vinyl headache

Hello all..

It would seem I'm back with another texturing question. I honestly think at this point I have learned more about using photoshop and the like from this forum than any other source..except maybe practicing information from the forums. Heh.

So im working on another piece in my steadily growing collection, and I was wondering.. I see a lot of really great vinyl/leather textures people have made. Is there a secret to doing this well or am I just missing something entirely?I can tell a few of the ones I have seen are obvious photo-source jobs, but is there a way to get that specific kind of shine from hand-painting in photoshop? err.. *blinks*

If anyone might have any suggetions, it would be most appreciated.

aaah why doing what is already done over and over?

Well there isn't anything like a "vinyl texture" i think, or whatever plastic like shiny material, what give these materials their special appearance is that what you see on them is actually the reflection of it's surrounding, so what can i suggest you, study a bit light and the way it affect these types of materials.

Dorian, you'll find that overlay layers, and the burn & dodge tools are your friends for this sort of work. I think you'll find this thread helpful: /109/e3/156870/1.html Have fun.

I had this same problem with a skirt I was working on.

What I did was study the way light reflected on the vinyl (very easy to find online). I decided to use a straight-on lighting source, so I just put a white stripe down the center of the piece, then feathered it out with the airbrushes while playing with the opacity until it looked right. Then I turned the smudge tool on high to blend it and make some highlights. I shadowed the highlights with an appropriate color and I was done. Just remember, the only highlights come from where the light source hits it, so be careful of curves. Good luck!

i would say that good reflective surfaces do not "just" reflect light, they also reflect a portion of their surrounding, of course we cannot do real reflections , but you can simulate this behavior