Hi!

 

How to draw average adult skin.

Let's go!

1. Take your lineart.

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2. Pick your average base color (it's not your final color, just an average tone). Fill in your body (or body part) with this base color.

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3. Duplicate the layer that contains the base color.

Now clip one the duplicated layer to the original one.

To do this, right-click on the thumbnail of the layer. (Make sure to right-click the thumbnail, and not beside the thumbnail, as you would usually click). Select the [Clip to Layer Below] option.

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4. Pick a shadow tone. I picked a rich, warm brown color. Pick a darker tone than your final shadow.

Remark: What brush do I use?

 

Today's king is this brush:

 

I discovered it recently and it's fantastic.

You press hard - you get defined "normal" brushstrokes.

You press lightly - the brush blends the colors.

 

So, you can both paint and blend with this brush. It's similar to the standard brush for oil painting, and yet not quite.

Good for drawing landscapes and portraits.

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5. Blur nicely.

Think about the curvatures of your object (your body part) and blur accordingly.

6. Then, add dashes of your Base Color and some shadows.

7. Blur again, but with smaller strokes. You're now "sculpting" the actual body part by adding areas of light.

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8. Add texture

 

For the sake of everything that's lovely in the world, please texture your skin. Unless you're going for an ethereal look, you need at least a bit of texture.

What brush to use for adding textures:

 

Use the Sub Tools from the default [Pastel] group:

• standard [Chalk] brush

or

• standard [Dry Gouache] brush

 

The Chalk brush is most useful here. Set it to a big size.

Draw with the color of your choice (I recommend using your Base color). Change the Layer to the [Overlay] Blending Mode. Then bring down the Layer Transparency to 30%

You can add more dashes here and there, using white color.

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9. Add highlights and environmental lights

 

(depending on your situation, you may want to do this step before adding texture. I find this order comfortable)

 

Use color picker to choose colors. Set the Layer to "Overlay".

Add the brushstrokes. Bring down to 23-25% (my favorite range). Then blur again.

 

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12. Disable the outline. Polish the drawing using the default [Thin Gouache] Brush.

That's it.

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Why practice with drawing legs?

 

Thighs have a lot of smooth area, which is good for practicing your blending skills. There is enough "rough" or bumpy area around the knee that's good for practicing shadows.

The outline is easy to do for beginners (comparing to a hand, for example), and it's overall not very distracting (I, for example, get distracted drawing faces, because I get hang up on the details like eyes).

 

Plus, looks good. Limbs (lower limbs specifically) are interesting to paint because you can make the them look delicate, and thus practice drawing curves. Or, you can make them muscled, and thus practice drawing muscles.

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---On a side note,

 

If you're doing webtoon-style art, then you can keep the outline and add less details (less highlights and shadows). An example of what I mean is shown below:

That's it. I'll probably do a tutorial on alien or monster skin later on, because working with textures is super cool. But that will come only after I finish my other series.

￣▽￣)ノ ･｡･