Skin Tone Photoshop Tutorial
How to Use to Painting Software to Create Realistic Portraits
Oct 18, 2006
Painting realistic skin tones is one of the hardest things to do in any kind of painting, that doesn't excluded painting with art programs like Photoshop. For the most part, art programs, even free art programs, are similar enough to that you can use this tutorial for no matter what kind you have. These steps also work as an Illustrator tutorial.
Tip: The illustrations, below, can be enlarged so that you can see details by clicking on the photo.
Choosing Your Skin Tone Colors
I am using just a part of a larger painting so that we can focus on the process.
First, I decided what kind of skin tone I wanted my person to have. Forget about classifying your subject as "white," "black," "red," or "yellow." Not only is it not politically correct, it is also misleading. No matter what culture, most people either have a yellow undertone to their skin or a pink undertone, or more simply a warm or cool undertone. Using this information you can make an informed decision on what kind of colors you will need.
With this character I used a yellow undertone. How did I arrive at my colors? I went to the part of the color wheel that is very close to a yellow-brown. I selected colors in this row of hues. The peach hue I used as the lightest color and a light brown I used for shadows. As you will see, I used many colors in between.
I used 50% opacity on all colors.
Painting Shadows on the Skin
For the second step, took the darkest color and started to add the shadows using the airbrush tool. I always put a dot of the color I'm using in the corner of my canvas so that I can always use my eyedropper to get the color again without any guess work.
Remember, crevices are usually the dark places on skin, such as below the lip, under the eyes, nostrils, etc.
Paint in the Main Skin Color
For step three, I used a lighter hue of the first color to fill in the whole skin area.
Adding Highlights to Skin
For step four, I used my lightest color, about four shades darker than white, to highlight the parts of the skin that were in direct line of light. The cheek bones, the highest parts of the nose, the chin, and collar bone are usually the prime areas for light.
Finishing Skin Tones with Photoshop or Corel
In this last step I went back with the colors I used before and made areas either lighter or darker depending on how well all the colors blended. I deepened the shadows with your darkest color to add drama. I made sure my highlights pop by adding a little white in the center.
This is the finished painting. (Note: The red on the cheeks of the subject is part of a Halloween mask.)
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