Putting a linear texture onto a curvy UV map

[Vulpinus]

I have UV maps for tattoo layers that came with my Aesthetic mesh avatar, and I want to make tattoos from some existing 'normal' pictures that my other half has drawn.

Is there an easy way to do this? Easier than redrawing them (which I can't do and I'm not sure she could) distorted like the UV map, I mean.

I guess if I had the actual mesh it would be relatively straightforward in Blender, but of course I only have the UV maps.

I've been trying to use the transform tools in photoshop (warp, mainly) to get the image to fit the UV, but with unusable results so far.

[Freya Mokusei]

At 512x512px I'd expect some heavy distortion to re-shaped tattoos.

My method of choice would be to turn the tattoo into horizontal 'bands' or stripes which correspond to the height of the verts, and then adjust each of these using the Transform tools in Photoshop (Ctrl+Alt+T). Holding Ctrl while click-dragging a corner allows you to move each point independently. to deform each to fit the UV map.

Once reshaped, it'll then be a little bit of fuss to stitch it all back together again.

This gives you a fair degree of control. But like I say, some distortion will be normal.

Warp is a little too.. liquid-y? And across a whole image it's often not precise enough.

[Vulpinus]

Thanks, I'll give that a try and see if I get further than I have with warp. That won't be hard though.

The UV map of the arm is 1024x1024 and I'm working at 4x that each way, with the tattoo about a quarter of that height, to try and keep resolution until the end.

The other way I had thought of was to somehow place a (removeable) grid onto my image and align that with the UV using the Puppet Warp. I'll hold that thought in reserve for now.

[Freya Mokusei]

The higher resolution thing is a good idea. Without a mesh body, I have to downsize to 512x512px and often the transformation makes me sob a little. At a high resolution you'll be able to control the deformation more closely, too.

Playing with grids (using a new layer) might work but... you're probably going to just end up deforming everything twice. Once for the grid, once for the design.

The only hassle with this method is sticking everything back together at the end. It can be useful to split the design 'bands' into separate layers to you can blend them back together.