Detailed skinning

[lmalonsof]

Hi,

I've followed most of the skinning tutorials and I want to improve my skinning skills. I'll show you part of the work I'm doing for an old mod, and probably this stuff will never be released so I feel quite free to experiment with it.

Here's Duke Nukem. Great skin... but it is a dirty kittbashed of mine:



The first question is more about skinning ethics than about skinning techniques. The original skin comes from an original game, Duke Nukem Manhattan Project. So the question is... is it releaseable? I suppose it isn't, so... It would be releaseable if I take it as base for my own skin? On what degree may I use it as base for my skin without offending anyone? I suppose it has no sense to copy it in Photoshop because it would be basically the same skin... but how close of it it is acceptable to be to the original one?


Now I'll show you some of my WIP. They're all originals by me, no kitbashing.
This is the Pigcop:

The beret has no skin for the moment. I'm quite satisfied with this skin (for my low skinning skills I mean), however I had to use some of Photoshop tricks to get the texture of the skin of the pig. My question is, what do you use for these details? Photshop presets? Do you draw some lines and then smudge them following the directions you think it will fit better with the skin?

Now it becomes tricky.
This is the standard warrior.

I used as base one skin I could get from the internet and it served me fine for the skin of the alien, but I CAN'T do his clothes. I've tried everything but it's impossible for me to get the right lines with the right color in the right place. And look at those pants... But the thing is even worse if you look the back of it:

I would appreciate any general or specific advice you could give me. Even I know I could draw the pants better I hope the example is clear: the worst thing is to have the right 'expression' lines of the clothes... It's just impossible for me.

The same occurs with his red counterpart:

and his back side is just like aaaaaaargh!!!

I think in this case is even worse. If you have a technique to give expression to clothes, would you please explain it to me?

This is the last of them, the enforcer:

I don't like the body, the face, the skin texture... basically it should be a black dressed heavy lizard with a heavy gun. I tried with softer whites, greys... everything. This is the best I can do. And it's even worse with his skin... I can't get the right texture! And it should be easy, it's just a lizard!
Anyway, his face is awful too... I did the same I did with the pigcop, but this time it didn't work: first I place the eyes, the mouth and the nose over the textured head. Then I defocus them and work on the details... but it's... hopeless. I can't do it better without guidance.

Thanks in advance for your kind help!

[detourne_me]

not too bad for your first attempts at all!  mine were much more horrendous (and i still can't even skin that well).
Your green warriors actually pretty good! give yorself some more credit.  and that photo skin kitbash of duke was a good job.
some things you may want to try doing, is when you work in layers,  you can use a number of the blending effects to accomplish finer details like highlighting and shadows.  I tend to use the drop shadow effects quite a bit (this would help your clothing look more like it's on the skin and not just painted on the skin)

also to get really fine details,  you might want ot try working at a higher resolution,  maybe 1056 X 1056?

[lmalonsof]

I tend to use the drop shadow effects quite a bit (this would help your clothing look more like it's on the skin and not just painted on the skin)

I use it but I think I'm not using it as properly as I should. Could you please explain how it affects the clothing look? Or even better, how do you do to make it affect the clothing look?

P.S.
Since I'm using the spanish version of Photoshop, I want to be sure: by drop shadow you mean the drop you can see along with the smudge tool and others, is that right?
(and thanks for your nice words!)

[daglob]

Learn to use the adjustment layers. I've been using PS for 10 years, and I'm still finding stuff that they can do.

Check out the Kirby Hulk I did; I originally had him a kind of olive green, but using adjustment layer, I make him more of a Hulk Green, which was appropirate. Since I didn't change the original skin, I could turn off the adjustment layer and return to olive drab when someone requested it.

I just did three different uniforms for agent-types using the color blending mode. I did one in gray, then used blending modes to change its color to green, blue, and red. I put faces on layers, and I had 28 skins with one PS file

Detourne Me will probably elaborate, but there is a drop drop shadow effect in the Effects Layers.

[lmalonsof]

ok, I'll try it!

thx!