How to Draw Skin Picking the PERFECT Colours for Realistic Skintones Video

hey guys welcome back to another
tutorial video and this is another color
pencil tutorial and this time we're
gonna be focusing just on drawing the
skin so in the first part of this video
you're gonna see a clip from a recent
patreon tutorial series that I did on
how to draw a skin and how to pick all
of the colors for your skin tone no
matter what reference image you're using
so I'm gonna take you through that and
if you want to see the full 6 skin tones
that I do that for then that is over on
my patreon and then we're gonna be going
through two different skin studies as
well I'm gonna go through all of my like
techniques so my blending burnishing
layering all of that sort of stuff so
that you can draw realistic skin no
matter what skin tone and no matter what
your reference image is so anyway guys
let's get into it so firstly let's go in
with Prisma colors and what you want to
identify first is is her skin tone cool
toned or is it warm toned cool tone skin
tones have more like blues or Pink's or
just caller colors whereas the warmer
skin tones have more like yellows and
oranges with her skin tone you can see
over here it's quite warm it's quite
orangey and over here there's a bit of
pink so they might have variations like
they might have slight tendencies for
school skin tones in certain areas and
it might be slightly warmer it slightly
warmer in other areas let's have a look
first at this sort of section here I
would say this section is a very similar
color and then you've got this tone and
also little variations of the shadows
down the side so let's go along with the
prismacolor set and what you need to
remember is I've pressed hard on all of
these pencils so this is the darkest
possible outcome for each pencil but
what you need to remember is you can get
lighter variations so even if you have a
color that matches pretty much exactly
but it's too dark like for example for
this skin tone light peach and probably
like the light peach and the beige look
like they'd make great combinations if
you mix them together but they're too
dark but what you need to think about is
you
could use the light peach a bit lighter
not press really hard on it and maybe a
bit of the beige layer light layers of
them and then blend that out with the
white and that will give you a nice tone
like this but a lighter version so you
need to look for color hues that look
accurate with the reference they might
be a bit dark and that means you might
have to mix them with a bit of white so
yeah for example I would use the light
peach here because if I go across it's
the one that best best matches with the
skin tone and it is a bit dark so that's
why I'd add a bit of white as well to
balance that out and for example for
this area if it's more highlighted I
would use a bit of the light peach but
add more white in those highlighted
areas than light peach so for example
with these darker areas are G's a
heavier application of light peach with
a bit of the white but for the really
bright areas I just layer a really tiny
bit of light peach but mainly blend it
out with the white so that's what I'd
use for that area if we go over to this
warmer toned area basically every
different color hue I will then do a
different swatch fall so if we go across
obviously it's not going to be the cream
or or any of the yellows it's more
orangie toned so I just whiz through
them until I find something that I'm
happy with
so peach looks okay peach looks okay it
might need a bit of brown the thing is
you might not find one perfect color
match but you might find something that
you can see a bit of resemblance in so
for example the lighter areas of this
shadow I can see a bit of peach in that
but it needs a bit more Brown as well so
I might use peach keep going down the
chest and that's a bit too ready it's
more Brown than red so switch over to
the other side it's not going to be any
of those colors and so this color looks
great burnt sienna that looks like that
could be a nice match if you mix that
with the peach you could get that nice
shadowed color also chocolate could be
an option and so there's not one right
way of doing this there's not one
perfect color
it's about getting the darkness values
right is your values dark enough and are
they the right sort of hue are they the
right tone are they warm and they cool
do they match it with the reference
image so for that area I might go in
with a mixture of the peach and the
burnt sienna so anyway I hope that has
given you guys some sort of idea of how
you can go about picking colors for your
skin tones no matter what the reference
is but if you want to see more sort of
examples then I have got six other skin
tones that go through the Swift with the
color charts and two skin tone studies
that I show you how to draw in real time
so I'll leave a link in the description
and a card up above and at the end so
you can check out my patreon as well as
lots of other tutorials but let's get
straight on to the actual skin studies
so the first one that I'm doing is of
the skin tone in the reference that I
did like a minute ago with those six
references it was the one with freckles
and so why I always start off by doing
with skin tones is identifying the
darkest shadows and start to get them in
I always like to get in the darkest
colors first some people like to work
from light to dark some people would
like to work from lights from dark to
light and that's how I like to do I like
to start by getting in the structure
with the darkest shadows and then I can
judge all of the other values so because
the left side of her cheek was more red
toned I decided to opt for the burnt
sienna x' but like I said you've learned
how to pick colors now I just want to go
on about the actual process of laying
down the pencil so the main things that
are really really important is to build
up inlay as you can see I'm using lots
of different colors I'm overlapping them
there isn't one perfect color you do
have to let overlap lots and lots and
layer lots of different colors to get a
realistic looking skin tone in order to
make it look like it has depth and not
just flat with one color just try and
look at all of this little little hues
in that skin tone whether it's red toned
it might have bits of orange like this
skin tone does with the freckles because
the freckles are more orange toned
there's multiple different shades there
when it comes to the actual layering
process I'm just going in with the
pencils very very sharp that is a key
factor and a key important thing to know
is to use really sharp pencils as much
as you can at all times because what
this is going to mean is the sharp your
pencil
smoothie you can get that shading
because basically if your pencils are
really sharp you can get into all of the
actual crevices of the paper and the
white grain and so you don't have just
really messy shading and pencil strokes
so when you actually go to burnish it
out which means basically blend it apply
a lot of pressure to the pencil to get
that smooth look you won't have messy
pencil strokes at the start so you're
gonna get smooth shading at the end so
I'm just doing is I'm building up
multiple colors I'm just building them
up and building them up and I like to
blend as I go so I might add a slightly
darker skin tone as I'm doing now with
the burnt sienna but I'll go over with a
slightly lighter version to blend over
that and to smooth out all of the messy
pencil strokes and a key tip that I have
for you guys and this is probably the
most important thing to tell you if you
want to get smooth skin tones and that
is when you apply your initial layers of
pencil actually go in the opposite
direction when you blend that out with
the pencil so if you apply all of your
initial pencil strokes vertically you do
the kind of up-and-down motion then when
you blend that out do it horizontally
because this will help soften out those
messy pencil strokes and it does get you
such a smooth result now with freckles
when you're building them up it's
basically random shapes it's not like
lots of perfect circles and if you go
for like perfect circles or the same
shape same sizes same sort of depth it's
just gonna look fake so all I did for
the freckles is looks at the reference
image and got a rough idea of where the
freckles kind of clustered the most
where they were kind of the most on the
skin and where the freckles were more
intense and darker and I just tried to
get variety in there and blend it in
some places more into the rest of the
skin and have some of them more
prominent and it's about variety but
with skin tones it might not always be
super smooth in the one I'll show you in
a minute it's not super smooth but those
are the main things that I can tell you
it's just really observe that reference
if you want to do realistic drawing by
the way you need a reference image to
see all of the detail and try to get one
that is high resolution so you can
really focus on all of that texture in
the skin
if there is any most of the time if
you're drawing like a male person's skin
or an older person's skin then it might
have more texture in it then for example
a baby's skin would or a young females
skin so you need to think about the
subjects that you're actually drawing if
you're drawing a really young baby you
don't want them to have wrinkly creases
in their skin you want to keep
everything soft and soft transitions
what I just did there was I created some
facial hair using my crafting knife
there's so many videos on me actually
doing that so you can watch them for
more detail on that but I just used that
to create some facial hair and some
Flyway hairs over the skin so like I
said it's so important to pay attention
to that detail but now I want to talk
you through more of the process now that
I've gone through some basic techniques
let's go through the process with this
second skin tone so again as I said I'm
going in with the darkest shadows first
you can see straight away I know where
the nose is I know that creases I know
where the structure of all this skin is
because I've got in those darkest sort
of values first and I can just build on
top of that with more and more mid-tones
and lighter colors so at the moment I'm
just building up these shadows I am
leaving completely clear the most
highlighted areas that you can see on
that nose I keep clear any bits that are
going to be too highlight it because I'm
just trying to block out the shadows
here so once I've got in those shadows
with that brown tone I'm just going in
with some lighter colors and you can see
that that kind of shadow tones that I've
done looks very messy when I apply the
initial layers it looks so messy but
then it does go quite smooth as I apply
the lighter layers you'll see I'll apply
lighter colors and it will become more
smooth because I'm blending in the
opposite direction and I applied the
initial colors in for the skin tone I am
actually using the prismacolor pencils
because I know a lot of you guys
actually use these rather than the Karen
- luminance and I don't really like them
that much I think they're okay for
beginners but I don't like them so much
for skin tones I don't like the fact
that is harder to build up the layers
you get more of that waxy sort of look
and I wasn't used to them really but it
was slightly different than the Karen -
luminance
I use the exact same technique so if you
guys do have prism colors and you watch
my tutorials and you think oh I can't do
them because I don't have to Karen -
that's not true you can get similar
results it it just I just prefer the
Karen - really so you can either do it
where you go across the whole of the
skin tone and build up layers over the
whole sort of area and build it all up
together or you can work on rendering a
certain area at a time and just move on
from that it's completely up to you it
depends which way you prefer so on the
crease is what I did was I applied some
of the browner tones I kind of like just
drew in where the creases were and then
I just pressed down harder with my
lighter colors to actually pull out some
of those highlights and to get sort of a
3-dimensional look so the creases add
more texture but another thing that
you'll see me do in a minute is use my
crafting knife to actually create
texture you can see I'm doing it now you
can use that knife to create little bits
of texture in the skin you know any
little bits of stubble and also
highlights in the creases to get that
scratchy sort of look and it is a great
way to add texture so it's not only
great for hair and facial hair but it's
great for just pulling up highlights or
getting in any texture that you need so
those are my tips for creating realistic
skin if you are interested in drawing
super realistic portraits and learning
all of the different features then I
have brought out a brand new course that
goes into detail on how to create super
realistic portraits from start to finish
all of my main techniques for that in a
really clear and concise way all in one
place so at the top of the description
I'll leave a link to my course that you
can check that out and watch the course
trailer so anyway guys that is it for
this video I really hope you enjoyed it
if you did make sure to give it a thumbs
up and subscribe if you're new around
here for future videos but that is it
from me and I'll see you in the next one
bye guys