I have a unique (atleast to me) design problem that I cant seem to tackle. Imagine someone's skin was run over by a cheese grater and then filled in with black tattoo ink. from a distance the person would just appear to have black colored skin but up close you would see black colored scabs and scars all over their skin. If anyone has any tips on creating this type of effect please let me know. I work mostly with scanned pencil art, but can do post-work on poser models if thats easier.

Well at least it is a desgin problem and not a medical one (always be carefull with cheese graters!). I think the biggest problem would be that it will look burnt. So you should keep the end result still have a skin-like look. I would start by post-working/drawing on a new layer above a photo (or Poser-render) and try the different layer blend modes for the first dark layer, the actual 'tattood' part. Not just multiplying, but all the other blend modes. This way you can have the original light and dark shine through the dark parts. After that you could add a layer for depth and displacement, due to the scarring. Which makes me think you might look for some postwork tutorials concerning scars around here or somewhere else on the net. The layer blending modes help a lot. And look at reference photo's of tattoed people and maybe some medical sites, for scarring. It sounds uniquely interesting tough. If you can't get it going I would be glad to give it a try.

thanks, thats some good advice. If I have any luck I'll keep you posted

okay heres what I got. The finished product seems amazingly subtle for all the trouble it was. I would have liked more depth to the scars but I think this does the trick

here is the before pic I was working from

do a little dodge and burn to pull some more highlights and shadow into your "pits".

i know full well the effort taken to pull off even the most subtle effects...

nice job!

:)
retrocity

a little too much dodge and burn? I can't decide. he does look ugly as hell, so I guess mission accomplished

duude! weel done. that is def a good effect:o)