Mayday

Must be because it's not uncommon not to have white eye brows among the Drow.

I was only pointing it out because Plasmo was keeping the pink hair.
However, I did not know about the eyebrow thing, thanks.

I should remember to sign in before posting.

Okay, now commences the extra long version. (Apparently even with a mistake included, no worries though, I fixed it too.)

The original image was shown above.
But here it is again.



Generally, the very first thing I like to do is triple the size of the image. This is not strictly necessary, but I find it makes it easier to edit. This is extremely important for hiding errors when you shrink it back down.



Here is the tripled sized image. I've done some by-the-by editing that doesn't concern you in this guide. All I did was fill up a patch of hair that Elimae must have missed, as there seemed to be a block cut out of it on the right hand side. This would obviously be less noticable at smaller scales.



Now, I find here that the hair will be hell to do, on account of it blending into the background like so. So I create an adjustment layer temporarily, to allow me to see the outline of the head more clearly. This is a brightness/contrast kind of adjustment layer.
It looks hideous like this, doesn't it? No matter, we'll delete it later on.



We've selected the hair and made a new layer with it by copy pasting it all in.
Truth be told, I copy pasted a section at a time, and then merged the sections.



Here I've kept the same selection field active, and have created a new layer, and filled it with white. But it could have been filled with black, for all it matters. Layer type is set to colour.



Here I've inverted the selected area. I've also done a bit of clone stamping and smudging, to fix the ear up a bit and to fill up a bit of a brown patch on the armour that seemed to come off of the hair. I also deleted the adjustment layer, since I'm done with it. I've also used a gaussian blur at 0.4, so as to soften the edges a bit. Then I grouped a new brightness/contrast adjustment layer to the hair, and deepened the shadows by decreasing brightness by 15 and increasing contrast by 25.



Now, the face.
Because I've done the hair, and it is a seperate layer, I don't have to take as much care with selecting the face, except in key spots such as where it joins the armour and the earring.
I proceeded to copy this layer, and make two new layers, filling each of them with black in the selected area. The first area I changed to be a colour layer type. The second I changed to be a darken layer type, and used the slider to get the right darkness. Then I merged these layers.



But I felt this was a bit odd looking, and the armour didn't look like it joined properly. So I cleaned the armour part up with the eraser tool, and I grouped yet another brightness/contrast adjustment layer with the face layer, increasing brightness by 10 and contrast by 35. I also proceeded to select the eyes and make them their own layer for a later step.



Here I've done the eyes. They were kind of hard to get right. Here's what I did:
First I created a layer of colour type. Then I went over the irises in green, and over the whites of the eyes and pupils in white.
Then I created another layer, and set it to Luminosity at 26% opacity. I used white and went over the whites and corners of the eyes. Finding this looked off, I applied another Brightness/contrast layer and decreased contrast and increased brightness significantly. I then merged all eye related layers.



The background layer here was copied, and the original deleted, allowing me to have transparent squares. Because I've already done the entire head, and it is all on other layers, I my only worry is not chopping off any armour, or the earring, which was easily accomplished. Then I simply found an underdarkesque picture, in this case the cover of Menzoberranzen. I made the part of that cover I used very big, and placed it to be the new backdrop. I then used a couple of different sorts of blurs to make it look less pixelated.



And this would be where I suddenly realise I forgot the eyebrows. I should read my own instructions dammit.
Anyway, to fix it I simply selected the eyebrows from the darkened face, and made them a new layer, which I inverted. Then to give them a little depth I applied a brightness/contrast adjustment layer to them, and decreased brightness by 5 and increased contrast by about 20. I clonestamped the eyebrows a little to make them about the same length, and then merged all face, hair, eye, and eyebrow layers.



The final step is to change the colour of the armour.
Since drow seem to have nice, dark armour, I'm selecting the armour, making sure not to get the earring, or any of the background, in my selected area, and making a new layer, and filling it with dark purple. Then I duplicate this new layer. I set the first layer to be a Darken type, at 50% opacity. And the second is made a luminosity type layer, at 30%.



And finally, completed, I set it back to its original portrait size, but hardly looking like it at all.



Of course, I am not a photoshop god like some people, so if you have tips on how to do things better, this is the place to say them. Photoshop is a powerful tool, and extremely easy to use, but it's damn hard to master.

Also, in case you're wondering, that job interview went very well.

Okay, I've chosen the image. From the FW Portraits section even. Hooray for Photoshopping already photoshopped images. Who'd have thought that that would become a verb, huh? Not me!


This image was kindly submitted by Elimae, and seemed perfect for being changed into a drow. For some reason, it just looked right.
Anyway, as I have a job interview right now, I'll get onto it when I return.

I tend to test stuff on Tutu, either creating a new character and levelling up if it's a kit or loading a save just after generation then CLUAing stuff in if an item/NPC etc.

Have you a special reason for doing that, or just because you happen to like Tutu?

I mostly mod Tutu. Also, checking stuff works from level 1 is important to kits.

Ah, I see. I thought it might be something along those lines.