[Fred Flick Stone]

Hello, I am back from Florida. Its a really nice place for a visit, if you pick the right time of year, and this time we went at just the right time. I got about 2500 reference images from various locations around town, albeit that wasnt the reason I went. Anyway, here I have that second part to the skin tones tutorial. I am starting this one with a single image I did quickly of color mixtures. The color mixtures are something I have seen in Dean Cornwell images, and I read about with his particular approach at one time in his illustrating.


Ethnic tones are very colorful, we have yellowish to pale tones for asian types, as well as earth reds and dark siennas for high climate asians, and asians in the sun all the time. It is a different kind of sun tan, less rich in orangy colors, but still rich in tone.
African americans have a great variety of dark tones in the flesh, remembering that none of it is ever as peak-ed or pasty as a caucasian would have in his tones. The African American tones have beautiful purples and blues in them with specific ethnic types of africans, while some have rich reds and beautifully subdued greens in their skintones.
Indians have rich reds, umbers yellow ochres in their tones, and on and on. Skin tones are so varied, yet so alike, just subtle changes of hue will change the ethnic type, skin tone, immediately.
Black skin, is a wonderful mirror of light, reflecting great blues and blue purples from the sky during the day, purples and reds in the evening, and then picking up any and all light sources at night and adhering strictly to the colors of that light.
Asian tones pick up a lot of reflected light, especially if it is rich in color, and this tends to wash out the local color of the flesh in a large surface area, influencing the entire area with that tone, if the reflected light is semi strong to very strong; day light or spot lights...
1) I took base colors of reds to purples to blues to greens and layed them down opaque to begin with. This is what dean cornwell would do if he wanted to get a good representation of the opposite color, having the little bits and chunks of influence of the other colors in the tones he was producing. Then I took the opposite color, the complement, or close to the complement, the atypical flesh tone we reach for, and I transparently glazed it over the colors, and the results are there for us to see, the rich colors underneath influence the typical tones of flesh, giving them life, and clarity as to the ethnic type. Spend time looking at people in teh mall, out on the town, where ever, and look for the colors of the skin. They are richer than you think. Because we are ACCUSTOMED TO LOOKING AT PICTURES, we have a different idea of what a skin tone is. Its not quite what you think it is typically. All the subleties that make skin tones what they are are washed out in photos most of the time for the sake of the photograph. Too many colors is too real, not photographic. Not to mention, the print process looses 20-40% of the subtle tones that reality does always produce.

We need to get away from training our eye with photos, and use nature to see clearly the colors we need.

Then we can use the photos to make our pictures, and not dictate our pictures.

2) I did the same thing here, making egg shapes representing the simple head shape. I gave the balls a gradation, much like in step 4, as I will explain then. Once the volume was found, I reached for those skin tones, and I glazed them transparently over the surface of the colors, achieving richer tones than I would have if I just painted in the typical tones I am expecting to paint in, such as the black ball in step 3.

3) a black ball, or a head we would typically paint if we were to paint a black person(African American)...if the picture is painted in this fashion first, make sure to remember to justify top planes, or planes adjacent to the sky by using good rich reflective tones of the light source in its relative color. And make sure that the tone is lighter than the source is. That is, if it is sky, do not use as intense a hue as teh sky is, lighten it with white by at least 20% or more to make it feel like light.

4)I put this here to show how to look at a mature face in color tone. Mature meaning, not painting kids who have yet to reach puberty. The top, or forehead region is yellowish in tone typically.
The middle band is the area of the features. These features, because they are so thin and have blood flowing through them, they are ruddier, redder in complexion. If one gets sun, this area is most effected with burn colors.
The Lower band is the jaw area. On the left is a male ball, the jaw area being bluer in complexion, because of the influence of facial hair. the ball on the right represents the female head. Instead of facial hair we represent, we are actuall representing the turning planes that move quickly away from direct light, and take on the ground plane reflected tones, or tones from the shoulders, etc. these tend to be earthen in tone, and when used, they do not represent facial hair whatsoever. Not to mention, when using tone, and when painting half tones in flesh, we typically use a blue or a green to modulate these tones, so in so using green, it works more harmoniously with the female ball, while not misrepresenting the gender.

these two balls have no half tones included in them. that is a different problem to solve, and I will cover it a bit in part 2, that will take me a bit to put together, but I will post here this afternoon...

thanks, good to be back...


Fred
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RJL

[Tinusch]

Fred, this is amazing. Thank you so much for these. Can't wait for the next part.

[Tinusch]

x

[ChiaNi]

Fred Flick Stone: Welcome home. happy to see your post again. thank you to post your knowlage for all of us.
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Holly sprite

[immi]

Fred! Your Host sucks!

[Fred Flick Stone]

thanks everyone, for the support. I am looking into a better, more stable jost, since the free sites seem to suck really bad...heh


Alright, I am off to class. There will be another tutorial posted here before the weekend is out. If you catch any errors in these let me know. see ya soon.



Fred
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RJL

[immi]

mirrored: http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials/14030

[wolfen]

How is this for dark skin tones? This was my first time doing tones like this.

BTW... look into http://www.portland.co.uk I have not had any complaints with them.

[jr]

what's going on why are people digging up these old threads?
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[PoX]

Yeah I keep thinking freds got new tutorials out...

[wolfen]

Sorry about that guys, I was lookin for a good skin tone tutorial and I did not realize the thread was this old. I am just a noob here... lol