If you want to learn how to make tattoos or are just curious you can follow the process here:
Yes it is inspired by the Twitter trend of #100DaysOfCode (which I need to start too).
First day of my new own 'challenge' (and it's going to be one as soon as my work turns me into a vegetable after a long day)! Kinda exciting actually. This is based on MisterS' tutorial: making a tattoo.
I decided to remake my old TS3 Tribal Dragon tattoo for the TS4. Since I had kept the file it was not that much of a problem. I believe it was one of my earliest creations for The Sims 3 back in 2011, still available on TSR and now on Sim File Share for instant download.
I tried creating it yesterday and it ended up turning my sim white in game when her skin has a much warmer tone, it was a huge difference. While it was somewhat pretty, I was not trying to make a default skin. So I am going back to the beginning!
I am working using CS5.
Unlike the tutorial, I chose to clone a back tattoo that was covering a lot of the back area, like mine does. Yesterday when I checked mine in game, it was going up towards the neck and covering some of the shoulders too (see above in game picture).
"On both the image layer and the alpha layer get white and black paint respectively and paint over both the images to make a blank canvas to start with." Since it is commenting a picture where the cloned tattoo is still showing, it kinda threw me off a bit.
But if I just delete the original and make a new layer that I fill with white and ...
"At this stage your tattoo will disappear (or nearly), don't worry its meant to, it will back in a minute. Click back on layer 2 and click on create new layer. Click on layer 3 that you just made and bucket fill it black."
"Click on the layer 2 copy effects layer. Select all (ctrl a) then edit copy merged (or shift ctrl c). Then click on the alpha layer and edit paste (or ctrl v). And there is a perfectly placed alpha layer."
Okay I have a problem with that one, but since the shortcuts don't work I will assume we do not have the same version of Photoshop and do it my way.
Then I copy that layer and paste it in the alpha channel before deleting the layer. I now have my tattoo with the alpha channel.
"Go back to the layers tab and delete or hide the top two layers and we are good to go for now. Go to layer and flatten image, save it as a dds and import it back into s4s."
I believe it is where I got my problem from. On his picture the white background is still there and I did question it since the original tattoo had a transparent one, so I left it. Hence the white sim. So now if I delete that white layer and only keep the tattoo it should work. Flattening brings back the white background for some reason so I will just save the file as it is.
Sims4Studio camera and I had a bit of a struggle but I won in the end. The position and tattoo itself seem alright to me.
Changes:
Now to test it in game!
*
Okay girl, thank you, time to put some clothes back on. Love you Ravness! ♥
The dragon on the arm is probably a little too bright, but maybe somebody else beside me will want to use it so I am sharing it. If it bothers me too much in game I will try and modify it.
As a note, the tribal dragon tattoo has a lot of white lines when used on a dark skin. I tried scaling the alpha down but since the lines are so thin, half of it was deleted. I actually like it like this, it looks like an entirely new design!
If when you test in the game there is a white line surrounding the tattoo, just go back to your alpha layer to select the white part of the tattoo. Using the magic wand would be a challenge on that one but easy enough with one more compact like the Koi one.
Select > Color Range > Click on the white part to select the color
Select > Modify > Contract > 1 pixels
Select > Inverse > Use brush with black color to go over the edges and change those white lines to black.
I will update these as I find new ones. If you know of any I have not listed feel free to message me, on Tumblr or Twitter to send me a link. Those are mostly the tutorials from Sims 4 Studio and others I found along the way, either on Tumblr or Youtube. I am trying to keep it organised, bear with me while I update!
CTRL + F is your friend ♥
