Skin Shading Tutorial (Digital Painting)

So in today's video I'm going to show you how I start

shading

the

skin

. This isn't really a

skin

painting

tutorial

, it's more of a video where I show you how I start the

shading

process because this is something I get asked quite often. What I would suggest and say is in all my videos. If you ever watch a

tutorial

, just follow it. It doesn't really help to just watch the video activate. Try trying these different techniques and methods. That's the only way for you to learn anything, so the first thing I'm going to do is show you the reference I had for this piece, so this is the reference I found on Instagram, so I think I'll link to this girl. in the description below, anyway, first I'll show you the basic process I took to create this illustration and then we'll go from there, as always, I start with a base color for the skin, which is this one here. this is just a flat color and then from there I give all the other objects or features in my illustration a separate flat color and this helps me separate them later and do the shading and for example if I want to change the color or if I want to move things around it's a lot easier to do it if you have them all separated, so once I've done this that's when I start shading all the individual objects in my drawing, for example for clothes I just started shading them very simply that the hair and then also the skin, so I have a layer called skin shading and this is the first shading layer and then I have a second one called skin shading; once we have this there is one more layer of shading and then I merge all these layers into one final layer then I make some more adjustments there and then I make another copy and that's why I do all the finishing touches and finish the illustration like this So this is just a basic overview of my process and like I said in this video, I just want to show you how I start shading the skin, so what I'm going to do is turn off the layers that I used to shade the skin.

Basically everything else is shaded, but the mask is fine, so the first one viewers will create a new layer on top of our mask layer, looking at our layers panel, you can see that the mask layer is the first flat color we use. We've created for the skin, so we'll just select it and then create a new layer on top of it. This is what we will do, so to speak, the first layer of shading and so the shape. To do this, we'll select the brush we'll use to paint so you can use whatever brush you want.

I'm going to use custom brushes for this just because I'm so used to my own brushes. If you want to use my brushes, feel free to click the link in the description which will take you to my Gumbo store where you can see all my different brushes and tutorials, but you don't have to have my brushes, it's just the ones I like the most. like to use but you can use any type of brush for this process or technique so anyway I'm going to use my brush to paint and then what we're going to do the first step is to select the current skin color, then the flat color that we created for this skin, so we'll just choose that color and now looking at the reference, we have to figure out where the shadows are, so we'll wait for the darkest shadows. which are more obvious, so, for example, I see a couple of very dark shadows right here.

I noticed this one right away, then on the side of the mouth, then we have someone on their cheek, they look at you and then also on this side I can see some. here and so, as I have a little more experience, the shadows are easier to see at first glance, so if you are a little more inexperienced it will be a little more difficult for you to see them, but the more you look for them, the easier you will find them and it will be very obvious to you the more experience you get, so with the brush selected, what we're going to do is select our skin layer the color of our skin layer and then we'll make it a little bit darker and a little more saturated and You can also change the shade a little bit, so for example I'm more on the orange spectrum.

What I can do is move the color a little bit more towards the red and this will ensure that your colors don't end up looking muddy, so anyway, now that we have a darker color, what we're going to do is we're going to try to paint this very vaguely and at this point what is very important is that if you look at the reference you can see that the shadows have different colors, for example, around his eyes it is a little more grayish, but around his nose, the shadow is somewhat as well as orange, we're not going to focus on these different colors right now, that's something we can always fix later, right now we're just trying to figure out the shading itself, so we're just going to work with this single color that we just select now and then once we've figured out the shading and once our drawing has some volume to it, that's when we can change all the different colors, so anyway we're just going to paint. in the shadows very loosely and it doesn't have to be pretty at this stage we're just trying to figure out where all these shadows belong and so I keep looking back and forth to my reference and then back to my canvas. and I'm moving really fast because like I said I don't think too much about this process so I'm just trying to have fun and since this is so early you can't really do much wrong you can always fix things. that's a little off because it's a very early stage of the process there's really nothing to worry about for you as you can see I'm moving very fast and I'm not focusing on one place so I'm moving all over the face.

Sometimes I work on the ice and I work on the cheeks, then I work on the forehead because I try to shade the whole face, not just a specific area and also one thing, yeah. I'm not using an airbrush at the moment so this is something that I see a lot of beginners tend to use the airbrush a lot and I know why it's mainly because you might think it makes it easier to mix the colors. but if you use a soft brush all the time or too often during the

painting

process, there won't be much structure and definition, so I would advise against using the airbrush at least at first and I think this is a very good thing.

So if we look at it a little bit closer, you can see that there is no blending here, so there is no smoothness, but it already has more shape than before, it already looks three-dimensional, so if we just turn off this layer, you can look, now It looks very flat itself and this just gives it a certain shape and this is what we're going for, so the idea is that when you're painting you need to work in small steps, don't try to do too many. Things done at once really work to achieve your goal in small steps.

Let's say you have something very difficult or a very complex task. If you break it down into very small pieces, then it will be much easier to finish that task rather than trying to do it. finish it all at once and this is the idea behind this workflow, we are trying to work in small steps that are very easy to do anyway, so now that we have this basic shading layer, the next step I'm going next What I have to do is create a new layer and this time I'm going to darken the shadows a little bit, so what I'm going to do is select an area where I'm going to shade it in the shadow. and I'm going to make the color a little bit darker and now I'm just going to darken those shadows that are darker in my reference, for example the shadow around his nose is very dark in the reference so I'm also going to darken that in my sketch and this will add even more definition to it.

I'm also darkening her lips so you can see that her lipstick is actually a different color than the color. which I'm using right now, but I don't really care because I can change it later, that's the beauty of

digital

painting, you're not limited to anything, you can always change or manipulate something, so I'm using just this. a single color to darken the shadows and then if I feel like changing the color of the shadow or a specific area and my painting, I can do that very easily with the lasso tool, but for now let's just focus on the shading. and in the shadows you you so I'm just concentrating I'm just looking for it - shadows in my reference you you you you you you and so I feel like this is actually coming together really well so if we turn off this layer you I can see that It's adding more definition, a little more shape, and even though the color is off, the color of the shadows is off, they don't really represent what's in our reference, we can already feel the shape and this is what we're looking at. searching here we are not trying to find out the skin color directly, we are just looking at the forum, we are trying to make it as three dimensional as possible, so at this point, one thing I would like to clarify What I want to do is give our eyebolts this kind of grayish color because this looks like fun and our paint right now, so the way to do it is to select the base skin color and then move it a little bit towards the gray. and then you just paint on the eyeballs and yeah, I think we're getting there and you can see how these are just two very basic layers and it already looks much better than before and from here what I like to do is to soften so often some of these shadows, especially when you're painting women, you want to have very soft shadows, so you don't want to soften all of them, but some areas need to be softened on their own. to make it look a little more feminine, so this is what we're going to do real quick, so what I like to do at this point is merge the two shading layers together and then I'm going to use a blend tool. to blend these colors a little bit to make them a little bit softer so if you're using Clips for your painting there's actually a blending tool you can use called blending or if you have my brushes you can use the ones I have a couple of Very good blenders and I'm going to use my favorite blender which is called blend master flash and just to soften some of these areas if you're using procreate there's also a blender but I think it's called blending and the same goes for Photoshop. and most other programs, so with the blender with the blender selected, I'm just going to soften some of the shadows around her cheek, but again, don't soften them too much, then a little bit around her nose and maybe a little more. that's it, just to make it a little bit smoother and not as pronounced and that looks really good if I imagine if I go back five years, six years, just getting here would have been an achievement for me because I didn't know how. paint back then, so if you made it this far it's already a great success.

I'd say it's at the point where it looks pretty decent. He's looking for the center ball. It's obviously not finished. If we look at the finished illustration, there is a big difference. but it looks kind of realistic and it's something you can show people, so if you made it this far you can be really proud of yourself and you're definitely headed in the right direction, so the next thing I'd like to do is: to create a new layer and this layer will be used for lighting to determine the lighting, we'll do exactly the same thing, we'll go to our reference and take a look at the lightest points.

In our reference, the first second I look at this I see a couple of very illuminated areas, for example on his forehead up here, then here on his nose, on his cheek, down here on his chin and also here above his upper lip and such. time here too, so these are like the areas that I noticed right away that are highlighted, so anyway I'm going to select the base color of our skin, then I'm going to move a little bit towards the yellow and make the color lighter, but just a little little not much and then I'm going to paint in these areas dad I see my references that are lit you you you and I hope you can see how it's starting to come together you and this doesn't really require a There's a lot of work so I'm moving very quickly here and I'm not really spending much time on this, just a couple of minutes making a big difference.

You like this chin, you like that one, so if we turn off this layer. I can see how it makes it pop even more by blending any of these colors together, but it does look a little harsh, but this is easily fixed, so if we go back to our blender, go back to our blending tool, and smooth out some of these areas, it'll go away. . To look much more feminine, so this is like a minimal effort, you just need to be smart about it and have some sort of plan in mind and that's it. I hope you can see how easy it is on the forum, so if we disable it.

On both layers you can see how flat it is at this point and add some simple shadows and then a few more minutes in the lighting and yeah, it's starting to pop and make sense and everything is coming together, so most of the work. Most of the hard work has already been done right now, once you get this far, it's all about cleaning up your artwork. I'm fixing the colors, mixing the colors and just touching them up here and there, so I really hope you were able to. To see what I'm trying to show you here, you have to look for the most visible shadows, the most pronounced ones and then also the lightest or brightest highlights and then paint them into your painting and the more layers youThe more you add, the more realistic it becomes and the closer you get to the final image anyway, so I hope you learned something from this video.

I tried to make it as simple as possible and I just wanted to show you the process that I use when shading skin specifically because I think this is an area where a lot of people struggle and I know from experience that when I started painting this was something I had a hard time understanding so I really hope you were able to learn a few techniques here and there and as always guys, thank you so much for watching my videos. If you are not already subscribed to my channel then I would really appreciate it if you would subscribe, also please like this video if you liked it and leave a comment if you have any questions or if you just want to have a quick chat about art and yes I will I love with all my heart and soul