Coloring Skin

Skin Is a Collection of Colors, Not a “Skin-Tone” Pencil

One of the easiest ways to make a face look flat is to choose a peach, tan, or brown pencil and color the entire area evenly.

Real skin is much more interesting.

Depending on the person, lighting, and surroundings, skin can contain subtle mixtures of peach, pink, red, gold, yellow, brown, olive, violet, blue, gray, and many other hues.

The goal isn't to find one pencil that perfectly matches a complexion.

It's to build the complexion through layers, values, temperature changes, and reflected light.

And the same basic principles work across the full range of skin tones.

Start Lighter Than You Think

Skin usually benefits from gentle layering.

Begin with very light pressure and gradually establish the overall complexion. Leave the brightest areas lightly colored or untouched, depending on the skin tone and lighting.

Then begin developing the form.

Typical areas that may catch more light include the:

• forehead,

• bridge and tip of the nose,

• tops of the cheeks,

• upper lip area,

• chin,

• and shoulders.

Shadow often develops:

• beneath the brow,

• beside and beneath the nose,

• under the lower lip,

• beneath the chin,

• around the hairline,

• and where the face turns away from the light.

Don't memorize these as places to automatically draw dark marks.

Look at the direction of your light and let the shape of the face determine where the values change.

Think About the Head as a Form

A face isn't a flat oval containing features.

It's a three-dimensional structure.

The forehead curves backward. The nose projects forward. The cheeks round outward. The eye sockets recede. The chin protrudes and then turns underneath.

If you're coloring from a reference, squint at it.

The details become less noticeable and the larger areas of light and dark become easier to see.

Those broad value changes are more important for creating a dimensional face than perfectly coloring every eyelash.

Try It: One Face, Three Values

Use a simple face illustration and temporarily ignore all the tiny details.

Identify only three areas:

Light

Midtone

Shadow

Color the light areas very gently.

Build more pigment into the midtones.

Deepen the shadowed areas without immediately reaching for your darkest pencil.

Step back before adding anything else.

Does the face already begin to have dimension?

If so, you've established the structure.

Everything afterward is refinement.

Warm and Cool Areas

Skin doesn't have one temperature everywhere.

Areas with more visible blood flow—such as the cheeks, ears, lips, nose, fingertips, and sometimes around the eyes—may appear warmer or rosier.

Shadowed areas can become cooler.

The forehead may lean slightly more golden on some complexions, while areas around the jaw can be more neutral or cool.

These shifts should generally be subtle.

You don't need a pink nose, purple jaw, yellow forehead, and blue eye sockets unless you're coloring someone who has had an exceptionally eventful evening.

Think whispers of color, not stripes.

Coloring Light Skin

For lighter complexions, you might experiment with combinations of:

cream,

peach,

pale pink,

light ochre,

gold,

warm beige,

light brown,

lavender,

and pale blue or gray in cooler shadows.

Avoid relying on bright pink for every blush area or dark brown for every shadow.

Build the transitions gradually.

A small amount of violet, blue, or muted green can sometimes neutralize an area that has become too orange or pink.

Coloring Medium and Olive Skin

Medium and olive complexions may contain beautiful mixtures of:

gold,

ochre,

tan,

peach,

olive,

warm brown,

reddish brown,

muted green,

violet,

and deep brown.

Olive skin in particular can become overly orange if you rely entirely on peach and brown pencils.

Subtle muted greens or cooler neutrals can help balance the warmth.

Again, layering is your friend.

You're mixing color on the paper.

Coloring Deep Skin

Deep complexions can contain extraordinarily rich color.

Depending on the undertone and lighting, experiment with:

warm browns,

red-browns,

mahogany,

burgundy,

deep ochre,

gold,

violet,

plum,

indigo,

and very dark brown.

Preserve the lighter areas instead of coloring everything dark first and attempting to restore the highlights later.

Highlights on deep skin can be especially beautiful because the contrast allows warm golds, reddish tones, cool reflected colors, and bright highlights to become wonderfully visible.

And don't automatically use black for every shadow.

Deep violet, indigo, burgundy, and rich dark browns can create much more colorful depth.

Try This: Build Brown Instead of Choosing Brown

On scrap paper, choose three or four colors rather than one brown pencil.

Try combinations such as:

ochre + red-brown + violet

or

gold + burgundy + dark brown

or

peach + olive + brown

Change the order and pressure of the layers.

See how many different browns and skin-like neutrals you can create.

This is useful across all complexions because it teaches you to stop thinking of brown as a single color.

Brown is often a conversation between colors.

Blush Should Melt Into the Skin

Blush rarely works well as two pink circles on the cheeks.

Add pink, peach, red, terracotta, or another warm hue with very light pressure and gradually blend it into the surrounding complexion.

Let some of the base skin colors remain visible through it.

You can also place tiny touches of warmth elsewhere—perhaps the ears, nose, or fingertips—to keep the blush from looking disconnected.

The goal is for the warmth to appear as though it's coming through the skin, not sitting on top of it.

Lips Aren't Usually One Flat Red

The lips belong to the same face.

Begin with colors related to the complexion, then introduce additional pink, peach, red, plum, brown, or burgundy as appropriate.

The upper lip is often darker because it typically faces slightly downward and receives less direct light.

The lower lip may catch a stronger highlight.

Leave or create a small lighter area rather than outlining both lips heavily and filling them with one uniform color.

Unless you're deliberately coloring dramatic lipstick.

Then by all means, let the lipstick have its moment.

The Whites of the Eyes Aren't Pure White

Remember our white-object lesson?

It applies here too.

The whites of the eyes are curved, moist surfaces sitting partly in shadow beneath the eyelids.

Use tiny amounts of pale gray, blue, lavender, cream, or reflected skin color near the corners and beneath the lids.

Preserve the brightest areas.

Leaving the entire eye stark paper-white can sometimes make it look unnaturally bright compared with the rest of the face.

And please resist the temptation to outline the entire eyeball heavily.

Nobody needs their eyeballs individually framed.

Reflected Color Makes Skin Belong in the Scene

Imagine a face beside a glowing fireplace.

The illuminated side may contain gold, peach, orange, or red reflected light.

Under moonlight, those same skin tones might shift toward blue, violet, or cool gray.

A green shirt can cast a subtle green reflection beneath the chin.

A bright red scarf may warm nearby skin.

These colors help connect the person to their environment.

The complexion hasn't changed.

The light has.

Mini Challenge: Same Face, Different Light

Use three copies of the same simple portrait.

Keep the basic complexion similar on all three.

Color the first in warm daylight.

Color the second under cool moonlight.

Color the third beside golden candlelight.

Change primarily the highlights, shadows, and reflected colors.

The person should still have the same underlying complexion, but the atmosphere around them should feel completely different.

This is excellent practice because it separates two ideas that are easy to confuse:

the color of the skin and the color of the light falling on it.

Don't Overblend Everything

Skin can benefit from smooth transitions, but completely burnishing every area can sometimes remove the subtle color variations that make it interesting.

Build several transparent-looking layers first.

Let peach mingle with gold.

Let violet quietly influence a shadow.

Allow a little pink to remain in the cheeks.

Then blend selectively where you want softer transitions.

The goal isn't one perfectly uniform “skin color.”

It's a collection of colors that the eye interprets together as skin.

Edenglow Studio Tip

Choose a skin palette, not a skin pencil.

Start with the underlying complexion, then add warmth, coolness, light, shadow, and reflected color in layers.

There is enormous variety in human skin. That's not a complication to overcome.

It's what makes coloring it interesting.