16 million color Arm Drawing:

arm1.gif (1210 bytes)1. start with the wire frame. The blue sections are no part of the skin. they are in the outline

arm2.gif (1210 bytes)2. Add some medium flesh colors (note: I usually work in grayscale, BUT, with the q2 palette, I like to start with a color in the palette so my turn-out will be easier to convert)

arm3.gif (1765 bytes)3. Now the muscles outline is up to you. I suggest look at your own arms, if you have at least some muscle, you can get an outline from there. If you don't, I suggest you look at some other skins, muscle books, and start some daily exercises. ;) Of course not all of us are a muscular as the Q2 model, so you will have to "add" muscles to you own if you want to use that method
4. Increase your color depth to 16million. In Paint Shop Pro, select the RETOUCH button. From that set your Retouch Mode: Lighten, Size: 5, Shape: Round, Opacity: 30.
5. Draw on the arm a simple out line with those settings.

arm4.gif (2154 bytes)6. now that you have a simple outline, change you retouch to DARKEN. and add some shading.

arm5.gif (2457 bytes)7. Switch back to LIGHTEN and add some more lighting, then back to darken and add more shading.
(Optional) make a copy of what your drawing and load the q2 palette to that just to get an idea of how you arms are coming along.

arm6.gif (2541 bytes)8. now, the fun part, change the size of your retouch to 1, and start adding the details (switching between lighten and darken while in this process).

arm7.gif (1966 bytes)9. After you get it all looking like you want it, load the Quake 2 palette. I suggest you download my custom palettes, and load the browns or the flesh palettes for quake 2.
10. If when you loaded the palette, the colors just don't look right, you should do some pixel for pixel corrections by selecting the color you want and drawing that straight onto the skin.

arm8.gif (2203 bytes)11. now for the other side, just copy and paste, then mirror onto the other side.

arm9.gif (2991 bytes)You will noticed that it is not EXACTLY in the lines, so just copy the closest edge and paste it over.
12. That should be your finished product. If you don't like it, remember, it takes time and practice. And for the back, just run the same steps as before, but of course, do not draw the same thing. ;)

arm10.gif (2368 bytes)13. special details: people like veins and they are easy to add. In 16million colors, choose you retouch with all the same settings with SIZE 1 or 2 (depending on the width of the vein) and just run curved or off-straight lines in areas were you want them.

14. Draw the vein itself in lighten...

arm11.gif (2368 bytes)...and then draw around that with darken.

arm12.gif (2021 bytes)15. and load the palette...complete.

 

Finishing the Arms, the back/inside:

arm13.gif (2562 bytes)Start with you existing arm, and darking the inside areas (the middle area below the top is the armpit)
Using a size 5 darken does best.

arm14.gif (2626 bytes)Switch between Lighten and darken, and use size 1 to make the hands and ligaments

arm15.gif (2152 bytes)Fix the edges to fit the model skin, and load the Q2 palette of course.

arm16.gif (5670 bytes)Put them all together fixing any problems that come along.

arm17.gif (4345 bytes)And there you go...