How do you render skin?

[wintry crane]

Hi, I’ve been drawing for many years, mostly animals by traditional, recently I started drawing humans on digital and I really can’t get rendering skin, to it look clear, full of value, color. I’ve watched many tutorials on insta, TikTok or YouTube but non of them rly helped me… please drop me your ways or maybe your tutorial that helped you.
Thanks

Also, I’m looking for more semi or realistic style

[dapper forum]

Tbh my rendering process is kind of chaotic and can be best described as “trust the process and keep going until it looks right” but if I tried to make it streamlined it goes something like this:

1. Value work, identifying the darkest shadows and the lightest lights, working on defining shapes and volume
2. Color variation. It’s a good idea to set it up on your base like on the guidelines here but I find that it kind of gets lost in the rendering process so I often have to reapply it. I also do this with layer modes. This one is most impactful for impactful for skin feeling “full of life”
3. Reflections, subsurface scattering, details. This is also a step where you work on texture if you want to and if it’s not already included in your process beforehand.

Also here’s a tutorial I love (the only one I remember on the topic tbh): https://youtu.be/V_E1ARR_AAg?si=_--8yu5tRG3YMPTe

Also guidelines for color variation

[wintry crane]

Thank you for the tips, I saw this YouTube video and it didn’t really helped me much :(( maybe I’ll try to watch it a couple of times more since English is not my first language and maybe I didn’t understand some things right,

Or I need maybe to see the process without speedpaiting but slowly showing all of this information

[wintry crane]

I tried this theory but it’s hard for me to find colors that match but are around those yellow red blue values, everytime I try to apply a slightly blue-grey color it kinda looks like a shaved beard… and that’s not what I’m loooking for any tips for that?

[dapper forum]

1. Play around with layer modes
2. For me applying vibrant color with a very low saturation always works
3. If you are doing this application of color variation then the zones should be smaller than the ones shown on the guidelines or at least have differing intensity of color
4. Idk if that one is good advice but sometimes I just add little swipes of color with very low saturation just based on vibes not on those guidelines. Like the are eyelids very close to the eye can have hints of red, chin and eyelids has some yellow on it, top and sides of a forehead have a greenish or bluish color. Skin has more subtle variety then these guidelines show

[wintry crane]

Could I maybe see your art with rendered skin to see ?

[dapper forum]

Otherwise I would recommend doing master studies of artists whose way of painting skin you admire or keeping them as reference at least

[dapper forum]

Yeah, sure!

Hope you don’t find me lacking lmao

[wintry crane]

Omg! That’s amazing art !

Oke I Think i see my problem, I think i took the „yellow red blue” part wayyyy tooo far, on your art, the skin looks normal, on mine it starts to reminding rainbow… so I guess I gotta put some value to the reddish?

[dapper forum]

Sorry to hear it:(
Hope you find something fitting for you. Sadly it’s been a while since I’ve researched this topic so I don’t have any other recommendations
Maybe check out some text based tutorials? I can check if I have some saved

[dapper forum]

Do that on a separate layer and lower opacity if it’s too vibrant, it’s easier to control this way
Though brushes with default low opacity work too

[dapper forum]

Thank you!!

[wintry crane]

That would be great if you had some

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate that

[wintry crane]

Omg! I never thought about this

Sounds like a game changer

So I put base color of skin, and on another layer the yellow rwd and blue then I play with opacity and blend modes right ?

[dapper forum]

https://pin.it/4V6BfXSY6
here are some
Turns out I don’t have a lot saved
(First one is a link bc it’s a bunch of pictures)

[dapper forum]

Yeah
Though you can do that after working on values
Otherwise the color variation can get lost in the rendering process
Though I suppose you can always do it twice

[dapper forum]

Glad to be of service!

Tbh that reminded me that I definitely didn’t pay enough attention to color variation on skin in some of my pieces

[wintry crane]

OMGGGGG oh dear! Thank u so so so much