Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 3244836" data-attributes="member: 7177">Now it's time to add some shading and plasticity to the skin. There are two ways of doing this. Actually, there are many ways of doing this, but I'll cover only two of them today.Both start with looking at where the color of the skin areas deviates significantly from the norm. Look at the photo. There are areas that are brighter than others. There are areas that have a slightly different color. You need to add this variety to the basic, "neutral" skin tone.The first possibility is to simply use another color and apply it with the brush tool directly on the skin layer. Use a low opacity for this, and set the pressure sensitivity to "opacity" as well - you only want to introduce minor variations, and not repaint large areas in a different color! I used this to add some minor red discolorations to represent areas where the blood vessels are closer under the skin.The second one is to use the "Dodge or Burn strokes" tool from the Tool windows - it is the last one in the tool list and looks like some sort of black... thing. Well, I don't know what it is supposed to be, either, but you should be able to find it. With the "Dodge" option, you can brighten up areas. With the "Burn" option you can darken them. Note that you need to switch between different "lighting bands" ("Shadows", "Midtones" and "Highlights") since this tool treats different levels of brightness differently. Experiment until you find the level that gets the most effect.For both effects, use whatever brush size you think is appropriate. After adding the red touches, I brightened up several key areas with the "Dodge" tool:<img src="http://juergen.the-huberts.net/art/tutorial/Skin-2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />After that, I also darkened several areas with the "Burn" tool:<img src="http://juergen.the-huberts.net/art/tutorial/Skin-3.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />It's starting to get more plastic - but still, the boundaries between the altered areas and the original pink look artificial and too sudden. Fortunately, there are ways to deal with that, too.For one thing, there is the "Blur" tool (the one that looks like a drop of water). Apply it to the boundary areas, and they will look much smoother.But there's an even better option - the "Smudge" tool (the hand with the pointed index finger). To use it, I usually pick a mid-sized Fuzzy Circle brush and set it to full Opacity, though an ordinary Circle brush with lower Opacity should work as well. With this tool, you can "move" colors around on your layer - so use that to smooth out the boundary layers, and to introduce gradual color changes. Oh, and re-apply the tools used earlier if you find that some parts of the skin have not turned out quite the way they should!I eventually ended up with the skin layer like this:<img src="http://juergen.the-huberts.net/art/tutorial/Skin-4.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />That's it for today. Practice with the Smudge tool until you feel fully comfortable with it - it's really an amazingly powerful and versatile tool.Tomorrow, we will get to a different topic: Hair.</blockquote>

Verification