10 tips for painting skin tones
We explain how to perfect painting skin tones in this step-by-step tutorial.
Painting skin tones and creating accurate colour is no easy task. Getting the depth of colour spot on and capturing light and dark tones by mixing colours requires a delicate balance and a careful touch. This is especially true when you have a limited colour palette available.
In this tutorial, we explain how to mix the perfect skin colour, for both darker and paler skin tones. We use a mix of only six colours to get the perfect shade so you can see how it can be done. Here, we've used oils but the same techniques can work for a range of paints.
How to mix paint for darker skin tones
Learn how to approach mixing darker skin tones using a limited palette. Build from an initial local colour and push out extremes of light and dark, plus details. And get the right paint by picking them from our best oil paints guide.
01. Paint mid-tones
All skin tones range from base colours of oranges through to browns. You first need to find the local colour of your subject – this is the midpoint of your subject's skin tone. You can then push that midpoint to its lightest and its darkest points. Dependent on lighting, if you mix three unrelated colours to represent these shifts in tone, they will not sit realistically. Read More...
