There are a lot of character packs coming with tattoos.
One of the things I've noticed is that most of them do not realy look like they are inked, but more like a decal slapped on the skin. They do not blend with the skin, don' flow. They have no 3rd dimension.
Even real fresh tats, at least good ones, look like they belong on the body part.
Also, it would be good if some of the tats look like they've been on the body for awhile. A bit of fading, etc.
Just sayin

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together.
All things connect......Chief Seattle, 1854

Totally concur

I've never bought any tattoos for characters.  I'm not much into buying skins/textures like that.  But, from what I have seen, a lot of it is vector graphics, right out of their app and then slapped in a package.

It wouldn't be terribly difficult, if they were blended nodes, to put something in front of them in the material room to fade them out in spots before they're blended in rendering.

Totally true! As a very well inked woman, I find the un-realism of the tattoos very unappealing and would never buy many of the ones that come out. Saint-Fox does a beautiful job on them. Countess has made hers less bright recently. Most of the others though, I can live without.

-Sarah

For reference and new readers, linking you to previous tattoo node discussions.

elzoejam was already there.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3300296&ebot_calc_page#message_3300296

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Yes, I believe I have stated my opinion on this one before. It SEEMED familiar LOL.

thanks BB .. I'll check that out.
I've been trying my hand at my own plus I keep seeing what I have described above, so its of great interest.

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together.
All things connect......Chief Seattle, 1854

 The few tattoos I've made I've always both blended and faded. But generally I STILL can't get them to look "really real"

Part of it is that black rarely stays proper black for long, it fades to a bluish black, and so far I haven't succeeded in hitting QUITE the right hue :)

But some of us DO think about it :) It's just harder than it may seem to get them to look right :)

Here's an example from a character I'm working on.

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Exactly. I will use myself as an example.

Although I just had the lines redone the day this picture is taken a week ago, you can see how the color has faded into my skin. As opposed to...

(flagged in case my back is offensive)

The color I JUST had done. It is raised up and you can see how much brighter it is than the ten year old stuff :-)

The only time I've seen tattoos on characters that look natural, were tattoos that were clearly on the skin used to make the character. 

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Quote - Exactly. I will use myself as an example.

Although I just had the lines redone the day this picture is taken a week ago, you can see how the color has faded into my skin. As opposed to...

(flagged in case my back is offensive)

Wait, turn around. I want to see it from the other side.
:b_drool:

While I agree to a certain extent about tats not looking like they were painted on this is still 3d and it seems that everything in the 3d world is a little too perfect. I say perfect because if tattoo artists could figure out a way to make the colors brighter and last longer they would and have through the years. In the world of 3d we have the benefit of making everything a little better or more idealized than it is is real life. I personally like tattoos that are realistic and done with shading instead of outlines and that seems to come out in the stuff that I do.

I will also commend Morris a bit here because I think that she finds a great middle ground between fading away and too perfect.... www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php