In this week’s free episode of Deke’s Techniques, Deke shows you how to tattoo your face. And do so using Photoshop so that you can rethink that decision at any time.

Here’s our model from the Dreamstime image library, tweaked by Deke to prepare her for the awesome dekeIfication that’s about to happen to her:

Then, after drawing the design in a series of pen tool paths, he applies these totally removable decorations to her face:

Frankly, this might be one of my favorite techniques of all time. But even if you’re not quite set to do such elaborate work in the name of intricate face painting, this video has a lot of great advice for developing some basic Photoshop skills, including:

 
• Efficiently copying and pasting layer styles
 
• Knowing when to use Fill opacity instead of the regular kind
 
• Pasting, merging, and clipping paths and shape layers to create one integrated design.
 
• Tweaking layer styles to create more realistic lighting and texture.

For members of Lynda.com, Deke’s got an exclusive movie this week in which he shows you how to use the Pen tool to create the design (as well as add a Feather the entire design to increase the realism.)

By the way, if you’re not familiar with the Pen tool and are inspired by Deke’s deftness with it, you can check out his two-part course on using the Pen tool: Learning the Adobe Pen Tool and Adobe Pen Tool: Mastery.

Deke’s Techniques, tattooing your face! (Seriously, what else is there to say.)