I've yet to post my art here but I'd like to improve on my skin shading and your Annatar post was divine. Do you hsvebany pointers?
Hi!! Thank you so much!
Oh god... it might be easier for me to make a video, but I'll try.
FIRST OFF: I have drawn so many people, I think I've been doing this for 6-7 years now, and practice is the single most important thing you can do to improve. That's it. I can't stand to look at my own art even a year old, I practice and improve and learn new things every day, down to the Annatar art---I'm using new techniques on it I haven't before! PRACTICE. That said, here are my general skin shading rules, explained.
HOW TO SHADE SKIN (ft. the Flesh Orb)
Skin tones I generally divide into three colors, plus a dark brown-black for small details like eyelid creases and nostrils.
1- Overall tone/highlight tone
2- Shade tone
3- Bounce light
You can pick whatever you want for your overall tone, but the other colors will depend on it! Pointers:
Shade tone will always be warmer than your overall tone if your subject has red blood (as most people do lol). That means on your digital color picker, always go down and to the right for a darker, but warmer tone. I tend to also change the hue itself to a redder color as opposed to orange.
Bounce light depends on the environment. If your subject is seated against a red chair, the bounce light will be red. It's nothing fancy, it's a tone with a value somewhere between 1 and 2, and a different color. I do this at the end.
I didn't include it, but you can add a little highlight tone as well! This is what it sounds like, and you just do a little bit where the light shines brightest. LESS IS MORE.
Now, in terms of actually mixing these colors, it depends on area of body, what the lighting scheme is, and too many things for me to go in depth here. Here are a few tips I've learned that generally work, as well as pitfalls I've seen.
THE DARKEST SHADOW BORDERS THE BRIGHTEST AREA. Look at the Flesh Orb again, and notice how the shade tone is next to the overall tone! The brightest part of the orb is right next to the darkest part. I swear the moment this clicked I heard angels singing behind me (not actually but you get what I mean). Trust. This'll elevate things for you for real.
Put down the airbrush. It's super tempting to use but I promise unless you're actually a psycho, don't use it. Using a regular brush and manually blending it yourself gives you much greater control over where the shadow goes, which brings me to my next point:
A mix of hard and soft edges is best. Don't blend everything. Sometimes the lines should be lines.
Lastly, none of these rules are set in stone. Skin also has so many variations. Direct sunlight does totally different things from ambient light. Skin tone/color even reacts to light in totally different ways!! And that's not even touching on individual style choices (though, I suppose, these are mine). There are so many helpful tutorials all over the internet, too. Best of luck to you!
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