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!

Tutorials by Subject

Updated: October 2008

In this part we are going to create lips for the head-texture.

I’m going to use different techniques from what I used in the earlier parts 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.

Still and Again: 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.

Lips

Lips… Well, they are kind of tricky to get natural so I’m going to use a picture for this. For my life I can’t remember where I got this one - but I’m sure you can find a picture of your own for this purpose.

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 ‘Crop Tool‘ to get rid of the parts around the lips you don’t need. Something like this:

Right-Click the selection and choose ‘Crop’

.

At this point it’s smart to adjust the size of the picture. Select Image/Image Size and set the Height to about 65 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 lips-picture into your clipboard.

Open the Skin_Head file and create a new layer and make sure it’s selected. Use Edit/Paste (Ctrl+V) to put the lips in that file on a new layer. I called this new layer ‘Lips’.

Open the UV-MAPS folder and make the layer: Fills Vector SO visible. Use the ‘Move Tool’ to put the lips in the right place. Something like this:

Use Edit/Transform/Scale (or Free Transform Ctrl+T) if you need to resize the lips.

Open the UV-MAPS folder and select the layer: Fills Vector SO. Use the ‘Magic Wand Tool’ and click to make a selection.

Now ADD to this first selection (make it bigger): Hold down Shift and click unselected parts of the mouth over and over until the whole thing is selected - I call that ‘+Clicking‘.

Smart feature, huh?

Select the layer: ‘Lips’ and inverse the selection (Ctrl+Shift+I). Don’t forget this!

Hit ‘Del’ to take away the parts of your lips outside the selection.

NOTE! Your lips do not have to fill the whole “mouth-area” of the layer Fills Vector SO. The important thing is that your lips don’t go outside it!

You can use the ‘Lasso Tool‘, ‘Eraser Tool‘ or whatever tool you prefer to get rid of the parts around the lips you don’t need. I also used the ‘Eraser Tool‘ with a rather big soft brush and a middle opacity to soften the edges a little around the lips. Something like this:

Colour

The colour of the lips in my lip-pic does not look natural (if yours do you can skip this part). So I’m going to give them a new colour - something natural because if I want a lipstick-colour-look I can create that on top later. You might not agree on what looks natural… But this is what I did.

To start from scratch I first turned my lips into grey. Image/Adjustments/Desaturate (Ctrl+Shift+U).

Then Image/Adjustments/Color Balance (Ctrl+B) with the settings: Midtones / +55 -25 -50.
Then Color Balance again with the settings: Midtones / +20 -20 -20.

Smudge

Maybe you don’t need or want to do this - but at this point I smoothed the lips with the ‘Smudge Tool’. I used a soft brush ‘13 pixels’ and ‘Opacity 50%’.

ADVANCED! To make this work better I opened the ‘Brush Palette’ (to the right in the tool bar) and clicked ‘Shape Dynamics’ - then unchecked ‘Spacing.’ This will make the ‘Smudge Tool’ BLEND the colours, instead of just smearing them around.

Now my file looks like this:

Lights & Shades

Do your lips need some lights and shades? There are many ways to do this, I’m sure, but I’m going to do this freehand since my lips aren’t totally even.

Lights

Create a new layer an put it on top of the layer ‘Lips’. Use the ‘Brush Tool’ and a light colour. I used the same as I used for lights when creating the nose: R:249 G:200 B:173 (#F9C8AD) and a soft round brush ‘13 pixels’ and ‘Opacity 100%’.

I painted a light area reaching slightly beyond the top of the lips. I then used the ‘Eraser Tool’ to smoothen the edges. Looks like this! Not that pretty, huh?

I placed this layer UNDER the layer ‘Lips’ and named it: ‘Lip Lights’. I turned the ‘Blend Mode’ to ‘Light‘ and the ‘Opacity’ to 75% ( other settings might work better for you ).

Looks like this! Better, huh?

Shade

Create a new layer an put it on top of the layer ‘Lips’. Use the ‘Brush Tool’ and a dark colour. I used the same as I used for shades when creating the nose: R:65 G:46 B:29 (#412E1D) and a soft round brush ‘13 pixels’ and ‘Opacity 100%’.

I painted a dark line at the bottom of the lips.

I then blured the line a little: Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur and ‘2.0 pixels‘.

I used the ‘Smudge Tool’ to smear out the edges:

I named the layer: ‘Lip Shade’ and turned the ‘Blend Mode’ to ‘Multiply‘ and the ‘Opacity’ to 50% and kept it on top of the layer: ‘Lips’.

At this point I set the opacity of the layer: ‘Lips’ to 75%.

NOTE! If you do this or if your lips aren’t totally opaque from the beginning you might want to get rid of the part of the ‘Lip Light’ layer that shines through the lips. Maybe by using the the ‘Eraser Tool’ or select the lips and delete that part from the layer: ‘Lip Light’.

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

Lips Ready!

Tjingeling!

Tutorials by Subject

Updated: October 2008

I’ve been using Layer Masks for a long time but I didn’t think of using it for SL tattoos until I read Robin Woods tutorial: Getting the White Out of Line Art. Thanks Robin!

For this tutorial I’m using Photoshop CS. I’m sure you can make this work with newer versions or similar with the GIMP or other programs that support Layer Masks.

1. Get your picture

Be sure to read the copyright notes if you use a picture that is someone elses work. The best is to create the picture yourself or use stuff that are totally free with copyright notes that states that you can do whatever you want with it!

For this tutorial I’m using an image that - as far as I could understand - is totally free to use.

This one:

2. Make the picture semi-transparent

Open the picture in Photoshop.

Duplicate the Background-layer by rightclicking the layer (not the thumbnail) and choose ‘Duplicate Layer’. I named this layer ‘Angel Tattoo’.

Delete the background-layer or make sure the new one is selected!

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

Mask your layer

Create a new Layer Mask on the ‘Angel Tattoo-layer’ by clicking ‘New Mask’ at the bottom of the Layers palette when that layer is selected.

HOLD DOWN ‘Alt’ (don’t forget this!) and THEN click the Layer-Mask-Thumbnail.
At this point the mask will be totally white. It should look like this:

Now when the Mask is selected: Paste the pic into the mask from the “clipboard” by selecting Edit/Paste from the top menu bar ( or Ctrl+V ). It will be ‘Black & White’.

To make the transparency right: Select Image/Adjustments/Invert from the top menu bar ( or Ctrl+I ) to invert the colours.

Click the Layer-Thumbnail. As you can see the background is now transparent.

Ctrl+D makes the selection go away!

Get rid of ‘Ugly White Halo’

Since the original picture had black borders on a white background - the picture now has grey edges because the black was ‘Anti-Aliased’ (smoothed out) against the white background.

That would give the tattoo an ugly greyish finish around it - known as the ‘Ugly White Halo‘ - and that would look REALLY awful on the final tattoo.

To avoid that I used the ‘Paint Bucket Tool’ and filled the layer with a ‘Totally Black Colour’ ( you might prefer another colour depending on the edges on your picture ).

The greyish borders will now be ’semi-black’ - and adjust to any background colour.

Apply the Mask

Now: Apply the Mask! Right-click the Mask thumbnail and click ‘Apply Layer Mask’ from the drop-down menu.

Now it looks like this:

3. Put your tattoo in the right place

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: tattoo2_upper.psd.

Now open your Tattoo-pic and put it on a new layer in your psd-file simply by dragging it there ( or copy and paste if you prefer that ).

At this point you can resize the tattoo - if you need to - by using Edit/Transform/Scale. Drag the corner-handles to resize the layer.

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

Deselect the layers you don’t need any more!

4. Save your tattoo

At this point you may choose from two options (formats) when saving your file. You can save your tattoo as a PNG-file or a TGA-file with an ‘Alpha Channel’. Both options will create a semi-transparent texture that will work great as a tattoo-texture in Second Life.

Save as PNG

Choose File/Save for Web from the top menu bar.

Save the file as a PNG-24 with ‘Transparency’ checked.

Save as TGA with Alpha Channel

Right-click the thumbnail of the tattoo-layer and select ‘Select Layer Transparency’ from the drop-down menu.

Select the Channels palette (next to the Layers palette). Click the ‘Save selection as channel’ button at the bottom. This will create a new channel called ‘Alpha 1′.

Before you leave this palette it should look like this!

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

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 Angel Tattoo.

Make sure the background layer is visible and the copyed layer on top is selected.

Select: File/Save As from the top menu bar. I named my texture: ‘upper_tattoo2‘.
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.

5. 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!

Tjingeling!

Tutorials by Subject

Updated: October 2008

Free Male/Unisex Hair from Uncleweb Studio.

Three colours: blonde, cool brown, mesh black.

You can find this great freebie in Second Life: SLurl: Uncleweb Studio @ Yamashita/252/246/22

Tjingeling!