How to Draw Realistic Olive Skin Tones with Pastel Pencils

In this video, I'll show you how I create a natural olive skin tone using pastel pencils, building it up with soft layers of color. Keep in mind that skin tones can look quite different depending on the person, the lighting and the reference photo, so you can't create a realistic skin tone with just one or two colors. Using a mix of neutral browns, pinks, orange and green helps create a much more natural and realistic result. If you want to follow along in real-time, the full-length version of this drawing is available inside the membership, where I help artists of all levels improve with step-by-step video lessons. Now, let's get started! And because you're removing all color, you're just focusing on the value now. And the pupil is really dark, and the iris is less dark. Let's just use really light pressure. See, here it's really dark. And you can blend a bit, just because it looks nicer, but you don't have to. The lashes, these are all dark. Some of the lighter lashes. I'm not going to go over the waterline, because that's all quite lighter. Here we have some lashes. I didn't draw them in the sketch, because normally I just add them later. So we can add that later, because you will first add the skin and the blending. And I think for this, for the waterline, it's really thin. The polychromos, the 179, the medium brown that we're going to use. Okay, so here it'll be darker. Let's see the other hair. Go back to the 175. And we have some more individual hairs. We can add that later, because we still need to create the skin tone. Just those extra hairs that we have here. I think we can use the medium brown now. Let's just add a touch here. And let's use the 179 pastel. Focus on the nose first. So we see some browns here above the nostril. So look how flat this looks. We don't have those darks and lights. So you can see, if you look at the reference photo here, where you see that there's a bit of a shadow on the face. And then where it goes towards the mid-tone and highlight, I'm just using really light pressure. Make sure you don't have any hard edges there, because you want that to eventually blend in with the rest. And to the lash line, it's darker. I see a highlight there. And then the iris can also be darker, so a little bit later. I'm comparing the iris dark to the shadow, so the iris is darker. Here can be a bit darker. The iris is darker than the shadow on the skin, that's what I mean. Okay, so you see how the eye looked really flat, and now we're already getting depth. No matter which color you use, we're focusing on the values now. I'm going to use the 101 because it's a bit darker here. Also, this is a bit darker. Throughout the drawing process, you can also, when you're focusing on color, you can also take a picture of your drawing and then compare it to the black and white version by turning it into black and white. That's how you can just check if you're not sure. So don't worry if you're like hesitating, does this need to be darker or this? You can just continue with the coloring and then always look back and check. Let's draw the lights, the white 101 first here. So this is light gray, the white wouldn't stand out too much. For example, if you're using the medium gray, but you can get it a bit lighter. Let's see, from the nostril up to here, here's where this highlight is, and it's in the corner, and then next to this shadow, and then here. So back to the 101 to add a light here. What's also great to use for the under layer is pan pastel, so if you're drawing like a larger piece, bigger drawing, you can just easily use pan pastel and then sponge. So I'm using really light pressure just with the side of the pencil. See that? Okay, so you don't want a line, so let's blend that in a bit more. We don't have a line, but like a more smoother gradation from the mid-tone towards the shadow. And here we can add another layer, just because it's a bit darker. I think this is fine for the under layer. So we've focused on values now, and we can start to move on to color. Let's see, I added a bit too much pastel to the white. So we have the white here and here, between the mouth, and below that we have a shadow. You can hear on the eyeball white, but I think we can use the grays for that. You see how the eye already looks like this part goes more to the back, this part is more to the front because it's lighter? That's how you create depth in the nose. That shadow already makes that, creates that form. And then here as well, also making this part look around and this part in the cheek. The waterline is also quite darker, so I'm just adding, and then you see some highlights, we can add that later. Here this part is looking too straight, so I want to curve it more, like I see in the reference photo. So I'm just adding some here and here. Much better. So that you don't have a line, more of like a transition, like soft transitions. That's what you want to create between shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. Darken this just a bit. Next we can focus on color. Starting with the forehead, I want to focus on the shadow first. So I want to add the dark green for the shadow color. Even though the shadow color here is darker and less saturated, I still want to add a touch here. Now that will all blend in. So after the green, I want to add a touch of orange or pink and then just see how that goes. And then we can mute the colors if it's too much color by blending it with the olive brown or the peach, maybe one of these browns. So that's how I'm just going to start. And like always, just see how the colors will turn out on paper and then just go from there. This is the green. Three darker green. Even though the shadow color is a bit lighter here, I still want to add a touch of green and also a touch here. And this will help the pink or the orange to be less bright. Once we add that, we can also add the pink or the orange first and then the brown and then the green. So the order that you add the colors in, it doesn't really matter. I think so, at least. So remember, this is like with the underlayer, we have a believable drawing. You see that already starts to look realistic because of the values. So with the colors, this is like still the ugly stage. So try not to think about it too much. Try not to critique your drawing too much. So that's my only tip that I or advice I could give you. Just always keep on going, even though you're not satisfied. I'm also not satisfied with my drawings at these first stages, but I know that I will be able to make something out of it the more that I continue with the layering and the coloring. Okay, so you just need to trust the process. And that's something I say more often, but it's really true. Continue the one and just a light layer. So you will just see how that color turns out on the paper. And like I already said, I like combining multiple layers because all of these lighter pastel layers will shine through and help create a realistic result instead of just using one or two browns. Like if you compare this color actually, we used three different colors here and actually looks like this color, but then much more richer. If you think about skin, it's also in multiple layers. Some parts you can see the vein showing through or some parts like it could be more blue or green or some parts of the cheek could be more pink or red and then the shadow areas where there's less color. The colors can be a bit more neutralized, but adding layers will really help creating a realistic skin tone color and also a much more interesting skin tone color. And if you're thinking about, yeah, but I'm just following the colors that you picked out, how will I be able to pick out my own reference photo and then choose the colors from there? I would say look at the... So if you have been creating this in one of the previous lessons, then you know, then you can start from there. You can use that as a guide. So you can start with the base main colors that you see. Is it a mid-brown? How do you say that? Is it light skin or is it medium skin or is it dark skin? So this is like medium skin and then you start with a medium brown and then you look at more orange, more pink. That's how you can think about skin. And because this is an olive skin tone, I thought about using green to create that beautiful skin tone. Okay, now we have this. Let's add some orange. 187. And it's difficult to match skin tone. I know that. That's why I like mixing colors and just seeing how it starts to turn out. I'm also not sure what I use, but because I have more experience with skin tones, I already know, like I already know which main base colors I will use. And then with each skin tone, it will just differ. A bit more orange, a bit more yellow, a bit more pink. That's how I just start with like a base and then go from there. So you can do some blending with your finger, but the more layers we add, it will get smoother. Next, we need to neutralize and blend all of the colors together instead of adding more color. So usually I like to use this beige color, the 103, but we can also use the 732. The only thing is, these are Caran d'Ache, the other one are the Faber-Castell. More pastel. This is like more opaque. So that's like a preference on what you want. So I'm going to try both. This is the 103. So you can see, you can just add a really light layer, glaze, and then blend like that. But now let's see if we use the brown olives, 732. You can see that it adds like a lot. So I'm going to stick to the buff titanium for now. The 3, especially here, I don't want to add too much, but I really want to blend the colors together. It will also lighten a bit because this is a lighter color, but that's what I like to do. Go back to light and then we can add over this because this blends the colors really beautifully together. Just like this. See that add a bit and then go over that with your finger. Look at how smooth and I'm using really light pressure. Okay. You don't want to add too much pastel because we want to be able to continue layering over this, but look at this beautiful color. And you can already see how the orange and pink, what maybe looked a bit too bright in the beginning, how that beautifully blends in. And also that green, that darker olive green is also something that mixes and blends in with those colors. And look at how it's looking quite similar to the reference photo. And then the next step is once you have this color, you want to turn your reference photo and your drawing into black and white. So then you can focus and see, Oh, is this the correct shadow color? Or is this light enough? Because that can be tricky to compare or to check when you're focusing on color. So you can squint your eyes and then see if you have the values correct, but it can be a color. So that's really great thing to do. If you're not sure, like if you're looking at the lights on the forehead, you're thinking, Oh, it's too light or I'm not dark enough with the shadow. Just check, just double check, turn it into black and white and then check to be sure. Okay. So I'm already satisfied with the color. I really see that beautiful green showing through pink and orange. This is really beautiful. And then here it's lighter, but I also see more pink over here. So let's add the lighter pink. Let's do that one or maybe the darker pink. No, this is okay. Just go in a circular motion, just add a layer and just blend really beautifully like that. Sometimes I hesitate if I want to use colored pencils or pastel pencils, but when I'm working with pastel pencils, I'm like, Oh, this is, you can blend it really beautifully. And when I'm working with colored pencils, then you need to layer, layer, and you don't get this soft, smooth effect after a few layers. You just really need to continue to layer and layer. And then with pastels, I just, I'm really surprised every time. Wow. But what I don't like about pastels when you're drawing is finished, how, how do you say that? How delicate it is that you don't want to ruin it because you can smudge really easily. So that's the only downside and the plus side of colored pencils that it's when you're finished. Yeah. You don't have to really cover it because you can't really smudge it. So yeah, that's the only thing about the difference. Okay. So now we see that highlight. So this is still lighter. That's good. And now you see that highlight on the skin. So again, with the 103 and the difference with the Faber-Castell and the Caran d'Ache, I just chose these colors from the Caran d'Ache because those are the colors I missed in the Faber-Castell set, but there is a difference. So even though I would like to use this color, I still prefer to use the Faber-Castell because like I already showed you, this adds just a lot of pastel, really opaque. So sometimes you like that, sometimes you don't. So even though the color, even though I actually would like to use this color or maybe the peach color, it's just, I just choose this one because it's not that opaque and I can just add a really light layer. But now I'm looking and I think I do want to add peach and let's just see how that goes. Like I always say, yeah, you will just need to test and see. 541. I want to add that lighter glow on the skin and I'm trying to go a bit back and forth. You'd like to see those texture lines on the skin. I don't want it too smooth, but I think we, yeah, so with the blending we get it smooth anyway. I'm going to try to add some texture later. So just back and forth or circular motion and you can see that this color is beautiful. I need that brighter highlight. Okay, squint your eyes. Yeah, I see that it goes a bit here. You don't want a line, you like a, like just a blended, also like this, more like that. And with the white, let's use that. Maybe a touch in some areas. That brown, 179, because I want to add a bit more value, but not too pink or orange. Let me see, just a touch. See how that beautifully just blends in, in here. This part is getting a bit too, let's see. I want a bit warmer, maybe a touch of this color or I, so I think I'm checking the values. Is it a darker value or this one? I think just the medium one. 745, see how that goes. This is a warmer 40% because the color was getting a bit too yellowish, just a touch. And then we have that a bit warmer here. So with warmer brown, you can see that these, especially the lighter values, it's almost like reddish brownish. So it's too red brown if you look at the reference photo, because it's more orange. But this is what I mean if I want a bit more warmer brown. If I want it cooler, then we can add a touch of green to the medium brown, but we already added green. So now just making it a bit warmer brown in some areas. And remember, this is not finished yet. We can still add highlights. We can still add a bit more texture. We'll need to check the values. Okay. So we can always come back to a certain area. It's best to move on because if you have more of a finished eye to look at, you can then look back and then see maybe if it's too dark or I want to use the 180. So again, you can check this for yourself. If you already have enough color that you added with the orange, then it's fine. But I see here just a touch of yellow. So 180. I just want to add a touch. See that? It lays really light. Okay. And maybe with this color, 745. Let's glaze a bit over. You see, I can really easily just add a color. Here it's less yellow. So it's more here, like I think where the light is shining. I feel like maybe we can add the cream, 103, just to go over this just a bit. So that's how you can just glaze and add a touch of color. If you think you need a bit more orange, you can add that, just like that. Yeah, that's a bit better. Or if you feel like you need to add a bit more pink, or in this case, I added a touch of yellow ochre. Okay, let's finish the nose. Let's start with the pink, 180. Add a light layer here. I can add a bit more because it's a bit darker here. See how this helps? Already having a thunder layer. So you know that here, so it needs to be a bit darker. You can color over this. And then we have the highlight already. Just a bit over the highlight. Blend this. And look at how it already looks a bit round. Add a touch of orange, 180, just to mix in, just to mix those two colors. Really light glaze over the lower part as well, just to continue this. Okay, a bit more color. Beautiful. Now we need to, let's see, we can darken a bit here. Let's use that brown. So go over to this part again. I feel like I want to add a bit of green, so I use that here as well. You see the shadow color? It's also not too orange, or it doesn't have too much color. So let's add a touch of the green, 173. So here, just above the nostril, and here. Add a touch to this shadow, if that helps. Let's use 103. I'm thinking, yeah, let's just blend this over the highlight, because with the white, we can brighten. And here, I'm also just going to go over the highlights. You see, this is quite green, but we'll go over that. Going over the nostril, just blending over the skin. It's blended, but we still need to darken some more. And let's maybe add a bit more pink again. The nose is a bit too light, but we're getting there with the form. I think that this highlight is also a bit smaller, 189 again. And with this shadow color, and here, and here, a bit more color, and here. I think we can just add another layer. Let's just also continue here. Over the nostril, you can see some skin tone color. I'm just going to add some pink. Let's use the, I don't want just too much, the whole nostril. I want just too much around it. But with the blending tool, it can also happen that you pick up the pastel a bit with the blending stump, but so that's why with your finger is actually the best. But yeah, maybe the pinky finger is a bit smaller, but you can try out different blending tools for yourself. Here, this part, I want to add a touch of green once in the shadow. It's not too dark, so now it just looks like a spot, because we don't have the rest of the skin. And touch of orange again, 187. I'm getting there with the value, so you can compare. It's lighter than here. It's almost like the same value as here. I feel like we can lighten this just a bit. So here it's brighter, but then here it's also just a bit lighter. We can do that with the cream, lighter cream color. I'm going to darken with the one gray, this shadow color, just a bit on this edge. Okay, you can go over that with the brown, but I think that will be too dark, so I'm going to go over that with the darker pink, 180. Let's go over this shadow, and also here, 70. Here at the edge, it's a touch darker. I don't want it to look too much like a line, so I blend it a bit up, next to it, and here as well. Stop, see this, I got also a bit too light, so just really glaze a bit here, next to the nostril. So that shadow here, blend this edge a bit. Okay, highlight first with the cream green here, and if you look at that highlight, you see texture, so what I like to do is use the 180 now, and draw just like these texture lines. And here you have this part, that the highlight is not just the dots, it's also blending around it. And now with the cream, 103, because the white might be too bright, but we can always still use the white if we need to. Again with the pink, and now with the white. So where do you see that it's the brightest? Here, and here. And this is actually bright enough. And then we have some texture lines here, highlights, just like here, but let's see, let's use the cream first. You can easily add texture, and you can also do that here, and here it's lighter. With the 175, because it's just the tip, it's a bit darker. Actually I see some kind of texture under the nose. My goal isn't hyper-realistic, but sometimes I do want to add some kind of texture, so that the skin doesn't look too smooth. Yeah, because you don't want the skin to look like plastic, and I also like that you still see the, maybe some texture of the paper. It doesn't have to look all too smooth, and like plastic. You can blend it really easily, but you want to be careful that it doesn't get, again, too smooth. Now once we have this part, I'm also going to go over a bit over the highlight. Once we have this, we can look back and see our dry more as a whole. So you can see that I also look at each part of the skin separately. So the forehead, the nose area, the part around the eye, the part under the eye, then here the part where the cheek starts, here the part next to the eye. Every part of the skin, even though you still have like a main base color that you choose, each part of the skin can look different, because of the light shining on the face, because how the face becomes more round here. It starts to move away from the light, so here it gets darker with less color. The same for the nose. Nose also has, can also have different values and colors. Sometimes the cheeks are more pink, for example, then you will add a touch of pink, or a bit more pink, for example, than the forehead. And that's how you will look at each area separately. But still use the same colors, so that it will all look, yeah, like the skin belongs together. Maybe at this stage we can turn the drawing into black and white, so I can show you. I just want to check this with you, and you can also do the same. Make a picture of your drawing, use the black and white version, the reference photo, turn your photo of the drawing into black and white, and then just compare. So then we know the, so the values are more important. Okay, so the black and white version, and I think I'm pretty close. If I look at this shadow, it's dark enough. This shadow is dark enough. Here we're dark enough. The nose, maybe below the nose can be a bit darker, see a darker edge there, but I think I prefer this. Don't want it to stand out too much, because we don't see the rest of the nose. We don't, I don't want that part to stand out too much. The hair looks dark enough. This part on the forehead also looks dark enough, actually. Okay, so the brights here, I know that I can brighten that a bit. The highlight of the nose can also be just a bit brighter, but that's a preference, because the light is shining on her face. You don't have to add that lighting on her face too bright, so that's something that I can choose. Looking at the shadow below the eye, I see that the shadow, looking at the reference photo, it connects to the eyebrow, so just below the eyebrow can also be just as dark as this shadow. That's what I've noticed now. Okay, so now that you know that the values are correct, yeah, you can check the values for yourself, and if it's not dark enough in your drawing, then you know where to darken or where to lighten, so then you can focus on color. But the exact color doesn't really matter, so if you're already there with your values, then you're good to go. Yeah, in some area, like here, it looks a bit more pink than orange or yellow in the reference photo, and that's actually fine, but I want to try to match it a bit more. But first, let's darken that part, 179, below the eyebrow, to make it just as dark as the value, or that darker shadow. Okay, that's better. And then the lights, so let's use the 103 first. This was just a bit brighter than this, but again, if I look at it now, I think for me, for my drawing, it's bright enough. So yeah, I'm not going to use the white, I'm going to use the the 103. Like I said, if you look at the black and white version, you can see that the lights are even lighter, but look at the reference photo, how bright those highlights are. And again, that's because of the light is shining on her face. If you would look at her face or at her skin tone in daylight, then those highlights wouldn't be as bright. So again, that's a choice that you can choose for yourself, and I think that will stand out too much in my drawing. At this stage, it's a bit back and forth. If you checked your values, then you can focus on the color a bit, and then the detail. Let's see, if you think you can add a bit more yellow or a bit orange, I'm going to try to add a touch of yellow here. This is the 183, the yellow ochre, just a touch over the pink to make it less pink. But again, we already have the values correct, we checked that, so if you check that in your drawing, then the exact color doesn't really matter, like I already said. But yeah, I'm just trying to match the best I can, so you can only do the best you can. My 12, 173, this is the green, and this just a bit, really add that greenish, yeah, that green to the shadow. So we have that beautiful green-golden glow, or green-golden color, because usually an olive skin tone has a green-golden undertone, and some have more green, some have more golden, some have a bit more orange. Yeah, it's a very interesting, beautiful skin tone color, and it can be challenging. So you can see how many different colors I added. So the green is to desaturate and add beautiful shadow colors. I added some yellow, orange, pink, all to create this beautiful skin tone. Making sure I have everything blended well. Where I see too much color, I just use the 103, you see that? I just glaze this color, and then with my finger, just really beautifully blend that in. This is beautiful and easy to add those final touches and glazes. Like I already said, whenever you miss a color somewhere, you can just glaze really easily, add a touch of color somewhere. So if, again, make a picture of your photo, and if you think, okay, I miss a bit more color, like a bit more orange, a bit more yellow, a bit more pink, just add that. Okay, I zoomed out, and I'm looking at the eyebrow now. This is the black. I think I lost some sharper, darker hairs with the blending. We look at the... I really like how that highlights, beautiful focus on the eye, satisfied with the hair. Yeah, I'm overall satisfied. Let's see if we can darken some parts. But yeah, I was like going back and forth with the skin. I think it's then time to call it finished. You just keep on adding, blending, like adding a color. Like I said, I didn't go too bright with the highlights. I really like how that's turned out. I really like that beautiful, warm skin tone color. Again, keep in mind, these are like the base colors I would use. The orange, the pink, a touch of yellow, but depending on the person's skin, depending on the reflected light or the photo, colors in the photo, you might use a bit more orange, you might use a bit more yellow, you might use a bit more pink. Or maybe the colors, shadow colors are desaturated some more, you could use a bit more green. If you mix the green with the brown, you get a beautiful desaturated shadow color. Or maybe the shadow is a bit warmer, you will use a bit more brown than green. And yeah, you could also use grays, but I like to desaturate with the green. But if you feel like, oh, it's getting too green, and you just don't know what color you will need to use, you could also add a touch of gray to neutralize. If it's too orange, too pink, or still too brown, you could try that. And I would say just try it out, maybe on an extra piece of paper. Or if you try it out, and then you blend it in, you think, okay, I don't like that, just add a layer of, or you use the kneaded eraser to remove a bit of that pastel, and then go over that with the brown or the green. So that's how you can just go back and forth and learn from every step that you decide to do. That's why I like how forgiving pastels are. Like I said, if you try to add some gray and you don't like it, just pick it up with the kneaded eraser. Or I tried to correct here because I didn't like how thick the eyebrows, the tips were looking, so I corrected that a bit. So I hope that that's helpful for you, and it doesn't scare you whenever you're drawing something, that you can always correct in some way. And that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed watching the process and picked up some useful tips along the way. If you'd like to follow along in real time, the full-length version of this drawing is available inside the membership. Thank you so much for watching, and if you enjoyed the video, don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment below. I'd love to hear what you'd like to see in a future video. See you next time!