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Jun 2020

Although this is only the 4th installment in the 'tips and recs' series, I think it may be the last. Not because the month is over, but because I think I'm out of ideas. 6v6;;; After this, I'm just gonna go back to doing spontaneous 'socially aware' threads.

-So, dark skin...first of all, I'd like to say that I'm not sure why anyone needs to be told how to literally give characters darker skin tones, unless they're just a beginner artist who's never drawn anything but "white" anime girls before (not throwing shade; I've been there...).

Like...surely, if you're a mature, experienced artist, you've drawn a character wearing a leather jacket before. Or any dark, warm-toned object...the color brown doesn't magically become unfathomable as soon as it's applied to human skin; the rules are all the same. Go cool to shade, go warm to highlight, stay within the contrast range of the rest of the piece (every once in a while you see something where all the lighter skinned characters are like p a s t e l s and the one darker skinned character looks like they have their own guest colorist...it's not a sin, it just shows a lack of skill)

-One of the best pieces of advice I've heard about using lighting on darker skin is one that's almost completely useless to me, but I'm sure there are plenty of painters here who can use it: when working with dim lighting, focus on reflection.

It actually comes from a cinematography context, but it's perfectly applicable to static art. So when you have lighter characters, their pale skin tends to "soak up" the available light in the scene; they're just easier to see even if you don't do anything. So you can highlight them by playing with shadows: put part of their face in darkness and the rest will pop even more.
However, this isn't as effective with darker skin, for obvious reasons. When you want to contrast with an already dark color, you get more bang for your buck if you use a light one.

So play with the light instead of the shadow; define the features of the characters with its reflection on their skin. Use different colored light, multiple colors at once, even (it's fun~).
I'd try to explain more, but like I said, I hardly ever even have a chance to use the technique. What I know, I know mostly from watching others.

-But there is one thing I've done myself: experimenting with MAKEUP~

There are probably ten million blogs that will tell you how to do this better than me, but if you want a basic illustration of why it requires your attention:

So I put some 'casual party' makeup on my girl Aren. The first row is optimized for dark skin, the second for tan, and the last for light. You'll notice that the extreme "mismatches" (light-optimized makeup on dark skin, and vice versa) don't exactly look 'casual' anymore...that's my point. You can't just take one character's makeup and slap it on another and expect it to have the same effect if they have different skin tones.

Not that only certain people can wear certain colors...like I said, it'll just have a different effect. If you want to change that effect, you'll have to change some other things. For example, here's the "mismatched" dark-skinned palettes, re-optimized for the lipstick colors:

I'm a little tired, so I think I'll stop here. But there's lots more to talk about: I didn't even mention natural skin coloration patterns, or lightening/darkening as you grow older (at least two of my siblings have done that). But that's what the replies are for, right? ^^

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    Jun '20
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Idk look at photos? I usually go for models since the scenes are well lit and the people putting them together know composition. Then take that and apply it to flat colors. What I sometimes do is flat a character a tone or two lighter cause once shading is applied their tone goes back to their normal tone. Unless you're doing cel shading then not.

I like fashion magazines for more casuals - like Duluth will use darker skin tones and non-whites in their commercials and photo ads. The key is to look for some that aren't too heavily doctored with brightness - like YesStyle's website uses a lot of filters to make it's asian women look lighter in tones and it loses their yellow tones.

Part of shading specifically just depends on how you're shading something with it's hue. Like if you color a tree a brown color, you wouldn't always shade it with the yellow/red darker color - sometimes you'll move it more red and sometimes more yellow. Here's just my brown shades I have on hand. I normally go to one of these and "mix" up a new color based on where my starting point is. Some colors are assigned to specific things - like a specific skin shadow, or for a certain shirt one of my chars will wear. But here you can see what I mean how some are more yellow and some are more red.
Generally for really darker "rich" skintones, they have red underneath them. Same thing like a white person being sunburnt goes to the red spectrum.

I actually wrote a tutorial about this some time ago on twitter, and the biggest, most important thing about doing skin tone is to remember that color is always influenced by the colors next to it--which is how you often get skin tones that look wrong--it's because of contrast changing the appearance of the tone (also because some people just draw too light, but that's another discussion.) Like I'll just post that one page since the rest of the tutorial was about painting and comics is different. But this applies.

And also, because of that you should never start painting skin tone on a white background--that will end up lightening your skin tone down the road. You always want to start on a neutral gray to ensure your tone will be correct.

Does this have anything to do with why people on twitter are always saying things are being whitewashed or blackwashed? if this is not a comfortable topic for you, feel free not to answer.

@Inspector_Spinda A little yes and a little no? I made this tutorial in reaction to that whole thing where people were drawing that one Pokemon trainer too light, and were receiving just a hell ton of backlash for it. I think a lot of those artists were just...making rookie mistakes. They were starting on a white background--which is fine if you're drawing a European person or a pale Asian person, but from that base, it was just too light once they finished painting.

Like, it's a shame that people will always jump to the conclusion that it's racism when I think it is more likely that it's young kids who don't know how to paint yet (not all of the time, since there is an issue where skin lightening is a big problem in editorial, but I think a good amount of the time in personal projects, kids don't mean to do that. I want to give them that benefit of the doubt.) And it has made some fear for younger artists in posting and making art of darker skinned people which is a huge shame, because it shouldn't be scary. It takes practice just like painting anything else.

That's actually kind of fascinating. I don't know too much about the science of art (haha), but your demonstrations are really cool.

Skin lightening is a tricky subject and best put in another thread honestly. It is not just limited to artists being inexperienced or not taught, but that culturally it is a hard topic. For example there are products that people want, buy, and use, to lighten their skintones to look more European white, and these are products largely used by Asians - and not just those living in the US. There are also those culturally educated about skin health and how to 1 be healthy (avoid skin cancer and liver spots, ect) and 2 be pale, go hand in hand in this context, where there are gloves, sleeves, hats, and other coverings designed for people to wear instead of products like sunblock (which is oily, can irritate the skin, and doesn't always work)- and again these are products largely used by Asians. Just a short bit of googling yourself will find you information on these two types of products, and who's wanting and buying them, and that they are largely used.
As I said however, "washing" of any specific website is not likely a topic for this thread, which is more geared toward the technical side of coloring.

can confirm as someone who spends a lot of time in china. not sure if this next bit is strictly related but being american is super fashionable. chinese people in chinese have american-envy. it is a big fat hate crush

I can't say much on it besides what a few Asian cosplay friends have told me and experienced. Both, upon turning 20, becoming obsessed with looking into whitening products to become whiter - specifically for their cosplay make up to be applied and to look more accurate :thinking: to animated Japanese characters that have been drawn with lighter skin tones....
As I said, it's an odd topic, and not really one meant for this thread. If you're curious and wish to further the discussion, I suggest just starting a new thread with your questions, thoughts, and open up the dialogue. I'm sure there's people out there who can point you into interesting directions.

Real-life makeup tutorials are fantastic to understand:

  • Shade range: darker skin tones are not all the same, they explain how their foundation is too dark, or too light for them. You can see the foundation colors as reference for your flat color.

  • Undertones: You can paint dark skin, but see if it is warm neutral or cold. It can have an olive, yellowish or orange undertone. Beauty brands in the past only made "brown" shades that often looked "ashy" because they din't incorporated undertones. (My skin is quite yellowish and I hated that most light foundations were pink, I'm so happy about a truly comprehensive range of colors)

  • Flattering colors: The contour they wear can help you to see the perfect shading color. Also, you can see what color palette looks better on different dark skin tones. A dark-skinned person with warm undertones has a different flattering color palette than someone with olive tones.

  • How to correct unflattering colors: I love when they share their tricks to change a lipstick that looks too light or just too weird matched with their skin tone. for example, they often wear a lip pencil similar to their lip color and blend it with the lipstick. This trick has genuinely held me to chose the perfect blend that works for the character.

I don't know, It's pretty much the same as how you color light skin? Maybe it's because I tend to color a wide range of skin tones in my stories and I guess it's also because I have dark skin myself. I've never struggled with coloring any skin shade/tone so I just find it a little odd that some are finding it to be something that's extremely difficult to do.

I suggest for those people who have a hard time with coloring dark skin to use photo references and observe the different undertones. For example, I have a more yellow undertone to my skin, but if someone were to have a more red undertone, I would start with a more reddish brown base for the color. If you're worried about shading, experiment with the colors until you find a combination of shades (3-4) that work best.

I usually just color drop off a color palette because I ain't one to want to think too much over it.

Waaaaay easier to just use a skin color palette. The one I currently use is stuff I personally collected from a collection of game CGs, but recently I saw a twitter skin & lighting palette by @11Abintra and I'd like to try that one out.


I'm black, and I make characters with dark skin. The first thing I am advising people is to step the hell away from ashy-skintones. We have vibrancy in our skin too. Lighting is everything. Second, I always say to broaden that colour palette, not just with three tones but try treat it like you would blend with copic markers. Which means needing a big colour palette (complimentary, environment colours to give that nice saturation etc).

Lastly, look at the colours used in your drawing to help you out with the tones. I can make the whole come together. I've shared some of my characters, maybe it helps?



Photos are honestly your best friend, especially if you're going for bright light in your drawing. You don't want to lighten the character's whole base skin tone when you're painting bright light on them. Bright light will never lighten skin to a tan/white if the character is black, especially since darker skin tones reflect light more than blend with it. I'm tired of being told that I 'don't know how lighting works' when i bring up this error, when lighting clearly does not work said way with dark skin (Splatoon's Marina comes to mind first. The official artists seem to love coloring her skin gray or light tan.) If you look up even something as simple as 'dark skin photography' you get a ton of good lighting references for how colors and light interacts with skin tone.


While photos are a good reference, you have to to be some what careful of what photo you choose because I have seen a bunch which are discolored and the people end up looking purplish or blue.
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I sometimes experiment with different colour layers by messing about with the transparency.
This really helps, I find skin tones tricky.