Introduction:

Hi, my name is Kashaf, I am a beginner artist. Here I'm going to show you how I shade anime skin. That said, lets begin the tutorial :)

Tutorial:

First, make sure your line art or sketch is done. Then create a new layer and place it underneath your line art/sketch layer and use the bucket tool to fill your base skin tone in that layer (use the magic wand tool to make sure that the base color is only covering the skin and not spreading to the hair etc.)

 

Demonstration:

After applying the base skin color, I create a layer on top of it and clip it to the base color layer, This way all my shading will remain inside the borders of my base color layer.

 

Demonstration:

Shading and rendering:

On the clipped layer, we can finally start shading. All the shading will take place on this layer. I color pick the skin base color and move the hue to a bit reddish tone and choose a darker variation of that color. This will be our medium shade color. Then, on the tool bar I choose soft Airbrush and lightly define the shadows on the skin.

 

Demonstration:

Now we will choose our dark shade color. I again pick the skin base color and move the hue but this time to a bit purplish pink tone and choose a darker variation of that color (keep on moving the color wheel around until you are satisfied with your color). Then with your selected color, draw clean long strokes with the G-pen under the hair acting as shadows. These strokes will vary according to your light source. In the image below, the light source is coming from the top right corner (represented with a tiny sun).

 

Demonstration:

Now, its time to add blush on the cheeks. For the blush I chose a cute peach pink color (All the colors I have chosen are shown in the images on the left side of the drawing). Then I chose the soft airbrush from the airbrush category and lightly dabbed it on the cheeks until it was pink enough for my satisfaction. (Tip: I recommend to not use a straight on pink for the blush because that jumps out way too much because of the slightly harsh border between the skin and the blush. Instead I recommend a slightly peachy pink so that it transitions nicely with the skin tone).

 

Demonstration:

Later, I added many diagonal lines coming from top right to the bottom left on the previously added blush. Doing this gives the cheeks more texture and makes the drawing look a bit more interesting. For achieving this effect, I clicked the pencil tool and selected the "lighter pencil" and added thin, light but straight strokes. (Tip: I like to have different opacity for each stroke so using pressure sensitivity for this can help achieve a softer and genuinely nicer look than strict harsh lines).

 

Demonstration:

Optional: Add small oval highlights on the corners of the blush and the tip of the nose to give some pop to the drawing.

 

Demonstration:

To prevent the lips from looking too flat, I used the same technique of shading and highlighting the cheeks on the lips. I used the same tool " lighter pencil" for adding a slight tint of lipstick and shadow under the lips. Then I used the G-pen to add oval shaped highlights with an off-white color. (Tip: These small highlights when added together make the drawing look way more polished and skin like).

 

Demonstration:

To make minor adjustments, experiment with the Hue/Saturation/luminosity sliders to change it to what fits best in your opinion. You can access this setting by clicking Ctrl+U which will bring these separate sliders for hue, saturation, and luminosity for you to mess with.

 

Demonstration:

Lastly, add any shadows, highlights where needed and apply any necessary filters to adjust the brightness or contrast etc. Here's what the result should look like with every thing colored.