Skin Tutorial - Part 6: Eyes
The Skin Tutorial - Part 6 is based on the earlier parts of the Skin Tutorial. You can find them on this page: Tutorials by Subject.
For the eyes I’m going to use some different techniques and some tools I haven’t used in the skintuts before.
This is going to be “basic eyes” that would work as a first draft for a male skin too. No makeup - that comes later!
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.
We are still working on the Skin_Head file! So open it up in your graphics program.
I started by creating a new Folder (Set) by clicking the pic of a folder in the Layers palette. I named that folder: EYES. I’m going to put all the new layers in that folder to make them easier to handle.
Eyes
I’m going to create ONE eye and then mirror it.
For this part of the tutorial I’m using one of the layers in the UV-MAPS folder as a guideline. Open that folder and make ONLY the layer: Fills Vector SO visible and select it. I turned the opacity from 35% to 100% to make it easier to see what I’m doing.
Inner Eye
Select the layer: Fills Vector SO. Use the ‘Magic Wand Tool’ and click the red inner parts of the eye to make a selection.
Now ADD to this first selection.
Use ‘+Clicking‘
Hold down Shift and click unselected part in the middle of the eye.
Should look like this.
Create a new layer in the folder ‘EYES’. I called the new layer: ‘Inner Eye’. Select it and fill the selection with a mid-grey colour. I used: R:89 G:89 B:89 (#595959).
Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ of the layer ‘Inner Eye’ to Multiply and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 50%.
Eyelid
Select the layer: Fills Vector SO. Use the ‘Magic Wand Tool’ and click the blue “eyelid part” to make a selection.
Create a new layer in the folder ‘EYES’. I called the new layer: ‘Eyelid’. Select it and fill the selection with a mid-grey colour. I used the same as before: R:89 G:89 B:89 (#595959).
Ctrl+D makes the selection go away!
Now blur it a little! I used: ‘Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur’.
Radius: 4 pixels.
Select the ‘Move Tool’. Hold down Ctrl and press ‘PgDn’ three times to lower this layer 3 pixels.
Select the layer: Fills Vector SO again. Use the ‘Magic Wand Tool’ and click the blue “eyelid part” to make the same selection as before.
Select the layer: ‘Eyelid’ again. Choose Select/Inverse (Ctrl+Shift+I) from the top menu bar to inverse the selection. Hit ‘Del’ to trim the eyelid (take away the blured parts outside the eyelid selection from ‘Fills Vector SO’).
Ctrl+D makes the selection go away!
Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ of the layer ‘Eyelid’ to Multiply and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 30%.
Eyelid Crease
Make the layer: Fills Vector SO visible.
Select the ‘Pen Tool’. Make sure the middle button (Paths) in the top ‘Tool Bar’ is selected. Zoom in close around the eye - around 200% . Draw a path: Click to create a some ‘Anchor Points’ where you want the crease. Don’t make too many - keep it ruff - you can move them later!
NOTE! You have to click on the first point to close the Path!
In the ‘Tools Palette’ - right-click on the ‘Pen Tool’ icon and select ‘Add Anchor Point Tool’. Click along your first path to create a some new ‘Anchor Points’ - I made four. Note that the new points has ‘handles’. One can move these to create curves.
Now you have to click and move and tweak all these points to create a nice crease-shape!
It can be a bit tricky if you haven’t used this tool before.
This is what mine look like:
Right-click inside the path and choose ‘Make Selection’ from the drop down menu to make the path a selection.
Create a new layer in the folder: ‘EYES’ and make sure that one is selected. I named that layer: ‘Eye Crease’. Fill the selection with the same grey as before.
Turn the ‘Blend Mode’ of the layer ‘Eyelid Crease’ to Multiply and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 50%.
Shades
For some shades around the eyes I created a new layer I called: ‘Eye Shades’. With a dark grey colour - R:51 G:51 B:51 (#333333) - and the ‘Brush Tool’ ( soft 35 and 27 pixels ) I painted two lines where I wanted the shades.
I then used the ‘Smudge Tool’ to soften the edges of the lines. I used a soft brush ‘45 pixels’ and ‘Opacity 50%’.
I blured it a little: ‘Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur’ Radius: 7 pixels…
…and turned the ‘Blend Mode’ of the layer to Soft Light and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 55%.
Highlights
Now for some highlights around the eye!
Make a selection of the “Eyelid”. You can use the ‘Magic Wand Tool’ and click outside the eyelid with that layer selected. Then hit Ctrl+Shift+I to inverse the selection.
Create a new layer and make sure that one is selected I called mine: ‘Eye Highlight’. Change the foregruoundcolour to a light one. I used the same as I used for lights when creating the nose and the lips: R:249 G:200 B:173 (#F9C8AD).
Select the ‘Gradiant Fill Tool’. Use settings as in the snap below and Normal, Opacity 100%, Transparency checked. Fill from the middle to the right (from blue to green line in the snap).
Looks something like this!
Make a selection of the Eyecrease the same way you did with the Eyelid and then select the layer: ‘Eye Highlights’. Hit del to erase the parts of the highlights that was interfering with the crease.
Use the ‘Brush Tool’ with a soft brush 9 pixels, Opacity 33 % and draw a soft little highlight-line freehand in the inner corner of the eye. Something like this:
Set the ‘Blend Mode’ of the layer ‘Eye Highlights’ to Screen and set the ‘Opacity’ to about 35%.
Eye Lines
I’m not calling these lines “Eyeliner” because they are not “makeup”… Lines like this make the edges around the eyes look good even though you are making a male skin. In my humble opinion, that is 
.
You might want them softer or try out different colours (I’ll show you how), that’s up to taste.
Create a new layer. I called mine: ‘Eye Line Upper’. Use the ‘Brush Tool’ with a hard brush 9 pixels, Opacity 100 % and Flow 20%. Draw a line freehand over the inner eye part and slightly over the lower part of the upper eyelid. I choose ‘Black’ for colour to start with. Something like this:
Use the ‘Blur Tool’, Opacity 100% - and make a freehand blur over the whole line and a little extra on the edges.
In the ‘Layers Palette’: Right-Click the layer and choose ‘Blending Options’. Select ‘Color Overlay’ click the colour-spot and choose a colour you like. I chose a dark brown one:
Now mine looks like this:
Create a new layer and do the same thing on the lower Eyeline. I called my new layer: ‘Eye Line Lower’.
Something like this?
Touch up
The edges of the first layers need to be a little softer… So I’m going to blur them a little. You could also use the ‘Smudge Tool’ if you need to.
Select the layer: ‘Inner Eye’ and use the ‘Blur Tool’, Soft brush 13 pixels, Opacity 100% - and make a freehand blur around the edges.
Select the layer: ‘Eyelid’ and use the ‘Blur Tool’ to soften the edges.
Select the layer: ‘Eye Crease’ and use the ‘Blur Tool’ freehand over the whole line and a little extra on the edges.
Mirror all layers
To create the second eye you have to make copys of ALL the eye-layers and then mirror them. Could be a bit tricky…
Create a copy of all the layers in the folder ‘EYES’ one by one (Right-click/Duplicate Layer). Create a new layer on top of them and fill it with a colour - any colour will do. Select this layer and link it together with ALL the COPYS. Only the copys, now! Press Ctrl+F to flip all layers horizontally.
Remember! If you make a mistake you can always press Ctrl+Z to undo what you just did.
To undo many steps: Press Ctrl+Alt+Z.
When you are done you can delete the top-layer.
NOTE! The mirroring part could actually be done along the way with each new layer you create - but that makes it harder to do “touch-ups” that affects both eyes. The benefit would be that you could merge the “twin-layers” together before you set ‘Blend Mode’ and ‘Opacity’ so that you don’t have a trillion layers to work with.
BUT! If you should merge the “twin-layers” together at this point the ‘Blend Mode’ would go back to normal and whatever ‘Opacity’ you chose earlier would turn to 100% and could not be made stronger later. Hope you get what I mean…
Eyes done!
Updated: October 2008
