Ask Uncle Yakov: Make my own hairy skintones?

[BeosBoxBoy]

...is there a file I can use to put your body hair pattern on a custom sim skin?

I wish I had not been such an artist and more of a computer geek when I
was doing the various edits to my hairy skintone based on AllenABQ's
original work; I did all of my edits directly to the texture rather than
as an overlay that I could have saved as a transparency

Many many times I have regretted this.  When I made the "gold" version
for Marvine - it was such a phenomenal pain in the arse that I gave up
all hope of doing any further body hair skin tones.  If anyone is a
saint and benefactor and wants to send me the items mentioned below,
this might change.

There are overlays out there on the net - they are meant for use with
Poser or DAZ or other 3D Model renderers; I could never find them or
anyone willing to share them (persons who make stuff for 3D art and the
Sims 2 tend to not give away things that make their products "special").

If you have Adobe Photoshop (Gimp may be ok - but Paint Shop Pro does
not seem to work very well for this) you can make a transparent layer
over any skintone texture and paint the hair - it is tedious and
meticulous work, I suggest making several layers, each having the body
hair for certain sections of the body:

Layer 10   - hair on back of neck
Layer 9    - hair on middle sides of torso
Layer 8    - hair on back (shoulders)
Layer 7    - hair on central back (spinal area)
Layer 6    - hair on lower back (the rear treasure trail)
Layer 5    - hair on the buttocks
Layer 4    - hair on the legs
Layer 3    - hair on the chest & stomach (heavy)
Layer 2    - hair on lower stomach (treasure trail) & light hair on chest
Layer 1    - hair on the groin and arm pits
Background - skintone

One could alter the colour of the hair by pressing Ctrl+U and
colourising the layer; making various adjustments to hue, saturation,
and lightness.

Additional layers could be used to colourise and augment the contrast
and shadowing of the skintone in a manner like the example for which you
gave me a link.  These additional layers could be something like:

Layer i    - tattoos 3 (later in life)
Layer h    - tattoos 2 (adult)
Layer g    - tattoos 1 (teen)
Layer f    - muscle shadowing 2 (fit/cut)
Layer e    - muscle shadowing 1 (normal)
Layer d    - softening of features (fat)
Layer c    - colour enrichment 3 (select regions)
Layer b    - colour enrichment 2 (select regions)
Layer a    - colour enrichment 1 (general)
Background - skintone

You could "save for web..." various versions of the image with layers
visible or not visible as a 24-bit colour PNG and then either "build
DXT" in SimPE or further save the PNG as a BMP for use in a Body Shop
project.

Additionally - you could test the match-up of the front-back seam in
MilkShape 3D by assigning it as the material for a 3D model mesh of the
appropriate type and making minute changes needed to make it pixel
perfect.  This could also be seen in Body Shop but would require you
create a default mesh replacement for the Body Shop mannequin of the
various ages and sexes for which you are making skintones.

For the latter, you need Targa's True Nude Body Shop mannequins for
males from SexySims2.com:
--  http://www.sexysims2.com/showthread.php?t=91972
this is an adult site and requires membership (if you were formerly a
member of MTS2 with adult section privileges you are already a member).
The female I know is probably on the same site - but I didn't take the
time to locate it since this wasn't germane to your question.

hope this helps,

Uncle Yakov