Creating Realistic Skin for Character Heads in Photoshop?

[Spartan4085]

Hello,

I have created a head in blender and unwrapped it, but i'm stuck at the part of texturing it. Does anyone know of any good step-by-step tutorials on texturing humans in Photoshop, preferably Elements 10? (CS will do too.)

When I tried texturing it once it looked like something from a Disney animated movie. I've got pictures of the UV's and model.




Anyone know any tutorials or tips? Also how would I create normal maps and other maps? I have XNormal, but would that work? Also am I modeling and Unwrapping correctly?

Thanks!

[TheAgent]

The modeling and unwrapping looks fine. For x-normal to do anything you need a high-poly detailed version of this model.

As for tips for skin painting. The way I do it is paint it a base color, and use red / purple/ darker browns to portray the look of blood pooling in areas of the skin like the fore head cheeks and nose / ears.

Take a look at some reference so see how blood pools in order to give it that real skin look / fake sub surface scattering.

Also take note for pores in the skin and wrinkles around the eyes mouth and nose.

[Spartan4085]

Thank you! I will try that and see how it turns out!

[JessieG]

Also, if you can find good side and front facing images of real people that are good quality with good lighting (lots online) you can use the 3D tools in photoshop as a jumping off point as well. Import the head as an obj and in the 3D mode open up the UVs ofthe model from the model layer and set the size to what you want. bring in a picture of a persons face back in 3D mode and line it up as best you can in the front view with your model (or line up different parts in different areas) and merge the layer with the layer the model is in. If you go back to the document with the UVs it should have updated to include what you merged with the model and you can edit it from there.

It's been a while since I've had to use this feature so if my steps are a little off just google 3D projection painting in photoshop to get some tips.

[Spartan4085]

Thanks for your reply, but I have to use Photoshop Elements, and I don't think Elements has 3D Projection in it, unless there's a good plugin?