Need texture help/ advice

[Jman99]

Hey everyone,
I've been working on this digital painting of a tiger, recently and it's going quite well except one thing: the texturing on his muzzle is very complex and I can't figure out how to approach it. Here is a close-up of the part I'm referring to (the actual photo). If anyone can give me some ideas of how to approach this section, I would be very grateful.

 

[chrisix]

first use a pore brush, then a fur brush?

 

[Paul]

I would go with a stipple effect then colourise and make more realistic by doing varying layers.

 

[Jman99]

Hey guys, thanks for you input. Yah I had thought of using the skin texture brushes, but so far there's something about it that doesn't look right. I'm having trouble making sense of what I'm seeing, especially in the mid/upper muzzle, so it's hard to recreate it. I'll start again and just try layering it up with the stippling, maybe on it's own layer so I can mess with blending, blurring, etc. and have a safety net. There may be no easy way out of this one. May have to try a ton of trial and error before I get it =)

 

[ibclare]

Sounds like Photoshop Play to me. I can tell you, I've thrown out 5 hours worth of work, more than once, because it didn't work right. That's Poker. I mean Photoshop.

 

[Jman99]

Sounds like Photoshop Play to me. I can tell you, I've thrown out 5 hours worth of work, more than once, because it didn't work right. That's Poker. I mean Photoshop.

haha yah I guess sometimes there's only one way to do it, and that's just try a bunch of stuff and see what works. I've done hours of trial-and-error on other pictures before I really felt like I got what I was going for, so I guess this is no different.