Introduction

Skin painting techniques can vary drastically from illustration to illustration - so there is no one correct method when painting skin! Clip Studio has some great features that can help you figure out how to paint skin in your illustrations. Below you’ll find the process I follow when painting skin, as well as some additional tips that I hope you find helpful! Let’s go :)

 

Base Colour

First, we have to start by creating a layer that our base skin colour will go on.

 

I tend to first use the magic wand tool to select the area surrounding my character, then invert the selection to select the character. I fill this selection with a dark-ish colour (so that it’s visible!) using the paint bucket feature. I then create another layer above, and clip it to the layer I just made - this will be my base colour layer. This way, none of your base colours will appear outside of the character.

 

There are many tools you can use to fill in the base skin colour, one of the simplest being the bucket tool. If your lineart has no gaps in it, you can easily fill areas of exposed skin by selecting a desired base skin colour (you can do this either by color picking on the colour wheel or choosing an already provided colour from the ‘standard color set’ palette) and then use the bucket tool to apply this colour to your illustration.

 

If your lineart has gaps in it, using the bucket fill tool will cause other parts of your illustration to be filled with the base skin colour too. In order to avoid this, you can outline the skin area with the base skin colour (I use G pen to do this), essentially creating a border around the area, and then freely use the paint bucket fill tool.

 

Hard Shading

Now let’s go ahead and start with hard shading!

 

An easy way to find colours for your hard shadows is to create a multiply layer clipped to your base skin colour layer.

 

I tend to use only one colour for all my hard shadows - this way I can ensure the shading is consistent across all the base colours. The colour you choose can affect the overall mood and aesthetic of your illustration, so keep this in mind when choosing your shadow colour! I tend to choose a light blue colour (shows up as darker blue on a multiply layer), but other colours work just as well!

 

Keep in mind the direction of your light source to create a general guideline for the position of your shadows. In this example, my light source is coming from the top right corner.

 

Additional Tip!

 

I really like to add an outline around my hard shadows, this creates a really nice effect and makes the shadows pop!

 

The effect is quite easy to create. Simply select your hard shadows by pressing ‘command’ (for mac) or ‘control’ (for windows) and clicking on your multiply layer. Select your outline colour - preferably a colour that contrasts with your shadow colour (I chose a desaturated reddish hue). Then go to ‘edit’ → ‘outline selection’. A small window will pop up, where you can specify where the outline position and width. I tend to select ‘draw on border’ and create a line width of 2.

 

Soft Shading

You can use softer shading to add more subtle effects to the skin. I will only be using the soft airbrush tool throughout this section.

 

To create different hues on the skin, select your skin base color using the eyedropper tool, then adjust the colour wheel dial to select a slightly pinker and darker colour (or another colour, depending on the mood you’re trying to create).

 

Use the soft airbrush to lightly shade the cheeks and eyelids (other areas you could shade if exposed include the knees, shoulders, elbows, knuckles, tips of fingers, and ears). You can use the magic wand tool to select the specific areas of skin being shaded.

 

Choose an even darker shade to add colour to the nose, lips, ears, and under the eyes.

 

Under Eyes

Adding additional shading and colours directly under the eyes of your character can be seen in many illustration styles, and I personally really like the effect it creates! My process is very simple, and can easily be adapted to suit your personal style.

 

Pick any dark colour (I tend to use red) and use the soft airbrush tool to lightly colour the under eye area.

 

Now select the most saturated hue (you can find this by selecting the top right colour on the colour square) and outline the bottom corners of the eyes with the soft or hard airbrush at a smaller size.

 

You can add other contrasting colours to create a more depth and a colourful effect.

 

Highlights

The most common places to add highlights on the face tend to be above the nose, inner corners of eyes, lips, and middle of eyelids. However, you can add more highlights to other places depending on the location of your light source!

 

To add highlights, you can either colour pick a lighter hue and use the soft airbrush or colour pick the base skin colour and use the highlight airbrush tool.