For this tutorial, you will need Paint Shop Pro7 (or 6) and Poser4.

Please note that all screen shots on this page are greatly reduced in size from the originals.

In PSP, open a Poser texture map. (I used P4 woman O1B, you can download it and many others for free from HappyWorldLand.) If you do not have any "custom" maps you can use the basic P4 map, by going to Program Files/Poser4/Runtime/Textures/Poser4 Textures/P4 Woman Texture.tiff. Shift D to copy the image and close the original. Here's what you'll have:

Find the face on the texture map and zoom in close. Open a new layer, call it Eye Makeup. Using the paint brush tool (set it to a size appropriate to the area you are working on) choose a light "skin-type" color and paint the area between the brow and the eyelid. You can use the retouch tool to soften the edges if you like, for a better blend. Now change the brush size down smaller and choose a soft color for eyeshadow, and paint the upper lid, again softening the edges.

Open a new layer, call it Cheeks. Choose a nice "blush" color, and using a *large* airbrush (I used size 56, Hardness 35, Opacity 35, Step 40, Density 35) give her some cheek color, again softening the edges. (I find that the airbrush works better for blush than the paint brush, as it is not as heavy, but you can try both.)

Open a new layer, call it Lips. Choose a good lipstick color, and using a small paint brush, paint her lips.

Don't worry if she looks a little overdone at this point, use the transparency sliders on each makeup layer to adjust the "heaviness" of the makeup. If you still don't like the look, just delete that particular layer and try again - this is why you want to put each makeup element on a separate layer. For even more control, put each eye and cheek on a layer of their own. Save this in layers as a .psp file, in case you need to play with it more later.

Now let's check her out in Poser. Export your texture map as a jpg, calling it "makeup" or something like that - you can save it anywhere, just remember where it is!

Open Poser and pull up the P4 female. Turn on the face camera (the right side drop down menu under your figure) and go to Render/Render Options/Surface Material. In the Surface Material window that opens, go to Texture Map (left hand side) and click the load button, and browse to open your new makeup jpg. Make sure that the box that says "Texture changes apply to entire figure" is checked, and click ok. At the bottom of the screen is a row of buttons, marked "Document Display Style", click the button farthest to the right, and your changes will appear in the image window.

The left image is rendered with the original texture map, the right image is with the new makeup texture map. I have deliberately left the makeup a little bit bright, so that the changes can be seen. Remember, makeup is supposed to be subtle!

If you're satisfied with the look you have, then you're good to go and can put the makeup.jpg file wherever you store your skin textures. If you're not satisfied, go back into PSP and play around some more with the original, layered image you saved, saving the changes as a jpg and switching back and forth between Poser and PSP until you get the look you want.

This is my very first attempt at a tutorial, so if you have any problems, comments or questions, please feel free to email me and I will do what I can to straighten things out. Thanks!