BEFORE WE START

UPDATE (3/3/2024): This tutorial now also has GIMP instructions! Extra thanks to
Av8rixgrl for figuring out the process and adding it here!

As of the day I'm writing this document (3/3/2024), there's still no way to add
completely new tattoos to the character creator that I know of. In order to get your
customs designs into the game, you will have to replace one of the vanilla options.

This tutorial covers how to make tattoos for the face and neck, the ones found under the
Body Art category in the character creator. Full body tattoos and how to add them are
outside my skillset and will not be covered in this tutorial.

This tutorial is directed to people who already know how to use Photoshop or other
image editing software and understand layer systems. If you've never used it in your life,
I recommend you learn how to use the software first since I won't go through the basics of
using it.

Otherwise, I’ve tried to make it as easy to understand for a total newbie to BG3 modding, but
if you have any questions or issues, or find a broken link, please feel free to reach out to me
via any of my social media links. I’m neonbutchery on any platforms.

This tutorial can also be used to make custom makeup! Scroll down to the “On
making custom makeup” section to learn how.

Extra thanks to ratchsellsfornax for the face template included in this tutorial with
their permission.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

● Baldur's Gate 3 (of course)
● Any image editing software that can open .DDS files. UPDATE (1/3/2024) The first
half of this tutorial is geared towards editing textures in Photoshop, the second
half GIMP.
● This plugin to open and edit .DDS files in Photoshop (you do not need any plugins for
GIMP!). If you don’t know how to install plugins, this video explains it. (Note: as of
January 2024, the original link has been taken down. I’ve linked an archived version
that you can download it from, but if you have any trouble obtaining the plugin feel
free to DM me on any of my social media pages and I will send it to you.)
MAKING THE TATTOO
For a cleaner and easier result, I highly recommend using the template that came with this
tutorial, named BG3_Face_Tattoo_Template. With it, you can have a better idea of how the
tattoo will look like and what areas it will be placed on.

Open up the template in whatever image editor you use, and you will see that it has two
layers besides the background (which I don’t recommend touching). The UV-MAP is kind of
like an outline of the face and features (yes, I know that UV maps aren’t exactly that, but I’m trying to
explain it as plainly as I can for those who don’t know), whereas the Face Texture is, well, a face
texture. You can toggle the visibility and opacity as you draw along.

Now it’s the time to get creative! Feel free to draw, experiment, or use premade resources
(turning on symmetry on whatever drawing software you use is always a lifesaver). You can
also use this template on any program that supports PSDs (for example, I mostly draw all of
my tattoos on Procreate and then export them to my computer).

An important thing to keep in mind is that the tattoo must be drawn in white, and the
background must be black. Of course you can use the template to help yourself with the
placement, but the final result (the one that you’re going to export) must be in the colors
outlined before. The game reads them so that white is where the tattoo is going to be applied
and black isn’t.

For example, we’ve got this… beauty, and we’re using the template to preview how it will
look on the face.
And this is the final image that will be exported:

Note the lack of any elements other than the tattoos themselves.

Now, once you’re finished drawing (hopefully something better than what I did), export the
image in whatever format you prefer and the tattoo itself is done!
**Note that the template I provided has a 2048x2048 size, whereas the individual tattoos in
the Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS file are all 1024x1024 squares. You can
either resize the template itself or resize the tattoo you created when editing the
Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS file as instructed below.

SETTING UP THE TATTOO FILE

Time to grab the Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS file! This is the file where
the character creator tattoos are stored. Open the Generated folder that came with this
template, navigate to
Generated\Public\Shared\Assets\Characters\_Models\_SharedAssets\SHARED_Atlas\Reso
urces\Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS and open it on Photoshop! If you
installed the plugin given to you at the start of the document, you should have no trouble
opening it.

Basically, the way character creation tattoos work in BG3 is that they're all packed in the
same file, but in different RGB channels. I could get into color channels, and maybe you
already know what they are, but for this tutorial in particular you don't really need to know
anything other than every channel (R, G, B) is a different set of tattoos.

To access the channels, go to the bar located on the right side of your Photoshop canvas
and click the Channels tab, next to Layers.
To view the contents of each channel, just click on it.

Set of tattoos in the Red channel.

Set of tattoos in the Green channel.

Set of tattoos in the Blue channel.

As stated before, to add your custom tattoo you will have to replace a vanilla one, so pick
whichever you want. The only part of these files I wouldn't modify is the bottom right corner,
the one with the clown facepaint, since those are the textures used in-game for the clown
makeup. For this tutorial, I’m going to replace this tattoo located in the Green channel:
Still in the Channels tab, press CTRL + A and then CTRL + C to copy the contents of the
layer. Then, switch to the Layers tab, create a new layer, and press CTRL + V to paste the
contents of the channel.
Import your custom tattoo into Photoshop and place it on top of the tattoo you want to
override. Photoshop lets you preview the size of the image you’re transforming; the size of
your tattoo should be 1024x1024 px.

Pressing down your SHIFT key, click on both your custom tattoo and the original layer, and
then right-click and select Merge Layers. Once you’ve merged the layers, press CTRL + A
and then CTRL + C again to select the layer, and then, hide it clicking the little eye icon.

Make sure you’ve selected the original file again (in these screenshots, it shows up as the
layer named Background) and then switch to the Channels tab again. Go to whatever
channel the textures you modified came from (Red, Green, or Blue) and press CTRL + V to
paste it.
Click on the RGB channel at the top to show all of the channels, and we’re done! The
modified file should look like this:

Note the difference between the modified file and the original tattoo file:
If you want, you can repeat this process and replace multiple slots.

EXPORTING AND LOADING THE FILE

Once you’re done making all of the changes you want to make, it’s time to save the file. You
must save the file in the same .DDS format it had originally; otherwise, it won’t work. In the
top bar, go to File > Save a copy, and select the .DDS format.

Two very important things:

1) You need to save the file under the Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS
filename. Otherwise, it’s not going to work.
2) A window will pop up with export settings. You don’t really need to do anything other
than set the format to DXT1. Seriously. This gave me so many headaches when I
 started modding tattoos and I don’t want anyone reading this to face the same
problems.

Click OK, and that’s it!

All that’s left to do is loading your custom tattoos into the game. To do that, copy the
Generated folder that you got in this template, go to your game data directory (C:\Program
Files (x86)\Baldurs Gate 3\Data, or, if you’re using Steam, C:\Program
Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\Data), and paste the Generated
folder there.

Boot up Baldur’s Gate 3, load the character creator or magic mirror, select the slot you put
your replacement in and that’s it!
Like all of the vanilla tattoos, you can also play around with the color and intensity.

While learning how to mod BG3 in general is a pretty big learning curve, this is one of the
easier ways to mod the game, and once you’ve gotten the hang of the process, designing
the tattoos itself takes more time than setting the file up. But it’s all a matter of practice and
patience!

Happy modding!

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT THE GIMP SECTION

● The information in this guide found in sections BEFORE WE START and WHAT
YOU’LL NEED is exactly the same and won’t be repeated here.
● This guide was tested with GIMP 2.10.36

MAKING THE TATTOO IN GIMP

We’re going to open the template file mentioned in the PSP instructions named
BG3_Face_Tattoo_Template.psd. Don’t worry that it’s a .psd, GIMP will open it just
fine. This is what it should look like with the file open.

When you open the template you’ll see four layers. Here you paint and Your Tattoo
Layer are the two main layers we care about. The UV-MAP is a wire mesh model,
whereas the Face Texture is a face texture. You can toggle the visibility and opacity
as you draw along.
Let’s get started!
Before doing anything else, we want our GIMP session to look like this and have the
Here you paint layer active. To do so, simply turn off the Face Texture.

IMPORTANT: The tattoo must be drawn in white, and the background must be
black for it to display correctly in the game. Feel free to use the template to help
you with alignment and/or even start out with another color as long as you remember
the final tattoo output must be black and white only! White will be where the tattoo is,
black where it’s not.

Here is an example of a particularly bad tattoo using the template to preview how it
will look on the face. Note that if you do something like text like I did, you should
probably merge it into the Here you paint layer before moving on to the “finer”
details of the tattoo.
Toss the extra layers we don’t need (Only keep Here you paint and Your tattoo
layer, then flatten it. Your exported file should look something like this:

Feel free to keep the same .psd file extension, it doesn’t really matter.

**Note that the template provided has a 2048x2048 size, whereas the individual
tattoos in the Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS file are all 1024x1024
squares. You can either rescale the template itself or rescale the tattoo you created
when editing the Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS file as instructed
below.

SETTING UP THE TATTOO FILE IN GIMP

Open the Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS file in GIMP. Accept the
default settings when it asks:

All of the character creation tattoos are all packed in the same file, but different RGB
channels. We don’t need to get into what that means for the tutorial. All you need to
understand is that every channel (R, G, B) is a different set of tattoos.

Before we get into any editing of the file, we’ll need to tell GIMP we want it to
interpret each channel as its own layer. To do so, go to Colors > Components >
Decompose:
IMPORTANT: Make sure to select RGBA!

You should now be able to see all of the tattoos isolated by channel in their own
layer:
Feel free to play around with the visibility of each layer to see which tattoos are on
each layer. Your custom tattoo you will have to replace a vanilla one, so pick
whichever you want. The only part of these files I wouldn't modify is the bottom right
corner, the one with the clown facepaint, since those are the textures used in-game
for the clown makeup. For this tutorial, I’m going to replace this tattoo located in the

Green layer:

Tab over to your custom tattoo file and press CTRL+A then CTRL+C to copy it all
using the ribbon at the top:

Again, make sure your tattoo is 1024x1024 before doing this!

Paste it into the decomposed image. Make sure the correct tattoo layer is selected so
that it inserts the floating selection above that layer. It’ll make it easier on you.
Use the selection tool to overlay the tattoo you’re replacing. The following tool
settings should allow you to move your selection with the keyboard for more
precision:
Once the floating selection is where you want it, click the green anchor at the bottom
of the layer list to place it into the green layer permanently:
Almost done! Now we just need to recompose the image into full color Colors >
Components > Recompose:

The modified file should look like this:

Note the difference:

If you want, you can repeat this process and replace multiple slots.
 EXPORTING AND LOADING THE FILE IN GIMP
Once you’re done making all of the changes you want to make, it’s time to save the
file. You must save the file in the same .DDS format it had originally; otherwise, it
won’t work. In the top bar, go to File > Export as, and select the first .DDS format
option.

Two very important things:

1) You need to save the file under the Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Tattoo_A_MSK1.DDS
filename. Otherwise, it’s not going to work.
2) A window will pop up with export settings. You don’t really need to do anything other
than set the format to BC1 / DXT1. Otherwise it won’t work. I also set it to save all
visible layers because I’m paranoid, but you should only have one at this point:

Click EXPORT, and that’s it!

All that’s left to do is loading your custom tattoos into the game. To do that, copy the
Generated folder that you got in this template, go to your game data directory (C:\Program
Files (x86)\Baldurs Gate 3\Data, or, if you’re using Steam, C:\Program
Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\Data), and paste the Generated
folder there.

Boot up Baldur’s Gate 3, load the character creator or magic mirror, select the slot you put
your replacement in and that’s it! Like all of the vanilla tattoos, you can also play around with
the color and intensity.

Once you have the process down, editing your tattoos will take much more time than setting
up the file. As shown above, even a silly forehead tattoo can look awesome. Have fun with it!

ON MAKING CUSTOM MAKEUP

The processes covered in this tutorial can also be used for making custom makeup! The
only things that changes is the file that you’re editing
(Skin_Atlas_Head_SHR_Makeup_A_MSK2.dds), and the channel (all of the makeup
options are placed on the Red channel exclusively).
Everything else is the generally the same process explained above in the respective
PSP/GIMP sections, including the file path that you need to recreate to load your custom
makeup in-game. There are two small differences if using GIMP:
1. Do not use recompose after your makeup edits like you do with tattoos. Instead use
Colors > Components > Compose and make sure you have RGBA selected for the
color model (if you don’t you’ll get an error).
2. When exporting your file to DDS, make sure generate mipmaps is selected! The
default selections for the mipmap options are fine.
This file also stores the face spots for githyanki, but honestly I’ve never tried modding them
so I can’t give any pointers as to how they work.
A COUPLE OF FINAL NOTES

● All races use the same file for tattoos. Basically, if you make a tattoo with heavy
design elements on the forehead, there’s a very high chance that it will be cut
off on tieflings. If you do something on the ears, there will be deformation on
elves, githyanki, and any other race with big ears. You get me. There’s honestly
no workaround for that.
● Depending on the face preset there will be some slight deformation. Again, just
like the last point, it’s inevitable. If you want to make your tattoo to fit a certain head
preset, I recommend doing multiple tests with that one head in particular.
● Some of the tattoos in the file are also used by some NPCs in the game (Z’rell, He
Who Was and Mol off the top of my head, for example). If you replace them, said
NPCs will also be affected. You can use mods like Unique Tav to try and circumvent
this, but I don’t use them myself so I can’t give any more advice or support related to
that.