be able to save your files as TARGA (TGA) files.

1. Get your pictures

Let’s start with the pictures to work with for the tattoo. Use a pictures that is “black” on a totally white background.

You can also create the pictures yourself freehand or by using a “wingding” font, brushes or custom shapes. But be sure to read the copyright notes if you use someone elses work. The best is to use stuff that are totally free with copyright notes that states that you can do whatever you want with it!

Here are some “no cost” recourses:
Tattoo Fonts
Tattoo Pics - Free for personal use only
Tattoo Brushes for Photoshop
Tattoo Custom Shapes

For this tutorial I used several images that - as far as I could understand - are totally free to use.

They look like this:

2. Put your images in the right place

Open up your Graphic program. Then open Robin Wood’s texture-template-file for the UPPER-BODY. If you don’t get what I’m talking about, read the tutorial: Making Clothes & Skins - Preparations Part 3.

My file looks like this:

Select: File/Save As from the top menu bar and save the file with a new name - still in psd-format (remember where you saved it). I renamed mine to: tattoo_upper.psd.

Now open your tattoo-pics and put them on new layers in your psd-file simply by holding down SHIFT and drag them there one by one ( or copy and paste if you prefer that ).

Use the Move Tool to put the tattoo-pic where you want it on the upper body.

Repeat this with all your pictures. My file now looks like this:

3. Tweak & Twirl

Let’s tweak and twirl the layers a little to make the tattoos just like we want them!

Front & Back

I want my front and back tattoos to be bigger. I duplicated the front-layer: Right-click / Duplicate Layer.

Then I made sure that the copy layer was selected and flipped it: Edit/Transform/Flip Vertical to turn it upside down.

I used the Move Tool to put the “new” pic where I wanted it. Like this:

Then I did the same thing with the back tattoo-pic - to make that one bigger too - and merged the all these layers together by linking them and hit Ctrl+E. I called that layer Front & Back.

Now the file looks like this.

Arms

About arm-tattoos… Since the avatar templates just provide one arm - showing the upper and under part of one = both arms - if you put a tattoo on that one arm it will show up on both arms… So in SL you cannot have different tattoos on your arms. Sorry sailors!

For the tattoos on the arms I’m going to turn and resize them to make them fit - working with one pic at the time.

From the start it looks like this:.

To turn the tattoo 90 degrees left I made sure the layer Arm 1 was selected and used: Edit / Transform / Rotate 90 CCW.

Now it looks like this:

I then had to resize the image to make it fit the upper arm. I used: Edit / Transform / Scale. Drag the handles to resize the layer.

When you are satisfy ed: Click the Move Tool. In the pop-up window click: Apply.

Use the Move Tool to put the tattoo in the right place!

I used this same technique on the two other pics for my arm-tattoo. I then merged ALL the tattoo-layers together by linking them and hit Ctrl+E. I called that layer Tattoos.

Now the file looks like this:

To put the tattoos on a solid white background I created a new white background-layer and merged it together with the layer named: Tattoos.

Now the file looks like this:

Some filters?

At this point I’m going to use a filter that comes with Photoshop called: ‘Photocopy’. That’s because I don’t want my tattoo to be one flat solid colour. But this is optional…

I made a copy of the layer: Tattoo. That way I still have an original to go back to if I do too many stupid moves I selected the copyed layer.

From the top menu bar I selected: Filter/Sketch/Photocopy and used the settings: Detail: 7 , Darkness: 3 ( for your tattoo you might want to use other settings ). Click OK.

Now my tattoo-layer looks like this:

Other useful filters for tattoos could be: Stylize/Find Edges and Stylize/Trace Contour

NOTE! When you play around with filters at this point you should realize that with the technique used in this tutorial the white parts won’t actually be white on the final tattoo - they will be transparent. And the grey parts you see at this point will end up semi-transparent. You won’t actually see any white or grey parts in your final tattoo. Those are the parts where your avatars skincolour will shine through!

4. Create the Alpha Channel

To make the Alpha Channel that creates transparency I first inverted the colours of my tattoo-layer - since Alpha Channels use black for transparency.

Make sure the layer: ‘Tattoo copy’ is selected and hit Ctrl + i to invert the colours.

Now my tattoo-layer looks like this:

I then selected the whole layer using Select/All from the top menu bar (or Ctrl+A):

It will now look like this:

Select: Edit/Copy from the top menu bar ( or hit Ctrl+C ) to copy the whole layer into your “clipboard”.

Select the Channels palette (next to the Layers palette).

Click the ‘New channel’ button at the bottom. This will create a new channel called ‘Alpha 1′ (totally white). Select it.

Hit Ctrl+V to paste the inverted tattoo layer as ‘Alpha 1′.
Before you leave this palette it should look like this!

Go back to the Layers palette. Hit Ctrl+D to make the selection go away.

Back in the layers palette you can actually DELITE the layer with the inverted colours if you want (drag it to the trashcan).

Why? That is because it’s the Alpha channel that create the transparency not the layer itself!

5. Save the Tattoo-texture

Now you have to decide what colour you want for your tattoo! I would like a black one. So I created a new layer and filled it with black and called it: Black BG.

Also the best size for a clothing texture in SL is 512 x 512 pixels. This file is now 1024 x 1024 (the original size). If you want it smaller choose Image/Image size from the top menu bar to alter the size of the whole file.

When you’re saving with an Alpha Channel you should save the texture together with a background-layer with similar colours (to avoid ugly white edges).

So I made a copy of the layer Black BG.

Make sure the background layer is visible and the Black BG copy layer on top of it is selected.

Select: File/Save As from the top menu bar. I named my texture: ‘upper_tattoo1‘.

Choose to save it as a Targa-file (*.TGA;*.VDA;*.ICT;*.VST). Click ‘Save’.

When the ‘Targa Options’ popup appears, select: ‘32 bits/pixel’ (’Compress RLE’ unchecked). Click ‘OK’ to create the Targa-file with an Alpha Channel.

You wont actually see the actual tattoo until you upload the texture to SL! But it’s there! That is because it’s the Alpha channel that create the transparent parts when the file is saved, not the visible layer itself.

6. Upload the Texture & Create the Tattoo in Second Life

The tattoo-texture is now saved on your hard-drive.

To upload the texture to Second Life: Select File/Upload in the SL Client (for 10L$). You will find your new tattoo-texture in your ‘Texture-folder‘.

In Second Life: Rightclick on your avatar and choose ‘Appearance‘.

Click the tab ‘Undershirt’ and the button ‘Create New’ to save the tattoo on an undershirt layer.

Other options could be ‘Shirt’ or ‘Jacket’ for an upper body tattoo.

Actually! It could be a smart ting to save your tattoo on different kind of clothing items while you’re at it. Then you have a lot more options wearing your tattoo with different kind of tops.

Click ‘Fabric’. Then find and select the tattoo-texture you created and uploaded.

Make sure the value of the clothing sliders are high enough to show all of the tattoo.

Click ‘Save as’ and give your “tattoo-top” a name - and remember it.

The “tattoo-clothing” will be located in the ‘Clothing-folder’. Right-click to wear it - and that’s it!

Finally!

This is what my tattoo looks like, finally!

You can pick up this and my other free tattoos at ‘Olila’s Yardsale’ SLurl: Philereme 244/87/56.

Tjingeling!

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Updated: March 2008