Intro

Name is Leo an I want to explain skin in a way that it can be used for everyone. I mostly come from a cartoony/painter background, but I feel this can help everyone as it is knowledge that can be applied to all sorts of renderings.

Starting with skin

Skin color is composed solely of red, yellow and blue. You could argue that in a digital medium this is different, or you can always blame melanin for how dark/light your skin is. The samples I'm going to be using are small, but I tried to fill as much as possible.

 

While you can use the following examples as skin palettes, there is far more on your color selection that can be applied.

 

Remember, skin is composed of base, a highlight and a lowlight. There are several ways to get to pick your perfect skin tone so we will cover all of our bases.

 

I want you to get acquaintanced with these little beans since we will be using them a lot.

Highlights and Lowlights

The highlights and Lowlights of skin are an integral part of painting/coloring it. (And terminology we will be using a lot in the future).

 

Highlight: The highest value or the highest point of contact between the light and skin, this is what can make skin translucent at some points.

 

Lowlight: The lowest value or the last point of contact between light and skin, this is what can make some skin folds go complete dark.

 

These can be chosen by hand, most people will tend to tell you to not achieve the effects with black and white. And I'm here to tell you that is correct.

 

I would recommend you choose your first flat/main color on the inbetween part of pink and lime of the color wheel.

I would not recommend choosing your highlights and lowlights yet. As they can result completely incompatible later. Sides, that's what the rest of this tutorial is for!

Color Zones

Color Zones are the higher concentration of the primary colors on skin.

 

Red, yellow and blue are the ones we will be touching on for the moment. These three are what I call: anatomical colors.

 

They shine through different parts of the body depending on factors such as: blood vessels, more pores or more oxygenated skin. As anatomical colors, all of these "Lightning" comes from inside the skin and while there are exceptions to the rule, most of them affect the same places.

 

The biggest place to showcase all of these colors is the face. As it is composed of multiple colored areas.

 

If you google Color zones you will find explicit examples of these (Mostly the face tho). To work with Color Zones of the entire body, it is better if you get a picture of the circulatory system and reverse engineer it.

 

Rule of thumb, gatherings of blood, so be it arteries closer to the skin or blood currents are red (Noses, lips, palms, etc). Vein areas are blue (Wrists, under the eyes, chin, etc). And yellow for areas where muscle is thinned up or more fat/grease areas (Forehead, phalanges, stomach, etc).

These are not hard rules but serve the purpose of guidance.

These colors affect the face in subtle ways, and implying you have no sort of lighting whatsoever in your piece, this is all that you would need to have a variety of shapes and shadows.

It looks good regardless of your rendering preference.

Red, Blue and Yellow are the easiest anatomical colors to deal with. There is an extra anatomical color that can also double as a lighting device and bridges the gap of outer lightning and inner lighting.

Undertones

You have probably heard of this one! Undertones are what we call the values of the skin, whether in sharp or soft lighting. Your undertone doesn't have to be your shading/lighting material although it can be used as such.

 

Undertones tend to be red, green and blue based. Yellow happens too, but it tends to water into an orange or green with the influence of the other stronger two.

 

Undertones directly affect the direction of your highlights and lowlights, whether they will be more saturated (red/yellow) or more on the grey zone (Blue). This affects directly the values because it works with actual lighting instead of just sticking to anatomical shades.

 

The long and short is, your undertone determines to which of the original triad your skin its closest to, closer to red, yellow or blue, that is. And how that mixes with your current light source.

 

Lets look at the beans with undertones but without light sources. This effect can be quickly achieved by having a normal layer a top of your base skin and reducing it to 10% or until you are satisfied.

Now lets look at the same beans with a light source and how the undertone affects the value of the skin, aka the lowlight and highlights. Not to be confused with the shading and lighting, they could be if you wanted to but it shortens your ability to have smooth transitions.

 

A quick way to achieve this effect is to use the same color that you used for your undertone for both highlight and lowlight your to sample skin quickly. One on any of your preference for lighting (I use color dodge although its not a hard rule) and multiply (that's what I use, you can use over).

A different undertone can have a different effect on the same color skin. If you don't like to blend things manually, or you don't seem to have success with the 'normal layer' method. I tend to use the 'Intermediate Color' tool a lot too so you don't have an extra layer of base laying around.

You can always use other undertones, if it fits the lighting or if you felt like it. I will not stop you, I encourage you to experiment!

Apply to finished picture!

With all of that said, how does it apply to a finished picture. Sounds kind of complicated! And it sort of is, you will get better with time tho. This is more or less the process as it goes if you were to use all of the tools I just explained to you.

After you have your lineart, make sure to have all your skin filled in. Then choose your Main Skin color by applying an undertone color to it. In this case, I found it by using the 'Intermediate Color' tool and applying green and melon to it.

To this, add red, blue and yellow! The anatomical colors, even if they don't end up show up strongly on the last final product will be always there to shape your skin.

It gives it a nice realistic look and adds more color to your palette.

The next step is your lowlight, my lowlight tends to be a multiply later at whichever ratio I want. I kept it at 20% as the picture doesn't have dramatic lighting. Remember that shadows define shape.

 

• Your multiply layer isn't the end of it, you can always render a top of it for an even more natural effect. Specially when you mix it with your anatomical colors, it ends up giving you a lot of nice colors to play around with.

Now my highlights. I have a preference to use a 'Color Dodge' layer. In this case I put it up at 65% opacity. I do think you can use any that gives you a shine tho.

 

Same as before you can always paint over your work as it goes to make it more defined and mix all the colors you are applying.

And you are done! At lease base wise you are. The amount of rendering depends a lot on your style. I like something very sploochy so this is where I would end it, others would like to blend in more, or stay to cell shading, which is alright. I'm sure it will help you one way or another.

 

With practice you will be able to eyeball the entire process and or do it in one layer, its always good to return to basics once in a while tho! Studying never killed anybody! I think...

 

This works for all sort of lighting and skin tones btw. Here are more samples:

Extra Cheats

Here is an extra section of things that I've done that don't fit in the previous spill.

 

1) When color picking from a picture, the recommended is to apply the Mosaic effect from the Filter drop down menu. Then Effect and then Mosaic. Do as much and little as you need.

2) When in doubt start with brown, any brown!

 

Red, yellow and blue when mixed land in a brown. If you still don't know how to get there, get a brush that blends like CRAZY and blend yellow, blue and red. Then pick from the ball. That way you have a quick starter skin color to go.

3) A strong Light source can flatten the face! Be careful when using it but remember, if skin is bathed with one color, it overrides most of everything, feel free to take liberties using the main light source to cover a lot, aka, that's a whole lot less work of rendering. Only the light source now!

4) Characters with unrealistic skin colors still apply under Highlight, lowlight and base. Although the underskin and their anatomical colors can and will be different. Most of the time, they can even be removed.

And that's it! Thank you so much for reading!

If you made it all the way down here, I hope this helped you in some way. Good luck painting!