What colour do you use when drawing skin?

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tb86
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07 Aug 2017, 11:10 am

I have a lot of drawings on Deviantart. Just go there and search for tb86. However I've never actually coloured in the skin. I guess I never thought I had too. But I'm thinking of actually doing it now in the future and even reuploading some of my already existing pictures with the skin coloured in. The question is what colour would commonly be used? I tried googling it but it didn't really answer the question probably. It's a simple question.



C2V
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08 Aug 2017, 4:31 am

Depends on the subject, doesn't it? There are all kinds of skin tones out there.
Or do you mean just what colour is best for white caucasian skin? There I'd have to go with unbleached titanium sometimes mixed with opel when I'm painting. If you're really pushed you can always use white with brown mixed in and adjust to skin tone that way, or if your subject is very fair, use salmon with white mixed in.


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BirdInFlight
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08 Aug 2017, 4:44 am

You use whatever colours that specific skin requires. Don't think of it as one colour -- approach it the same way as you approach any other field of colours. And don't think of it as "skin" and the one-colour restriction that gets your brain into. Everything we reproduce in visual art is never really one colour, it's a mix.

And the same way that you wouldn't paint or draw a field of grass as just one green, but instead use all kinds of greens, greys, browns, yellows, and even unexpected tones, because that's what your eye is perceiving when you REALLY look, so the same applies to skintones. Draw from life and use the colours you start to see when really looking. For example, a shadowed part of someone's face may actually need blues and greys. A brighter part of even a dark skin will involve pale tones where the light is hitting it -- this kind of thing.

Don't just think flat-out beige for white people and brown for darker people. Just look, and treat the field of tones the same way you would see many tones in any field of tones.



tb86
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08 Aug 2017, 5:19 am

I meant Caucasian and I use coloured pencils.



BirdInFlight
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08 Aug 2017, 5:28 am

Why does that change anything?

My answer is the same.

You use what colours you are seeing when you actually look. No ONE colour is the right one. A Caucasian or even any other skintone at all will have ALL kinds of colours in it, that can make up what you see in the end as "a Caucasian" skintone.

One pink or beige or whatever pencil isn't going to be all you need.

Oh never mind.



C2V
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08 Aug 2017, 6:59 am

^ Very true.
Makes me think of all those great portraits in the Archibald Prize. If you look at them, the textures and colours of the skin even on caucasian subjects will have a lot of life and variation. Sometimes, even shades of green or red are used to illustrate character.
If you're using pencil, you could get a great caucasian skin tone by overlaying colours like pink, brown, gold, silver, yellow or orange. It might change with the direction or quality of the light in the picture, etc.
Like BirdInFlight noted, skin tone is dynamic, and in quality art it won't all be one uniform colour. It might even be darker around the eyes or near the ears, paler on the forehead and cheeks, tipped with pink at the ears and nose on caucasian subjects, etc.


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dragonsanddemons
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18 Aug 2017, 2:27 am

tb86 wrote:
I meant Caucasian and I use coloured pencils.


For that, I usually use peach. But then again, I'm not really an artist - I just occasionally draw a little for fun.


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