Thanks for the compliment. I think these are some samples of what your talking about.
For facial hair I make a new layer, and pick the color for the facial hair from the eyebrows of the player so they match.
I then use the air brush and paint the hair on face and head to my liking: Don't worry if its not perfect, that'll be fixed later.
I then change the opacity of the layer so I can easily see the face through the hair and then trim it up with the eraser.
I then return the opacity to whatever setting I want. You can leave it transparent for the 5 o'clock shadow look like John Palmer above.
At this point it usually looks painted on. So use the blur tool at a reduced pressure to smooth some of the corners of the hair so it looks more natural.
For very thick hair like Thomas Slade's above, I will go in the color picker and select a color slightly lighter to add highlights.
For glasses, I use the pen tools, to create a path in the shape of the rims. Note if the player is facing forward its easier because you only need to do half of the glasses.
Make a new layer
When you have the glasses frames as you want them, using the pen tool, right click on the path and it will give you the option to stroke the path. Select it and use the air brush. Make sure the air brush is set at the right brush type you want. probably a single pixel.
Wala, you now have frames.
To make the lenses, make another layer and change you color to white.
Paint in the lens areas.
Then reduce the opacity of the layer to somewhere around 30% and you have lenses.
If the glasses look like they aren't perfect, select the burn tool and switch to the layer the player's face is on and burn around his nose where the glasses sit to give the impression of a shadow.
For our league, I made templates for each team but they're in all different poses. This has made it hard to update pictures when the players switch teams. If I were to do it again, I would standardize the pose and make all the uniforms from that one. Good luck and if you have any other questions, I'll be around. You should also use the new Facegen 3, its very sweet. Making players like Robert Hurwitz.
