comitofobe's WIP's

Hi guys.
First time poster here at the site.
I have been working on this one for a good while now. I was wondering if anybody has any tips about putting tattoos on ones charachters. As you can see, right now they look very superimposed (spelling?).
Like inkdrawings on a photograph or something.
Any pointers? Or even a good online video on the subject?

First, welcome! ... As far as the tats, I've never done any myself, but I would think the first thing you could do is dial down the saturation levels on them to meet with the rest of her skin tone. The other thing is to make sure they follow the characters form, to help make them appear fixed to her.

Welcome! And thank you for sharing your work.
One note for new posters, when you attach a file make sure you click "Insert File" then your image will appear rather than being a small clickable thumbnail.

As for tattoos: the brightest part of any tattoo will just be the skin colour, also you want the form and shading of the skin to show through. The best way to achieve both of these things is to paint the tattoo on a layer set to Multiply and adjust the opacity down to your satisfaction. The warp tool is also very useful to help make the tattoo fit the shape of the body beneath.

Thanks Dave
I've been thinking in the same lines. Just playing around with the fill-slider for the layer with the tats actually helps the image. I think the shapes follow the body farely well, but i guess some tweeking could be in order.

Thank you, Valence
The layer settings you suggested helped and i've started to play around with the warp tool. I have never really gotten familiar with it before and its both fun and good photoshop practice. Really helpfull advice.
Also, thanks for the tip about making the image appear. I'll do that next time.

Try Multiply, Overlay and Softlight layers for applying tattoos and other decorative skin features. THey all blend well with the contours of pre-painted skin, but all have some drawbacks too. Multiply will darken you tattoo, but overlay will distort the colour. Softlight is very subtle, so may give an indefinite result. If you want some funky and interesting tattoos (like holographic tattoos) then try luminosity or screen. Both are interesting blend modes that sharply brighten and enhance the layers under them.

It's all a bit of an experiment. Keep it coming and welcome to the forums Comi!!!

Thanks Domtopia
I've played around with the layer settings and it is very much as you say. The best change seems to happen when i set it to multiply and dial down the opacity to about 80%. It gets darker and loses alot of vibrance, but it also seems more attached to the skin. I should probably see if i can get a better result by changing the colour setting slightly.
The work continues

The rendering looks really good btw.

Her legs are a bit weird though, in that she looks like she is wearing a fat suit! Interesting idea though!

Thanks

Yeah, i see what you mean about the legs. The whole thing started as a joke on a colleague of mine who nagged me to draw him a tattoo. A pinup of my own design.
I came up with this unorthodox version that weekend and sort of just threw the drawing together with not so much attention to detail and reference. Needless to say he never got it inked on him
A couple of months later i elected to use the drawing as the base for skin painting practice. I never corrected the anatomy flaws since it was never supposed to be more than a excercise. But it grew on me.