Metallic Makeup Daz Studio Tutorial
I recently created the below image that featured some metallic makeup inspired by Mel Medarda from the Netflix show Arcane.
Creating this effect in Daz Studio is quite a simple one and can be used for pretty nice effects that could be applied to the other body markings Mel has as well.
Firstly, a quick intro to the Daz Studio function that allows this process to be applied on top of any character and existing makeups.
Layered Image Editor
The layered image editor in Daz Studio allows you to apply an additional texture image over your existing textures which offers some interesting options as this editor supports transparency and masking.
To access the Layered Image editor you need to find the part of the body you want to apply an overlay and right-click the Base Color image. In this case I am going to overlay the Face surface. Start by right-clicking the Base Color image and choosing the Layered Image Editor option near the top of the list.
The following window will appear giving you access to the Layered Image Editor.
From, this window you can zo,om in and out of the preview image to get the desired vew you need. The first thing you will need to do here is add a new layer by clicking the + button over on the right-hand side. This will give you a couple of options; Add Layer and Add Mask. To begin we need a new layer so select Add Layer.
This new layer will default to black and at this point you can choose to either apply a .png image with transparency or a colour using the RGB colour picker. For this tutorial I will be selecting a colour as I am planning on using a mask so I am able to tweak the colour in Daz Studio. So I chose an warm orange colour to get a gold like effect similar to Mel in Arcane.
A quick note here, you can use a blending technique similar to that seen in Photoshop layers to get some different effects but for this tutorial, I am just using the default Alpha Channel Blend.
Now we have the colour selected we can accept this and next add a mask layer by selecting the + button and choosing Add Mask while we have the New Layer selected. This applies a mask layer on top of our new orange layer.
I created a simple black and white mask in .jpg format that has a few freckles and the two lines below the eyes but you could do almost anything you like here. I have attached my mask below if you want something to practice with.
Once you have your mask ready click the box next to Resource and select your image. This will give you a preview of how the makeup will look. It is worth noting at this point that your mask, or any texture you use within Layered Image Editor, needs to match the dimensions of the original texture image so in this case, both the Diffuse Texture and the Mask image are 4096x4096 pixels.
At this point, the makeup still won't be metallic so in order to create that shiny effect we need to use the same image we used for the mask and apply it to the Metalicity node in your Face Surface and turn the dial up to 1.00.
Once you do this you will have some awesome metallic makeup applied to your figure. Remember you can follow these same instructions on any surface so you can apply gold lipstick, shiny tattoos, or anything else you can think of.
Let me know how you get on and link to the images you create I'd love to see what else you can come up with using these techniques.
I have included links below for the products I used in this tutorial which includes the lighting setup I have available for free on my Gumroad page. If you find any of this useful please consider donating a little when you download the lights at Gumroad. Thank you.offerFrom
Products used: