In this video, I'm going to teach you how to apply tattoo with a technique that
is going to be useful for you to apply all sorts of different things. We'll use a
2D graphics and apply it to a 3D form. We will also play with the lighting and
understand the lighting of shape, to make sure that the element that we're adding to it
are looking more realistic.
Hi guys! This is David from Paintable, and today I want to show you how to apply
tattoos to your paintings. And to do so, I'm going to use these two graphics here
that I have. It's a butterfly with a skull and I have this sunburst. And we're gonna use
those two graphics and I'm going to create a tattoo for my painting.
So here I have my painting and as you can see, she doesn't have any tattoos yet.
So we're going to change that. And here I have on two separate layers my graphics,
that i'm going to use to apply on my character here. Now the first thing that
you want to do is study and understand the shape of your character here. And for
that, I'll just give you a little hint, and I created some graphic to make you
understand. So the way you want to you want to think about it is in form or
geometry. So you want to imagine the the back in this case as if it is a big block, and
you want to get the right angle. So what I did here is I just
created some simple graphic for you to understand. And so what you have is a
slight curve like this, that curves outside, and this is basically the angle
that I want to give my tattoo when I'm going to place them. And you'll
understand in a minute what I mean by that. What you also need to understand is
the fact that the back has not just one simple shape. It has different shapes on
it, and those shapes need to be shown at some point when I'm going to apply my tattoo.
Rest assured that I'm going to show you every detail now so you can understand.
So first of all, what we're going to do is we're going to place those tattoos now.
I could place those two tattoos at the same time, but it's going to be easier to
place each of them separately. So I'm going to start with the butterfly.
So the first thing I'm going to do is transform this shape. So I'm going to do
COM + T, and it's going to give me the tool for me to be able to transform it.
Now there are many ways you can transform it. If you simply click on the corner, you'll
have access to stretching and moving them and making them bigger, if you do
the same thing, but you keep SHIFT on lock, you'll be able to make it bigger
proportionally, if we draw from the bottom, it's still going to stretch it though.
We can also click on each corner and then press COMMAND, and you can see now it's
changing to an arrow, and that's going to give me the opportunity to use only one corner.
So now you see I can move only one corner. Now if I press on one corner, and
press ALT, it's going to give me a mirror effect. So now the same corner at
the extremity here is moving as well. And if I'm doing this, ALT + SHIFT at the
same time, now I can play with the perspective of it, as you can see now.
So it's looking like it's coming from over here, and it's bigger there. So I got
like a perspective that goes over here in the horizon.
Alright, so now we know all that, we're just going to place that on the back
in the right way. So first I'm going to bring it to the back, and I'm just
going to align the top of the butterfly with the middle of the spine, and I need
to change the angle of the wing. So I'm going to click in the middle with
COMMAND, and I'm going to use as well ALT, and that will be able to move with mirror
effect the two wings, and get that angle that I need. Then I'm going to click on
the upper right corner, and click on COMMAND + ALT + SHIFT, to bring back that
perspective, and then I'll take the middle here, and by clicking on ALT only,
I'm going to bring back everything like this. From there I'm just going to replace the
middle, so I'm going to take in the middle one with COMMAND, and just bring
that corner here. And I'll do the same thing with the top one.
So right now the butterfly looks a little bit more like it's from there, now
I'm just going to replace it a little bit, just like this. And the only thing I
need to do now is to change the roundness of it. Right now it's really
rigid, and the back is round here. So I'm going to click here on the warp tool.
Now the warp tool is going to give me the opportunity to change the shape a little bit more.
So as you can see with the warp tool, I got nine squares. And the nine squares,
I can move. I can also move each corner. so I can move the square, I can move the
corner, and I can also move those little handles here that would give me curves.
So from here, what I need to know is how the back is moving. So first I'm going to
bring back that wing, because I know it's curving away from the shoulder. And I'm
going to do the same thing here. I'm going to turn everything a little bit
more to the right because the back is going over there. Just bring all the
elements like this, making sure that it's following the curve of the back.
That seems okay to me. So when you're happy with the result, you simply have to hit ENTER.
And now we have something that is fitted to the back. Now the only thing
that we have to do now is to make sure that the wing is cut. And for that I'm going to
use a mask. So I'm going to click on the mask icon and it's going to bring in
a mask. And from here, with a brush, I'll paint black, and I'll be able to mask the wing here.
Alright! So now I'm going to do the same thing with the Sunburst.
So I'm gonna open the sunburst right here. I'm going to place it, and I'm going to basically do the
same thing. I'm going to COMMAND T, and transform it, to get the same proportions.
Just like that...
Give it a little roundness, make sure that it fits the back...
And press ENTER.
Now what I need to do is to simply cut the parts that don't need
from the sunburst. So I'm simply going to click on the layer of the
butterfly, and select the butterfly. And from there I'll do is go to Select,
Modify and I'll do Expand. And I'll give it around 20 pixels. And it's going to expand
everything. And I'll use this new selection to delete what I don't need
from the sunburst right now. And I'll just make sure to clean it everywhere, on the parts
that I don't need, and I'll add a new mask on this one. And I'll do the same thing, I'm
just going to mask what I don't need from the sunburst.
Now I'll use a soft round brush here, and just take out some dots a little bit, we don't need that much.
There you go.
Alright! From here, what we'll do is we'll make sure that it doesn't
look like it's just stamped on her, and it's actual tattoo.
Ok so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure that they have the same
color. And to do so I'm going to create a group, which on the group, I will add an
effect. So I'm going to click on the effects here and then I'm gonna choose color overlay.
Now this layer style is going to appear, and in color overlay, the default
will be gray. I'm going to click on that gray and I'll be able to change it.
But before I do that, I'm going to put those two tattoos and I'm going to put them in
my group, so now everything is in one group, and I'll add the color overlay.
And as you can see, it did the colors of everything that's in the group. So now I can
actually change it. And I probably want something that's a greenish,
darkish, tattoo-ish color. Something like that.
Seems already a better color for that.
Now from here what I will want to do is
make a copy of this. So what I'm going to do is simply do COMMAND + J, and then
COMMAND + E, and it's going to make one layer. So right now I have my group, which
has my two tattoos in it, but the one I'm going to use is this new layer with the whole
tattoo on it. And that way, I'll be able to add effects to those two at the same
time. And first effect that I want to add is some blur. So I'm going to go over Filter
here, Blur and I'm going to choose Gaussian Blur. And I don't want to add too
much here. Something between one and two should be fine. I think that one is
enough here. So I'm going to add one, just to make sure that i have just a little bit
more blurriness to it. And here what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a mask,
and on that mask, now what I want to do is delete a little bit of the parts of
this tattoo. Now, remember that the back has different shapes, and it's going
to be here that we need to actually show that. So I'm going to paint on the mask with
a soft round brush, at all the places that there's much light. Because where there's going to be light,
the tattoo is going to be more pale. So I'm just going to paint a little bit
just to add a little bit more 3D shape to this. So everywhere there's more light, and
I'm just going to delete it a little bit, and that way I'll be able to show the form of the back.
Just a little bit more here... On the actual spine...
Now it already looks a little bit like it's a part of it.
So from here, what you could do now is to add a color blending mode. But the color blending will change
the color drastically. If I go into Multiply, you'll see it's going to get
that really dark green, which looks good.
If I go to color burn, then it's going to be almost pitch-black, and that looks good as well.
It is really up to you to find a color blending mode that matches. You could also keep
it to normal and just decide to paint a little bit more on it and define some details.
This is entirely up to you. There are many ways at this point, you just make sure
that that this tattoo looks a little bit more harmonious to your painting.
For me, I think I'm just going to use the color burn, and put down the opacity a
little bit. And even though it changed the green, I think that this color looks
better. And from here what I'll do is continue painting on it, until I get to a
result that looks the best with this illustration.
And that's all for today, guys! I hope to find this tutorial helpful.
And please, if you liked this tutorial, feel free to leave me a comment in the comments below this video,
or like, or share, and stay tuned for more tutorials.
And as usual... Happy Painting!