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Skin Tutorial using PhotoShop

.:Heads Up:.

First you pick a Maxis skin in the right skintone - next you find a model you want to make a skins of. You can download these by clicking HERE!!!.

The best pictures to make a skin from are those without too much contrast and weird lighting. It's also really REALLY hard - if not impossible to make a skin from a picture that's not taken directly from the front. At least if you want it to look like the person.

Okay now lets make a skin!! Remember if you make a mistake you can go to the Edit Menu and pick Undo.
First open both pictures in PhotoShop. If you pick the Maxis skin, try going to Image and down to Mode. Here you can see the skin is Indexed Color. This is very important. All skins placed in your game HAS to be Indexed Color - otherwise your game will crash or the skin won't show up. Skins are usually the size of 17kb for a face and around 65 kb for clothes. Its always a good idea to sort your newly downloaded skins in size order before placing them in the game. If a skin is way larger than this it's probably in RGB Color and not Indexed Color and - your game won't like it. But we'll get back to this in the end.

When you're creating a skin you're working in RGB Mode. You'll get this automatically the way I start. First you pick the Maxis skin. Now use the Marquee Tool.
Or press CTRL+A to mark the entire picture. Press CTRL+C to copy it - Press CTRL+N to make a new image - just hit okay....it'll will be the exact same size as what you just copied. Now press CTRL+V to paste the Maxis skin into a new frame. And this is where we begin. We now have a new skin. You can close the Maxis skin now if you're afraid to mess it up. Copy and past is an important thing to learn. If you're already freaked out, you can do it from the Edit Menu as well.

Now pick the model you chose. Now we're going to cut out her face. You can either use the Lasso Tool  if you're good with a mouse or you can just cut it out with the Marquee Tool like you did with the Maxis skin and then remove the edges with the Eraser Tool  . Try to cut as far out as you can but avoid the shadow on the edge of the face. Again you make a new image - it's easier to work with (or you can place it above the Maxis Skin by pasting it into that frame. )

If you go to Edit - down to Transform and pick Free Transform you can turn the face, if it's a little off. It'll show as a box around the picture. Try going to the edge of this box and you'll see arrows appear. Holding your mouse button down you can turn it. Try getting the eyes lined. Now you should have something like this....

Okay...now you have to copy this face - go to the Maxis image we made and paste it. Now it should be on top of it. PhotoShop works in layers. If you look to your left you should see a window called Layers. If not, go to the Window Menu and pick Show Layers. Here you can see there's a white background, the Maxis skin and on top, your model.

You layer with the model is highlighted and above you can see the Opacity is 100%. Lower this to 50%. Now you're able to see the Maxis skin through your model. Now again pick the Free Transform Option from either the Edit Menu or press CTRL+T. Now by looking through your model, transform her to fit the Maxis skin. Compress it so the eyes are where the Maxis eyes are and the mouth is in the right place. It'll look weird but it looks right in the game, don't worry. Now it should look like this....

Sometimes the eyebrows can stick out. Use the EyeDropper Tool  to pick the lightest color around the Maxis eyebrow. Then choose the Airbrush Tool and paint it over. REMEMBER to change to the right layer in the Layer Box - just click it. Then click back to your model when you're done. Now change the Opacity back to 100%.

Now it's cleaning time. This model it too light compared to the Maxis color. Go to Image, Adjust and choose Brightness/Contrast. Try messing around with it a bit to make it fit the actual tone. When done, press OK. It's not done yet, don't worry about discolors and dark edges. We get to this now. With the EyeDropper Tool  pick the lightest color on the Maxis skin...the cheekbones. Now choose the Airbrush Tool and in the Airbrush Options - a window to your right or in the top of your program (depending on which version) change Normal to Color. Instead of making solid color you'll now color the colors with the color you just choose - that was confusing. Somewhere your model don't have the right color. It can be a bit gray or even green. To make it look the best go back to your Airbrush Option Window and lower the Pressure to 50%. Go down to your Layer Window and click the Lock button (a tiny white square) or mark the Preserve Transparency (again depending on your program version) This makes sure you only color your model and not outside her face. Where your model is a bit wrong in the color, brush over with the Airbrush. Be careful around eyes and lips so they don't get all reddish. A model with red eyes is no good.

Now you're almost done. We're going to press the Layers together. You can either press CTRL+E to press each layer down or go to the Layer Menu and do the same thing - or hit Flatten Image. Choose the Blur Tool and carefully blur the edges of your model so it'll blend into the Maxis skin. You can mess a bit with colors if you like. Use the Airbrush and maybe put some color on the cheeks or change the eye color.

I've learned the hardest thing to do is the hair. What I've done is I made a new layer, colored it green where the Maxis hair is. Then I make a new image - bigger than the skin. I use the filter called Fur from the Eye Candy 4000 pack...an add-on for PhotoShop. I've messed with it for a long time to make it swirl the right way. Then I copy it, place it onto the skin....hold CTRL and press the green hair layer. Then it gets marked. Then I choose the Fur layer and inverse my selection in the Select Menu. Cut from the Edit Menu. You can add several Fur layers and turn them to make it twist the right way. The easiest thing is to just use the hair from your original or downloaded skins - if you're not posting them on a site. You can always try writing the skinners to see if you can use their hair, but most of them don't like that. Me included...it is the hardest thing to make...but Maxis hair you can always use.

Okay...you're done. Remember what I said to begin with? Indexed Color? Well we need to make it that, so go to the Image Menu, Mode and choose Indexed Color. If you're asked to flatten layers, just say yes. Now save your skin as a BMP file. If you're confused about meshes and where what, the who and if?? Read my FAQ. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and feel free to write if you're now laying on the ground, crying.

Click to download.....

.:Cool Clothes:.

Okay...let's try making some clothes. Again doing it my way - find some cool clothes online you want for your Sims. Get the SkinPack from KillerSims - You can find it on floor 2 under Body Shop and then Default - download the Default Nudes. This pack contains nude Sim skins you can use as the base for you clothes. What I have done with my basics is find a nice cleavage picture and place that on them. But let's go with this one.

It's always a good idea to find a pretty large image of the clothes to get most details...I made these smaller for viewing purpose.

Let's start with the shirt. Copy the image and make a new one. Now roughly cut the unwanted parts away with the Marquee Tool  and switch to the Eraser Tool  to remove the edges. If you find it easier you can click on the background layer and color it green so you get a better view of what you're cutting. Now we should have something looking like this...

Copy your basic nude and make a new image, then copy your shirt and past it onto the new body.
Now here's a few things worth to remember. First off...the chest of your skin is inverted. That means if you're making a shirt with a logo on it, you have to flip it or the writing will be backwards. I think the rest is pretty logic. The neckline can be pretty tricky - experiment to find the best thing to do - use my skins as guide if you like.

Okay now you use the transform option to make the shirt the right size. Be sure to get the boobs on the boobs :D Pick the Lasso Tool    and in the options set Feather to 2. This will blur the outerlines of what you cut out a bit and make is easier to blend them together. Now mark some of the pattern on the shirt that could be used anywhere on the body - meaning avoid the boobs....they would look weird on the back hahahaha. With this shirt we're really just talking about the boob on the right side. When marked, copy and paste...now move this to the back of your nude body. Past again and again and again, placing the pattern everywhere on the torso but keep the original shirt layer in front of the others. Merge all these layers down except the first shirt layer with the boobs and the nude image. If there's a bit of white edges on the shirt image, remove them with the Eraser Tool  .Just don't do it in the neckline yet.

Now we're going to cut it down to a regular shirt. If you look on the basic nude you'll see some pretty clear lines where back meets front, arms meet body and so on. If you go to your layers click the eye on your shirtback layer...it will make it disappear. Take the Marquee Tool  and mark the area that's the arms. Turn your layer back on clicking the eye. Cut it. Now mark the area where you want your shirt to stop above the waist. You can make the shirt long or short as you like it. I think this will look good cut right in the center of the waist. Switch to the first shirt layer and cut that to match the length. Go back to the other shirt layer and make it invisible again and look at your front neck. If you look close you'll see lines here too where the neck is. Mark that from the top and down to where you have the neckline in the actual shirt. Since you have the first shirt image separately, you'll only cut the unwanted image. Click the eye again and cut it. To get the one-armed sleeve effect we also need to remove the fabric from the necklines lowest end to the line in the nude skins crossing to the back. Take a look at the image below if you donno what I'm talking about. We need a neckline on the back as well. Easiest thing is to pick the Marquee Tool  and switch it to the round Marquee. Start marking from the right side of the neck on the back and let it run down and leftwards to match the cut on your front - Get the squared Marquee again and cut the rest so it's lined. It's important to make the edges on both front and back match. Now it should look something like this.

Making the sleeve is done in the same way...copy the pattern and paste to make a sleeve. Merge them down to one image. Look closely for the lines in the basic nude. Cut in the middle of the arms so you'll only get one sleeve. The upper part is your left arm, the lower part is the right arm. To match the neckline (since I didn't invert it) we need to cut the upper part to get a right-armed sleeve. Now it should look like this...

Now the shirt is done. So let's make the pants. This should be easy now. Copy them to a new image and cut them out just like we did with the shirt. Paste them into the skin and transform them to the right size. You might want to cut the front and the back separately - easier to move around and handle. Now mark areas of the pants - copy, paste and make a background for them. Cut them using the lines in the nude skin - remember they have to have a straight line in the waist!!! Unless you're placing them behind the shirt - then you'll get it automatically.

What you need to concentrate on is the middle of the legs. If it looks a bit weird apart from that, you can't really see it on the finished skin. Like with this one...between the front and the back you can see a number of repeated lines in the pants...won't matter in the finished skin. Just make sure the pockets are on the butt and the...well you get the picture.

Shoes are hard to make so I hope you don't have a shoe fetish like myself. It's very limited what you can do with the shoes besides changing colors. Try taking a look on the Maxis shoes. I mostly use those from the B003MAFitlgt_waiter skin. They looks really good on both male and female. Open that Maxis skin in PhotoShop, copy the shoes, make a new image, cut them out from the pants and place them on your own skin. You can use the Airbrush Tool with the Color option on to change the color like you did with your models face. Oh and guess what....your skin is now READY! Remember to save it in Indexed Color. Naturally you can add jewelry and stuff like that but this is what your skin should look like using the mesh b076fafit_WDSroundedflares.

Click to download.....

If you want this skin in medium or dark just copy the default skin from Killersims and place it in the background over your light skin. That's the smart thing about PhotoShop - it works in layers. Just be sure to save a PDS copy and not only a BMP file. If the neckline has a bit of white on it you can use the Smudge Tool - click the Lock button or mark the Preserve Transparency and gently smudge the color onto the edges. That way you won't draw outside the original neckline and still use the right colors while doing it.

Contact Me
If you have any other questions, feel free to write me.
- Ayoe