Intro

Today we’re gonna take a look at a few ways to paint skin tones!

Painting characters was always the most fun thing for me in digital art, especially because I got to play with a lot of cool poses, expressions and outfits. But the most important thing in character drawing and painting, is without a doubt, the face.

 

It’s the make or break of a character illustration.

 

So today we’ll go over one of the more important parts of portraits - we’ll figure out how to render the skin, to make it as vibrant and alive as possible.

Before we begin...

There’s a few things we need to pay attention to when painting skin, the most important part is the value, which applies to all the styles we’ll attempt to paint today.

Values

a mistake that I used to make a lot is to paint faces and skin with crazy contrast, which will make the skin look more plastic-y and lose the texture of the actual skin.

 

Regardless of the skin tone, the contrast of the skin is pretty low compared to other materials like metal or plastic. so keep that in mind!

 

Low contrast does not occur when there’s a strong light source

Skin tones and colors

When choosing a skin tone, it’s important to think about the undertone of the skin.

 

You could have skin with pretty much any undertone, but it’s important to note that when you paint darker skin tones, it’s very much advised to use more warm undertones as dark skin tones usually have more red in them compared to lighter skin tones,

 

of course it’s not a must, but it’s what I personally follow!

The face has  general zones with a dominant color.  

• yellow on the forehead

• red around the cheeks

• blue on the chin and mouth area

If we’ll use these colors and paint them lightly over the face, It’ll give us color variety, which will add interest to it!

Types of light

Last thing I want to talk about before we move on to painting is light! 

Let’s practice light on a simple shape, just to not get confused.

 

Right now we’ve only got the local color, but we want to add light and shadow to it. First let’s decide where the light source should be.

The next step is to add a shadow.

 

Usually I choose a warm shadow for the skin,

There’s a general rule I follow when choosing a color for shadow and light.

 

The darker a color is the more saturated it should be, and the lighter it is the less saturated it should be.

 

So we’re gonna move our color picker down, a bit right to make it more saturated, and to make it warmer than the skin tone, we’re gonna shift the hue to the red a bit.

 

My personal preference is to blend the colors, but if you’re going for a cell shading feel, there is no need to blend! If you do blend, make sure you don’t overdo it!

next is subsurface scattering.

In general, subsurface scattering refers to the phenomenon that happens when there’s a light behind our hands or ears and it makes them glow red.

 

On a more scientific note it’s the light penetrating through the skin, bouncing around inside the flesh and making the blood glow, hence the red glow!

 

It appears on the border of shadow and light and it has an orange glowing tone. 

 

 

Next up we’ve got the highlights, just to show the direction of the light source.

Core shadow

 

The core shadow is a part of the object that neither the direct light nor the reflected light bouncing off the table touch, hence the reason it’s darker than any other shadow!

 

IMPORTANT: The core shadow I added is much darker than it should be for teaching purposes. Make sure you pay attention to the contrast of the skin and not create too much of it!

And last but not least- bounce light.

 

The bounce light is the light the is reflected from the environment to the skin. In this tutorial we’re going to use the most common example of this and use a blue bounce light, as in the light the sky reflects. Adding this light give great color variation.

 

I also lowered the contrast of the skin by adding MIDTONES.

When it comes to darker tones:

 

Darker tones of skin reflect much less light, which means they’ll have a limited highlight area, but also means that the bounce light will be more visible. Which can make some beautiful skin renderings!

Using reference for lighting on heads

Unlike a normal sphere, trying to figure out where the shadows should be on the face is pretty challenging. That’s why I strongly recommend to use references. You can use pictures, 3d models, pretty much anything!

 

But my personal go to is clip studio paint’s 3d head model.

Clip studio has a great 3d feature, where you can use built in models and simulate a light on them. Here’s how you do it:

1. press the arrow on the top right

2. Press 3D, and then press Head if you have more than one head model.

3. drag your chosen model to the canvas

4. Scroll the tool property: object menu until you see the LIGHT SOURCE function

5. Change the lighting direction and color to your liking!

You can also get an Asaro head model from the asset store.

 

An asaro head is a great reference for lighting, because it represents a simple geometric stylization of the planes of the head. It's super useful to understand which planes face the light or shadow.

 

And it’s going to be incredibly useful in the second painting style we’ll go over today.

Let’s paint the first style of skin rendering!

This is a pretty soft and simple style that relies pretty much on just cell shading. Which basically means putting the shadow and light in a flat and sharp way on the skin, using a hard brush or the lasso tool.

 

I personally prefer using the lasso tool as it makes the process cleaner.

1. Put local colors first!

2. After putting in the local colors on my lineart, the first thing I do When I draw in any style is to decide where the light source is coming from.

After that, I’ll outline where the shadows need to be and paint them in with a flat warm colour like in the coloring demo.

 

I like to add a gradient of an even darker shadow (the core shadow) to add more depth to the skin!

 

The importance of EDGES:

 

There’s two types of edges: Soft edges, and hard edges! Using both of them while painting the skin makes the skin more realistic and alive. This is a style that mostly uses hard edges, but some soft edges (like on the right cheek) add a lot to it! Try it yourself!

3. Then, I’ll paint in the bounce light gently, with an airbrush or a soft brush, just so it won’t be too harsh. As it’s not direct light, just a light that bounced from the source. It should be ever so slightly lighter.

4. Then, I’ll aribrush the undertone colours in: yellow, red and blue, in an overlay layer, and reduce the opacity until I see fit.

From there we’re gonna put on the subsurface scattering, the orange glowing line.

In this style I like to keep it thin, and draw it in with a soft brush to bring some variety. but you can definitely do it with a hard brush as well!

 

Bounce light cannot be lighter than the light source!

5. I added a bit of light using a 10% glow dodge layer, and colored in the eyes.

6. I rendered the hair and the eyes, and also added a hard brush line of bounce light on the bottom of the left cheek!

 

(rendering hair and eyes are not a part of this tutorial, but I’d love to make some in the future!)

6. Add blush to make the skin more alive,  and I added subsurface scatter around the chin and the neck and adding and overall warm gradient from the bottom to the top of the face.

 

Also, I added a rainbow gradient map on 10% soft light mode, to add even more color variation!

Finished portrait:

Summary of the basic lighting process

we’re gonna go a little bit faster on the pace from now on, but feel free to always reference this process to catch up!

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Painting a character with harsh light

I’d suggest using the multiply layer for the shadows, as it creates much more extreme contrast, be careful not to make it too dark though!

 

in these kinds of extreme lighting situation i’d prefer to use a 3d model to reference the lighting. Because the style we’re painting in it pretty simple tho, I’m making sure not to overdo it, and just paint one or two shades of light and not include all the midtones like on the model, purely for stylaziatoin purposes.

Adding bounce light to create more depth

Summary of intense lighting skin rendering

Painting a character underwater

Here’s an example of putting a character in a different place completely, underwater.

 

1. when sunlight (or light in general) enters the water, the ocean acts as a filter. Water absorbs the warm colors of the light and leaves us only with the cooler tones. so first of all We’ll use a multiply layer and paint the skin blue, to match with the environment!

 

Then, we’ll decide where the light source will come from, and block in our shadow accordingly

2.  Since this is a dark environment the shadows have pretty low contrast with the skin, while the light could definitely  be higher in contrast.

 

In underwater lighting, I like to use soft edges mostly to sell the illusion of diffused light!

3. To add into the underwater effect, I’d like to add some light blue lines that resemble the water reflection, and blur them with gaussian blur.

 

I’m finishing the portrait by putting a dark background to match the character’s lighting

Painting dark skin

REMINDER: When it comes to painting dark skin, Because it reflects less light, the highlights tend to be more concentrated, but the bounce light might become more apparent, 

so when I approach darker skin tones I like to pay more attention to the light than the shadows, unlike lighter skin tones!

1. I start painting dark skin tones like painting light skin tones, with figuring out where the light source is, filling in the shadows, putting undertone colours (yellow, red, blue)

 

IMPORTANT: The bounce light on darker skin is more saturated, as it is more visible!

2. then I mostly focus on the light.

I put more concentrated highlights compared to lighter skin tones. It really makes the skin glow which I absolutely love!

3. Rendering hair and eyes

Summary of painting darker skin tones

Painting rim light

Rim light is definitely one of the tricker lightings to paint, but once you get the intention behind it it’s quiet fun, and extremely moody! 

1. When painting rim light the light is to the back (and sometimes the side) of the character. This angle makes the character have unique highlights that outline the subject. 

 

2. Since the light source is from behind the character most of the character is in shadow, so to create depth we’re gonna have to rely on a small amount of bounce light. Not too much as to not break the illusion of the character being in the shadow.

3. rim light highlights almost never have a soft edge thanks to subsurface scatter, so it’s important to use a soft brush or a small airbrush and paint in an orange glow that will accompany the highlights. I use a glow dodge layer on 50%

In this demo, the light source is not directly behind the character, but also the the left and a bit under the face of them.

 

That means that some light will hit the left fact of the character’s face, but most of it will be subsurface scattering, because of the strong rim light highlights, that travel through the flesh and make the blood glow. 

4. Add bounce light to provide depth, including the hair!

 

I added a warm gradient from the bottom of the face of the character.

NOTE: The highlights can be any colour, warm or cold, but subsurface scattering will work the same!

I think we’ve covered enough of the first style, let’s take a quick look at the second painting style! 

Painting in a semi realistic style

This style is a bit more on the semi realistic side, and takes great advantage of edge control, 

 

it’s a bit harder than the first style as it requires a more advanced understanding of the face planes, but it is a very rewarding learning experience! 

Remember when I mentioned the Asaro head? Now’s a good time to use it! 

 

As I said before, the asaro head demonstrates light in a great way by simplifying the face planes, so it’s easier to see what plane of the face faces the light or the shadow. 

keep this model close to your heart, it’s precious! 

ASARO HEAD MODEL FROM CLIP STUDIO ASSET STORE: MADE BY THE AMAZING Bolting_now

1. The start of the painting process is similar to the first style - figure out where the light source is, block in a direct shadow and put on a splash of bounce light in the shadows.

 

Because this is a more realistic style, I allow myself to have more fun with the edges and soften some edges up with the blend tool.

2.  From here, things get different.

 

Now it’s time to reference the Asaro head, and block in the basic planes of the face.

 

The face should be full of hard edges now, which looks pretty weird! This is the time to soften some part of the face. I also like to keep the eye highlights and eyebags sharp for stylization!

 

IMPORTANT, keep some edges sharp! It brings great variety to the painting! For example, I’d keep the shadows that are cast from near sharp. for example, the head to the neck, from the nose to the cheek, and the chin!

The rest could be softened to your liking, but be careful not to go overboard with it!

3. Once you’ve blended the planes to your satisfaction, things are starting to look up! Now is the time to add in the undertone colors, yellow for the forehead, red for the cheeks, and a bit of blue for the chin, in an overlay layer, and play with the opacity.

To put more interest in the painting, I also added a sharp line of the bounce light to the right of the face. I also personally like going over all of the drying with a thin outline to add more depth.

 

(If you feel like the painting is done here, that’s great! If you want to go one extra step, you can texture your painting with any texture brush!

 

I like adding freckles in a multiply layer and play with the opacity, and also take a hard brush and draw some lines in blended or empty areas, to add more interest! )

4. Because this style involved a lot of sculpting and losing the lineart as we’re painting above it, I sometimes liquify the portrait to fit the sketch more!

Here’s another example of a front face view, with a bit of a looser feeling and lineart to it and some grain.

Here’s a speedpaint of all of the portraits drawn today!

When it comes to darker skin tones, the process is the same. But instead of focusing on the shadows, focus more on the planes the light hits. Make the highlights more concentrated as you know that dark skin reflects light less! 

END

I wish you good luck and a fun learning experience, and I truly hope I helped you to learn something new today!