Photos and Textures Question

[Melrick]

I've been watching a lot of tutorials lately about character texturing, as I am trying to improve this part of my work especially, and have noticed a lot of the tutorials for creating skin for a humanoid using photos of people as the base texture. This includes lips, eyes, eyebrows etc. I was wondering if anyone can tell me if this is the norm or becoming the norm in the industry and I should start doing my characters in this fashion.

And if not can anyone suggest a realistic skin tutorial that doesn't use photos?

Thank you

[[*AP*]Twin]

ancientpig has a pretty good easy to follow tutorial on skin texturing without photo layovers.

http://www.pig-brain.com/tut01/tut01_01.htm

[MRico]

Woah...dude, you gatta be a pretty good digital painter to pull something like that off...I know you're not asking for photo references, but if you're like me and can't paint for shit I recommend http://3d.sk/ it comes with a small fee, but it's fucking awesome!

[Melrick]

Thank you I have seen pig-brains tutorial before. It's impressive. Unfortunately I am not of the caliber to pull that off yet. I am still one of those people who use a base colour and then add highlights and shadows to it.

[Blenderhead]

There is nothing wrong in using a little-photo sourcing. It won't hurt your chances of a job. Seeing it used as part of the workflow in the final look of your assets will actually help you.

[Melrick]

There is nothing wrong in using a little-photo sourcing. It won't hurt your chances of a job. Seeing it used as part of the workflow in the final look of your assets will actually help you.
Thank you Blenderhead, I have used it on other parts of my textures before (i.e. clothing, objects...) as a base material. But it was always something I staid away from on the skin instead trying to improve my technique.