Skin Shading Tutorial (Digital Painting)

So in today's video, I'm going to show you how I start shading skin. So this is not really a skin painting tutorial. It's more a video in which I show you how I start the shading process, because this is something that I get asked quite often. What I would suggest, and I say this in all of my videos, if you ever watch a tutorial, then just follow along. It doesn't really help to just watch the video. Get active, try to kind of test out these different techniques and methods. That's the only way you will learn something. So the first thing that I'll do is I'll just show you the reference that I had for this piece. So this is the reference. I found it on Instagram, I believe. So I'm going to link this girl in the description below. So anyway, so first I'm going to show you just the basic process that 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 right here. So this is just a flat color. And then from there, I give all of the other objects or features of my illustration a separate flat color. And this helps me to separate them later on and to kind of do the shading. And for example, if I want to change the color or if I want to move things around, it's much easier to do so if you have them all separated. So once I have this done, that's when I actually start shading all of the individual objects in my drawing. So for example, for the clothes, I just started shading them very simple. Then the hair and then also the skin. So I have a layer called Skin Shading 1. This is the first layer of shading. And then I have a second one called Skin Shading 2. Once we have this, there's one more layer of shading. And then I merge all of these layers together into one final layer. Then I do some more tweaking on there and then I do another copy of it. And this is where I do all of the final touches and finish the illustration. So this is just a basic rundown of my process. And so as 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 I'm going to turn off the layers that I used for shading the skin. And so basically everything else is shaded but the skin. Alright, so the first thing that we'll do is we'll create a new layer on top of our skin layer. So looking at our layer panel, you can see that the skin layer is the first flat color that we've created for the skin. And so we're just going to select it and then we're going to create a new layer on top of it. This is where we're going to do the first, so to speak, layer of shading. And so the way to do this is we're going to select our brush that we're going to use for painting. So you can use whatever brush you want to use. I'm going to use custom brushes for this just because I'm very accustomed to my own brushes. If you want to use my brushes, then feel free to click the link in the description. That'll take you to my Gumroad store where you can check out all of my different brushes and tutorials. But you don't need to have my brushes, it's just the ones that I like to use the most. But you can use any type of brush for this process or technique. So anyway, so I'm going to use my painting brush. And then what we're going to do, the first step is to select the current skin color, so the flat color that we created for the skin. So we're just going to color pick that. And now looking at the reference, we have to figure out where the shadows are. So we're going to look for the darkest shadows, the ones that are most obvious. So for example, I see a couple of very dark shadows right here. I notice this one right away. Then on the side of her mouth. Then we have some on her cheek, around her eyes. And then also on this side, I can see some right here. And so because I'm a little bit more experienced, these shadows are easier for me to see at first glance. So if you're a little bit more inexperienced, it's going to be a little bit more difficult for you to see them. But the more you kind of look for them, the easier you'll find them. And it's just going to be very obvious to you the more experienced you become. So with the painting brush selected, what we're going to do is we're going to select our skin layer, the color of our skin layer. And then we're going to make it a little bit darker and a little bit more saturated. And you can also shift the hue a little bit. So for example, I'm more in the orange spectrum. So what I can do is I can move the color a little bit more into the red. And this will make sure that your colors won't end up looking muddy. So anyway, so now that we have a darker color, what we're going to do is we're just going to try to paint this in very loosely. And at this point, what's very important is that if you look at the reference, you can see that the shadows have different colors. So for example, around her eyes, it's a little bit more grayish. But around her nose, the shadow is kind of in the orange. We're not going to focus on these different colors right now. That's something we can always fix later on. Right now, we're only trying to figure out the shading itself. So we're only going to work with this one single color that we just selected right now. And then later on, once we have figured out the shading, and once our drawing has some volume, that's when we can change all of the different colors. So anyway, so we're just going to paint in these shadows very loosely. And it doesn't have to be pretty at this stage. We're just trying to figure out where all of these shadows belong to. And so I keep looking back and forth to my reference and then back to my canvas. And I'm moving very quickly because, as I said, I don't want to overthink this process. And so I'm just trying to have fun. And because this is so early on, you can't really do much wrong. You can always fix the things that are a little bit off. Because it's so early on in the process, there's really nothing to kind of worry about. As you can see, I'm moving very quickly and I'm moving all over the place. So I'm not focusing on one spot only. So I'm moving all over the face. Sometimes I'm working on the eyes, then I'm working on the cheeks, then I'm working on the forehead. Because I'm trying to kind of shade the entire face, not just only one specific area of it. And also, one thing that I'm not doing is, I'm not using an airbrush right now. So this is something that I see a lot of beginners do. They tend to use the airbrush a lot. And I know why. It's mainly because you may think that it makes it easier to kind of blend the colors. But if you use a soft brush all the time or too often in the painting process, there's not going to be a lot of structure and definition. So I would advise against the airbrush, at least in the beginning. And so this is looking very good to me. So if we look at it a little bit closer, you can see that there's no blending happening here. So there's no softness to it, but there's already more form to it than before. It already looks three-dimensional. So if we just turn off this layer, you can see right now it's looking very flat. And this just kind of gives it some form. And this is what we're going for. And so the idea is when you're painting, you need to work in small steps. Don't try to like get many things done at once. Really work towards your goal in little baby steps. Let's say you have something very difficult, a very complex task. If you break it down into really small bits and pieces, then it becomes much easier to finish that task instead of trying to finish it all at once. And so this is the idea behind this workflow. We're trying to work in little baby steps that are very easy to do. So anyway, so now that we have this basic layer of shading, the next step that I'm going to do is I'm going to 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 I'm going to select an area where I shaded in the shadow. And I'm going to make the color even a little bit darker. And now I'm just going to make those shadows darker that are darker in my reference. For example, the shadow around her nose is very dark in the reference. And so I'm going to darken that up in my sketch as well. And this will add even more definition to it. I'm also darkening her lips. And so you can see that her lipstick actually has a different color than the color that I'm using right now. But I don't really care because I can change that later on. That's the beauty of digital painting. You're not kind of locked to anything. You can always change or manipulate something. So I'm using only this one single color to darken up the shadows. And then later on, if I feel like changing the color of the shadow or of a specific area in my painting, I can just do that very easily with the lasso tool. But for now, let's just focus on the shading and on the shadows. So I'm just focusing or I'm just looking for the darkest shadows in my reference. And so I feel like this is really coming together nicely. So if we turn off this layer, you can see it's adding some more definition to it, some more form. And even though the color is off, so the color of the shadows are off. They're not really representing what is in our reference. We can already feel the form. And this is what we're looking for here. We're not trying to figure out the color of the skin directly. We're just looking at the form. We're trying to make it as three-dimensional as possible. So at this point, one thing that I would like to do is I would like to give her eyeballs this grayish type of color because this looks kind of off in our painting right now. So the way to do it is you select your base skin color and then you move it a little bit into the gray. And then you just paint in the eyeballs. And yeah, I think we're getting there. And you can see how these are just two very basic layers. And it's already looking so much better than before. And so from here, what I like to do is I like to soften up some of these shadows, especially when you're like painting females. You want to have very soft shadows. You don't want to soften all of them, but a few areas do need to be softened up just to kind of make it look a little bit more feminine. So this is what we're going to do real quick. So what I like to do at this point is I like to merge the two shading layers. And then I'm going to use a blending tool to blend these colors a little bit to make them a little bit softer. So if you're using Clip Studio Paint, there's actually a blending tool that you can use called Blend. Or if you have my brushes, you can use those. I have a couple of really good blenders and I'm going to use my favorite blender, which is called Blend Master Flash and just to soften up some of these areas. If you're using Procreate, there's also a blender, but I think it's called Smudge and the same goes for Photoshop and most other programs. So with the blender selected, I'm just going to soften up some of the shadows around her cheek. But again, don't make them too soft. Then a little bit around her nose and perhaps the one on her forehead a little bit. And that's about it. Right. Just to kind of make it a little bit softer and not as pronounced. And that's looking really good. If I imagine, like if I go back five years, six years, just getting here would have been an achievement for me because I didn't know how to paint back then. So if you came this far, it's already kind of a big success, I would say. It's at a point where it's looking kind of decent. It's looking presentable. Obviously, it's not finished. If we look at the finished illustration, there's a huge difference. But it's looking kind of realistic and it's something you can show to people. So if you came this far, you can really be proud of yourself and you're definitely in the right direction. So the next thing that I would like to do is I would like to create a new layer and this layer is going to be used for the lighting. To figure out the lighting, we're going to do the same exact thing. We're going to go to our reference and we're going to take a look at the lightest spots in our reference. So the first second I look at this, I see a couple of very strong lit areas. So for example, on her forehead up here, then right here, on her nose, on her cheek, down here on her chin, and also here above the upper lip and perhaps here as well. So these are like the areas that I noticed right away that are lit. So anyway, so I'm going to select the base color of our skin. Then I'm going to move into the yellow a little bit and make the color lighter, but just a tad bit, not a lot. And then I'm just going to paint in these areas that I see my reference that are lit up. And I hope you can see how it's starting to come together and this doesn't really require a lot of work. So I'm moving very quickly here I'm not really spending a lot of time on this, just a couple of minutes, but it's really making a huge difference. So like this, and on her chin, like that. And so if we turn off this layer, you can see how it's making it pop even more. And because we haven't blended any of these colors yet, it's looking a little bit rough, but this is easily fixed. So if we just go back to our Blender, to our blending tool, and we soften up some of these areas, it's going to look way more feminine. So this is like minimal effort. You just need to be clever about it and have kind of a plan in mind. And that's all. So I hope you can see how easy it is to bring out the form. So if we turn off both layers, you can see how flat it is at this point and adding some simple shadows to it. And then a few more minutes on the lighting. And yeah, it's just starting to pop and starting to make sense. And it's all coming together. So most of the work, most of the difficult work has been done right now. Once you're this far, it's all about cleaning up your artwork, fixing the colors, blending the colors, and just kind of tweaking it here and there. And so I really hope that you were able to kind of see what I'm trying to show you here. You need to look for the most visible, the most pronounced shadows, and then also the lightest or the brightest highlights. And then kind of paint them into your painting. And the more layers you add to it, the more realistic it becomes. And the closer you get to the final image. Anyways, guys, 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 that I had a very hard time figuring out. So I really hope that you were able to pick up a few techniques here and there. And as always, guys, thanks a lot for watching my videos. If you're not a subscriber to my channel yet, then I would appreciate it a lot if you would subscribe. Also give this video a like 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 yeah, I love you with all my heart and soul. Peace.