the best skin coloring/shading tip i've heard is that lighter skin is mainly given form by the shadows while darker skin is mainly given form by the lighting.
As a digital artist, I find darker skin tones much easier to color. I always worry about making lighter skin tones look too pale. Darker colors are easier for me to shade and highlight, but that's just me. However, I can see darker skin tones being harder to color traditionally (with markers, pencils, etc).
Because traditionally the colors they provide typically isn’t great with dealing darker shades. (Personally makes it look muddy)Unless you have the extra money for better art supplies. I, just not confident with doing them as I don’t want to do a shitty job on a dark skin tone. Tho I agree digital art makes it. More easy to access and process.
when I’m drawing traditionally, dark skin tones are hard However when I’m doing digital art they are easier. Idk why 😂 I still think that you should try drawing POC bc it’s just good for your skill, even if it’s hard.
Donut Cult Well just think about it, when you put a layer of paint (or wax/pastel/whatever) down you just have to keep working with it. So if you put too much of one color then you can’t immediately subtract it and instead have to compensate with more of another color, which can then just keep sending you in circles. Digitally, if you have a color that leans too far towards one shade, all you have to do is undo or erase it and start again.
I think it’s easier digitally because you don’t have to keep mixing colors if you’re painting. I find this faster as well! Though I still try to paint as well 😊
I don't think the divide is traditional, but medium. A lot of traditional media only really let you move darker. Even when you can move lighter, you're either laying down pure blinding white, which isn't a good surface to do more work over, or it ends up washing things out, and doesn't look good either. Painting might actually be one of the better areas here for colouring darker skin tones, since you have a much greater capacity to work in either direction, and can much more easily mix colour to correct areas that aren't how you want them. With digital art, you can go either way, and entirely throw out most of these limitations.
It's because a lot of traditional media doesn't allow you to go back from dark. Once you put too much color down it's a lot harder to put white over it with things like copic markers, watercolor and more opaque colorings. With colors that aren't as opaque like oil and acrylic you have to wait for the color to dry mostly to lighten and highlight. With lighter colors sometimes you don't even put down a main color and just use oranges and pinks to shade and still make an illusion of color. You can't really do this with darker colors. Tldr version: most mediums go from light to dark and are harder to lighten up. It's not just skin. Sidenote: many SJWs will accuse you of blacksploitation if you draw a lot of afro influenced themes as a white person. (I don't agree with this sentiment I've just seen it happen a few times with artists) Sooo watch out for that. It's another reason artists may not want to Branch out.
it could actually be a system of the fact that the darker colors of markers dont' have that much range and the paler colors. Its also hard to shade with more pigment with watercolors (especially if you use a cheaper brand). If you only know one technique for shading (anything) the art will be less forgiving the darker/ more saturated you go. I always find the more experiences/advance artists have more range and often actually go darker with their skin tones. And thinks for the video idea, I might make a tutorial on coloring darker skin tones.
Fantastic insight and a balanced, understanding view, especially taking in account the materials being used and level of the artist. I also think a tutorial for darker skin tones would be a great idea!
That's funny, I find it easier. Though that may be because of the fact that I tend to work with cheap art supplies. I use these Wish alcohol markers, there's only one pale skin marker and its came dryer and the most smudgy out of all the markers, but there tones of browns that worked well and because of that all my character are dark skinned because its that or they will be paper white.
I find it is very hard for me to make black people's skin with graphite or charcoal on white paper because it requires more forethought, planning, and time to build layers of shading. But, with digital art I find it harder to make shading without getting too dark, so I don't add enough shading sometimes to avoid this, so the person comes out looking too pale and washed out, if I am not careful. So for the most part, almost all of my portraits in black and white are white people, while almost all the colored digital paintings I make are of black people. I only diverge from this when I have a lot of time to practice so I can keep going back and starting over lol. :)
@@jamesandchante Aahhh, improving is really good!! I am still trying my best to learn how to shade skin tones. I decided to practice with a ballpoint pen and I am shocked at the results, because I expected it to look worse comparing to what I saw on paper. I think my biggest problems when it comes to shading skin with pencil, is that it gets really streaky. I am unsure how to fix that. Do you have any tips on how I can improve on that????
Honestly I think a lot of people avoid drawing dark skin, and I mean actual dark skin and not medium brown (cause people act like they're interchangeable), because they're too focused on contrast. Everything has to contrast; lineart against color, hair against skin against clothes, etc but dark skin people don't exist that way. It's not impossible to create a dark skin character with dark brown eyes and black hair. It can be done, those features don't need to be matched with pale skin
Honestly, there are so few people with skin so dark it doesn't contrast with their other features very well that there's rarely going to ever be any need to be worried about that. Even very dark skin tones contrast fine with hair, and humans have white sclera. The biggest issue might be lineart, which seems to me more getting overly drawn into stylistic choices.
For someone who has a style of drawing dark environments, it's easier to see the effect of the darker environment on a pale person than a dark person. I've made a drawing with 4 of my characters, 2 paler and 2 darker and the pale 2 stand out much more and demonstrate how dark the room actually is much better. I'm not saying that you shouldn't draw dark characters, but it's easier to convey something about the environment in one drawing with pale characters.
pinkishtoast But in your case it is a direct choice that works for what You Are doing. You should not draw something to prove that You Can, but because it works in the situation You Are in.
I am black, and it discouraged me for a very long time when I first started drawing because I didn't see a lot of black people in art. It's also really hard to find examples or coloring tutorials and things, so I had a lot of struggles for a long time, and as a result, many characters I drew that I wanted to be 'black' came out far too light, or simply 'muddy'. I learned over time though, and yes, it is a bit more difficult sometimes, but I've found the more you do it, the easier it gets. I've learned purples, reds and blues are colors you often can't use on lighter skin tones bc they're so strong and dominant, but on darker skintones, they can bring more life to it. Same thing is true with lighter tones--sometimes greens, yellows, oranges look far better being used for paler tones. But it can be done beautifully in both ways, and I adore learning different ways now.
I’ll suggest studying stylised characters as they tend to exaggerate the colors . An example you could find is Tyler bolyard on artstation. He has really good example of brown skin characters. Hope that helped
As an african american with extremely dark skin and kinky curly hair, I definitely do think that darker skintones are much more difficult to master. When people start drawing, its almost entirely caucasian or other lighter skinned populations and fundamentally this causes differences in how light and shadow play across skin. The patterns of color are completly different as well, since lighter skin tones reflect so much more color from the environment and underneath the skin. We don't get taught how to draw african features, we have to figure it out ourselves later.
I am werid because I find darker tones easier to color for me, because the shade is easier to get right and blend in for me. When I had to do more pale characters, I have to find pink and other werid shades that never look good to me for some reason. I practice for hours and I still end up making paler characters more sickley looking than any darker tone characters.
lakamokolaka I'm the same way. I find working with pencils and markers especially challenging for lighter skin because they are much harder to mix and find the right shades, but I also struggle with mixing paint that looks good for lighter skin. Usually my characters turn out looking sickly (like you said), too pink, or just too lifeless
lakamokolaka lol, hey least you are trying! Coloring is hard for me. I usually stick with pencil art. I have just started to get into coloring in digital and with markers, all skin tones are hard for me!
I agree, I had to get really good at blushing or my light characters looked washed out. Despite being very pale and literally having a reference ON MY ARM, darker skin tones have always been easier and felt much more alive to me when I draw them.
i will say the lack of accurate and deep skin colors in art supplies is a reality ( like how any person with dark skin has struggles with finding a good makeup foundation among 20 beiges and pinks, hopefully thats changing) but traditional art ends up in this realm of Way too Many white artists that are comfortable drawing the exact same things and even the exact same light skin tone for every single piece they make , and i think people like that shouldnt be coddled, but i would also would like to see a change in the industry you know? for people to push further so anyone can have the oportunity and motivation to learn, in ends up being easier in digital art to color deep dark skin tones since you can easily pick the color dropper for it (yet ive seen some REFUSE to even try, imagine that) but yeah thats my opinion in this whole issue
Yeah i agree. I've been getting back into art, and I've been illustrating full drawings and the dark skin tone options are so limited. The amount of mixing is deadly to my creativity sometimes. U really have to work or good browns etc
pepi diablo very true! Most browns I find are usually too red based, or way too yellow based; neither work well when searching for a good skin tone! I saw a good tip for alcohol markers though, you can get a slick surface; like a yoghurt lid, a glazed plate, empty metal tin, etc. deposit your color, add/mix another color and dilute with rubbing alcohol. You can achieve lighter colors of the same shade or use this tip to color-correct a shade that’s too x-based. Hope that helps!
There really isn't all that much need imo. Skin tone is not a thing you can stick in a tube or package in a stick. Skin is very complex, and color mixing is one of the fundamental things artists need to master. Even when you get a pre-packaged skin-tone, it's shit, and you need to mix in or layer other colours to get something that looks realistic, and every person's skin varies. It really isn't that much harder to create darker skin tones.
There is also a large culture of people (especially for younger artists who are just starting out and using the internet like tumblr and deviantart) who like to use people's race as a box. If you're Caucasian, you draw people who are Caucasian, it might also be a thing for POC but I haven't seen it, though I haven't been on artist forums since people like to freak out about what I have decided to draw for whatever reason; most of the time they just say its racist because I drew someone and I was a white person. Same with gender ideals. Men aren't "allowed" to draw women because its "sexualization" if they draw a woman's form. It's offensive for thinner people to draw heavier set people because it's "fat shaming". There is no shortage of pure offence an artist can make people by their simple character designs...it puts a lot of artist in a box and they're scared to get out of that box because it's really scary being called a racist because the character isn't the same racial background as the person who makes them. Just talking from experience and why I have decided to not make a webcomic, not try and publish stories I've written, not posted art on my channel. I don't want to be witch-hunted because I wanted to draw my character who just so happens to be dark skinned.
Wait, this is an actual thing people say? I mean I've always worked with pastels and light tones, but I can definitely use darker colors and skin tones. It is a bit easier with digital art to do darker clothing and colors, but I do work on using darker skin tones and colors in my traditional art. I am all about diversity so I'm always working on creating unique and different characters. Edit: Also, with lighter colors it is easier to make things progressively darker, and shade more, with darker colors in general it's a bit harder because you have to know EXACTLY what colors to put down in the right place. (In traditional art) That's why my digital art normally has more diversity.
@@skyt8327 eeyyeaahh my thoughts. Seems like virtue signaling more than a genuine comment. Of course, I could very well be way off base, as I don't know the poster. Just saying, if I overheard that in any scenario, it would sound cringey to me. I dunno. Not meant to be an attack, so please don't take offense! It just seemed like an unnatural comment to me.
In my opinion, it's actually not that different from pale skin. But I do understand that it can be difficult for people, since it is a pretty different pallette.
It's not about a different pallete, it's a completely different way of working. At least in traditional drawing. With pencils, for exemple, we work from light to dark in light skin tones, and pretty much any subject. We tend to work with a middle tone mainly, a few highligts and keep adding darker colors to have contrast. For darker skins, and any other darker subjects, this doesn't work that well, cause you either end up with a washed skintone/any other subject, or not enough contrast. It takes much more planning with the layers of colors and highlights for any darker subject.
@@amandalarissavieira7428 hm, I understand what you're saying. I guess since my style is pretty simplistic, I still don't take all of that in consideration. But I can see how it can be difficult! (Ps: I looked at your name, are you Brazilian?)
To be honest, it all depends on highlights and shadows, face shape, etc, you just have to have the right colors and supplies to work with. But it’s basically the same thing to me.
I think it’s also from the asinine color ranges in markers colored pencils etc. even from a young age we associate brown skin as that dark bright af crayola brown rather than a coco soft brown or a red less vibrant brown. I think people need to quit being so passive when they start taking art more seriously and really think about good base colors rather than what’s convenient.
Ahhh 😭😭 I wasn't expecting to be loved like this 😭😭 lemi you're amazing ❤️ When it comes to skin, I say just look at reference. There are some beautiful deeper toned people you can get for reference from Tumblr, pinterest, or even Google. Light is also a huge factor in doing skintones whether it be a light or dark skintone, but it is more apperent on darker the skin. Sometimes you might have to lay down the color of the light or light from the environment first then lay down darker tones (depending on The medium). Personally I love thinking about makeup and undertones of the skin for the base color. People can be an olive tone, neutral tone, warm tone, or even cool toned. But it just feels overwhelming when it comes to something more challenging and having to be more aware of things in the process, like you said, so time and patience is all you need to get through it. I just hope everyone learned that we all should practice more on colors we aren't comfortable with. And not to be afraid to try something new, and if it's not working out take a break and come back to it
I think it’s harder because with darker todays you actually have to work with the whole value spectrum and keep it in mind. Additionally you also have to make your own highlights. Where as with light skin colors you can shade the skin only and then the white of the paper will act as the highlighting section. You could also get away with this with medium skin tones but it would look super high contrast. I think people are also used to making blush tones darker than the skin tone, but if you have a darker skin tone it can be harder to get a color darker than that to use as the blush tone without it looking weird.
I've always thought coloring darker skin tones were harder to make "smooth" since darker pigments tend to show up more easily and, in my experience, requires more work to blend out since I love making smooth transitions and leaving minimal textures. I love to color with both dark and light tones and I have no problem creating different tones on digital art. On traditional, it just takes longer to get the results I want and watercolors tend to become more blotchy with the layering of darker colors. (I don't use markers, just color pencils, watercolors, and acrylic paint)
Also side note, its the same junk that make up companies try to say when it comes to darker foundations. Almost always have to buy more then one bottle to custom mix shades.
They're hard for me, everytime i do i always get the hues and saturation wrong and its really challenging for me (I'm a digital artist btw) Its also really hard to add blush on to dark skinned characters on to me, it always turns out WAY too unnatural and bright
XtrememeAbsols99 I have to agree with you on the blush thing because even tho I for the most part color dark skinned characters the blush is always difficult for me to do.
Try to look at makeup! Blushes for deeper tones are reds, deep mauve-y purple, straight up purple, and even deep corals. Try using the airbrush pen, dilute to like 20% opacity and use cool-red or a deep mauve
Y'all could try watching black/brown makeup artists on TH-cam to see exactly what foundations they use (base colour) what type of contour/bronzer (shadow colours) and what highlights and blush they use. I think it will really help to see it on real people (I can tell you we don't use the same colours as lighter skin tones, and I'm not just talking about foundation)
For adding blush on any skin tone digitally I will eye drop the skin’s colour then increase its saturation then move the colour wheel slider (sorta like a circle with a square in the middle) down, so oranges to reds/ greens to blue. I use sai and the default marker brush for blush and play with layer opacity. Hope this helps anyone 😅
One thing that really helps is just experimenting with other colors for shading! When it comes to the lineart contrast thing, I will use a small eraser or a white paint pen to help keep that contrast~! If you have a lot of other colors on the page, you could add other ones from that area on the page. Using the dark mage example, the highlight there comes from the collar of their robes. Y'know, the light blue on it that appears to touch the face? It really pops! Another issue that makes skin tones tough is making them look realistic. For lighter skin tones, it's pretty simple- yellower tones where there's less blood, reds where there's more, blue for where stubble could exist. When it comes to painting people with darker skin tones, it helps me to make the colors a little warmer to do this. :333
Here's my thought it's not that they're more difficult to color I just feel like I want to put more effort into doing darker skin tones because to a sense it actually matters more I feel like I could be somehow being rude to someone if I depicted it wrong which is something I truly don't want and in this world it seems like you can't be yelled at for drawing lighter skin tone that is my personal thought and I think this is interesting you talking about this topic specifically
Bruh, for real. I am by no means shading *ANYONE* (art pun not intended) But if I draw, let’s say an anime character- slightly darker/tanned than usual nobody bats an eye, if I draw a character lighter than they usually art (sometimes it’s just the interior lighting!) you’d get backlash, called a racist, and get excused of white-washing. Like.. I can totally see why some artists don’t even try to attempt darker skin toned characters because the pressure to not fuck up, portray it correctly, and make it looks good? That pressure is immense.
When I was first starting out they were difficult to me just because with a lighter skin tone it's easier to shade and make darker whereas a darker skin tone is already fairly dark so it's harder to contrast light and shadow, but I've had practice because I myself have a darker tan-red skin tone because of my American Indian heritage so I literally had a color palette on my body, and many of my characters (because of different species I've made) have dark grey or red or blue etc. skin tones. So it is really about practice, but I do think it is a bit more difficult to draw a darker skin tone because it's more difficult to make the light and the dark areas have a strong contrast.
I think it 100% depends on one's circumstances. When I was in an art class a while back, I noticed that a lot of fair skinned kind who grew up drawing people who looked like them really struggled with drawing and shading people with dark skin, and the darker skinned kids struggled shading lighter skin tones. As for me, while I don't find one skin tone more difficult than the other in media's I'm more familiar with like graphite, acrylic, and watercolor, I'm a total marker noob and I find it difficult to blend any darker colors without them getting muddy.
I personally find it difficult to color dark skin tones when I'm painting with watercolors and water based markers. Usually when I use alcohol based markers or digital art, I don't really have a hard time. The problem is that if the colors look splotchy or uneven, it's hard to hide (which can be super frustrating). Anyways, this video was very inspiring! I'm motivated to experiment with different skin tones now :D Amazing video as always!
Since I’m black I’ve kinda used my own skin colour as a crutch, I literally just take tones from pictures of myself, and study my face. That’s why it’s been easier for me to colour darker skinned people, on the flip side it’s harder for me to draw lighter skinned people.
I love drawing fantasy skin colors 😍 the difference in hues and shades always attracted me so coloring darker skin tones has never been a problem 💞 Coloring lighter skin tones howsoever is a lot more difficult 😂😂 I always make them look like they got a horrible tan 😂😂
One thing I’ve always found interesting though, is that it is easier for me to make dark-skinned dolls. I do crochet, and it is hard to find good skin tones in yarn. However, there are more options among the brown yarns. If I want to make a white person, I have to either make them olive-skinned or completely bleach white.
Hmm, I'm not sure if it's really difficult. I've seen people able to color dark tones all the time, on clothing, backgrounds, animals etc. So applying it to a person shouldn't be too hard. But for a long time i was only drawing lighter skinned characters. Even me, being darker skin, i would color myself light. And I think it ties to growing up only seeing that in cartoons/anime? It's what we're use to and seen as appealing at the time. Even blue or green characters were more common. When i wanted to draw darker characters, i felt a bit of shame because it wasn't the norm, so i stood away from it. But eventually i stopped caring and when i started coloring darker characters, it wasn't that hard. I use the same techniques as i would lighter characters. It just takes a bit of practice and understanding color theory. But I think the big problem and this is why i sometime see it as an excuse is: People will say it's difficult and give up on trying or practicing, hiding behind "It's hard". A lot of things are hard when you start out but with time and practice you'll get better but you also have to "want" to do it.
aaah i love that you chose this as an art topic! i love drawing skin colors with colored pencils, but i do struggle with it when i use markers. for me using darker colors, not just deeper skin colors but dark colors in general, is always hard with markers so for me it really just depends on the medium. i can do it well with watercolors, colored pencils, pastels etc. my only issue has been with markers but i love the way you've colored skin tones with your markers so i think i might have to buy some new colors :)
my problem is that people on the internet love to point out that "your using the wrong skin color for [insert character name here]" and sometime it gets to the point that people will take your art and "fix the issue" for you to the skin tone that they think the character is. i just didn't want to run into that issue cause i dislike drama. I have nothing against any skin tone, heck i love all them all. I'd be bland if every human had the same color skin. I think i may try now anyway, and just hope no one tries to start anything. I was never trying to upset anyone by refusing, i just wanted as little drama as possible.
okay, if you can colour darker clothing then you can colour darker skin, I haven’t thought about this once and didn’t even know people struggle with it, I think it’s just an excuse because I draw all types of people without even thinking, even when I was around ten and only beginning to learn to draw
SassyMegan 101 that I understand, if they find it difficult and do practice, but some people choose to only draw light skinned people which seems non-inclusive
Clothing and skin tones aren't the same though, and therefore the coloring should convey that. My issue with painting darker skin tones was that it was impossible for me to paint the skin without making it look splotchy or just bad (color palette wise). This is because watercolor paper is white, therefore it is much easier to paint a white skin tone without making it look splotchy because it matches the paper's color much better than a darker skin tone does. So, when trying to achieve the soft blended looks that I like to have with my skin colors, the darker pigment would just look blotchy when trying to blend it in with water (because the pigment would move around, and since dark skin contrasts the white paper so much, the mistakes are even more jarring.) The difference between that and clothes is that the eye doesn't mind too much when clothes look blotchy--because some clothes can look blotchy in real life, whereas skin tends to look quite soft--due to that reason, it's much easier to allow yourself to get away with blotchy colored clothes than with blotchy skin. Dark skin tones aren't impossible to paint, but they definitely require a bit more practice than lighter skin tones.
The panting around 7:50 is so pretty I love her hair, it's so fluffy and the fishes are so pretty :'3 Also I have to same problem my main character has dark brown fur and almost black stripes, I always have to pull out her highlights more then the other characters and it's pretty annoying. But I have problems with character's with alot of white or light colors too. Because it's harder to give them highlights and then the drawing ends up looking more flat
Nowadays I don't really find darker skin tones harder to color, but I know that when I was younger I just didn't know where to start. Because I just didn't know what the mid and undertones of darker skin were. I was just overwhelmed and ended up not really drawing it at all. I actually learned to color darker skin tones, by learning to colour lighter skin with more colour. As in, blues, greens, purples, etc. And from there on it's much easier to go dark.
I think there's a whole mix of factors that go into this topic, that can really complicate it. For me personally, I don't recall having issues (ie fear/difficulty, doesn't mean I was any good in general, haha) with coloring darker skin, it just wasn't something I did often growing up, for reasons explained in the next paragraph. Not to dive too much into it, but it's almost unavoidable, haha, but race does play a part, from my experience and from observing others. It seems like people can often feel more willing/comfortable to color skin that matches either themselves or the people around them. (Another fantastic example is gender. It's very common to find girls drawing only girls, and finding boys difficult to draw. Same with body types, age, etc.) I'm white, I grew up in a primarily white neighborhood with a primarily white school. Like you mentioned, cartoons I watched also had a primarily white cast. (Baring they were human, haha.) So I mostly drew white people. In middle school, one of my friends, who was black, showed me some of her artwork, in which she drew all black people. I'm not saying this as a blanket statement, but as a factor. (I would also mention racism as a factor, but that's too much for just a YT comment.) I think another factor is contrast in general. Beginner artists often avoid dark colors and harsh shadows completely. Drawing darker skin tones often involves having to lay down an initial dark flat tone for the skin. There's a feeling of permanence, even amongst digital artists, from what I've seen. The fear of going dark probably also turns people away from darker skin. For me personally, I find all skin difficult to color. Even in paler tones, there's so much that goes into it. But like you said, it all comes down to practice :)
Off topic: I've really missed your topic videos, they really bring a nice thinking vibe to an art video that you don't experience with them that often. The combination of a interesting speed paint and an interesting topic discussion is really quite attractive for an art video. Glad you made this one and hopefully (fingers crossed) we'll be seeing a lot more in the near future like before
For me, It depends on what type of media I am using at the time. If I'm doing a traditional piece, I have think of what approach I have to take, am I doing all shading or doing all mostly lighing with a little bit of shading. I find it easy to start from the neutral / the overall skin color of a person so I can know what to do. Then I work around that. What help me with dark skin was white on black paper because I use to only think of shading a piece not the light aspect of it. Since I had to change my focus from the dark areas to the light areas.
the only trouble i have with coloring darker skin tones is that i don't have enough darker skin tone colors! but I still enjoy coloring darker skin tones with the colors i DO have for the same reason--contrast! (i need to work on it) but i don't usually draw backgrounds so drawing darker skinned characters really pop off the page for me!
I think it might also be a lack of practice as well. Most people start drawing lighter skin tones and continue that way. If you only colour light skin tones most of the time, of course, changing up the pallet is going to be harder.
I honestly had never heard that darker skin tones were harder to paint before. I guess I'm more of an acrylic mind set when painting digitally since I add both lighter and darker tones to the skin while painting but I have to say mid tones are my comfort zone. I haven't experimented enough with either of the extremes. I can't say much about lineart since I stoped using it a while ago but I guess one could say exactly the same about white highlights on a very pale skin. Anyway, harder or not I agree it shouldn't be an excuse to not try at least :c
All skin tones have under tones + blood (under the skin). Skin essentially works the same way whether it's light or dark. The only difference I have noticed is the reflectivity of darker skin tones but this has more to do with how light works than the actual skin.
I guess I need to add that light skin tones with marker can have other problems. Like with dark skin, if I accidentally put a shadow color that's too dark, then it doesn't bother me so much. I have put too dark shadows on pale skin and ruined the whole piece.
My general opinions 1) For watercolour it really depends on the paper. 100% cotton is best for successful layering. 2) gouache and acrylic opacity does work better for darker skins correct! 3) mixed media is a great option for darker skintones! 3) start with coloured tone either digitally or coloured paper and use gouache or acrylic. Digitally I recommend midtone background as a great option for overall balanced colours and tone actually! 4) practice! Even if it’s hard do it anyway! 5) as you said the ambient lighting and luminosity of skin are interesting. If there is coloured light or bounce light source for example. 6) different tasks require different methods and techniques. Great video thanks!
I started art with acrylics and digital, I've never had much of an issue with coloring dark skintones, if anything I think it may be easier for me. Recently I've been working with some watercolor and it gives me a lot of trouble because of the transparency, and one of the issues I have is with darks in general.
I actually don't have much of an opinion on this because I don't even draw humans much, and when I do draw them the drawings aren't usually colored because right now I'm more worried about trying to get anatomy right.
I use as many mediums as I can. I use markers, pastels, charcoal, acrylic paint, water color, colored pencil and even digital. For me I don't find it necessary more difficult to color darker skin tones but just more so I don't draw them as often as I would like to. I find it interesting that some people feel like one color is more or less challenging to use than another color. For me I feel like it holds the same amount of difficulty.
It really depends on the medium. For example, with alcohol markers. They tend to have a streaking problem that is far easier to see with darker colors than lighter colors, so if you don't know what you're doing you can end up with a dark skinned person with a very streaky complexion (like I did in my very first marker illustration ever T_T.) It can be done well though, because I've seen 9tger people who can get ridiculously smooth laydowns of all their colors. This doesn't mean I'm going to not color dark skin with my markers, I just need to figure out the best way to do it. Now if we're taking something like digital art? There's really no excuse there.
For me it depends on the medium i'm using, with watercolour brush pens i find it quite hard (when you layer a lot of colour it can often lead to the paper pilling and the colours looking muddled). With just pencil i find it easier to do dark skin colours because it creates better contrast for shadows and highlights on the skin. Then when i used to do digital art i also found dark skin colours easier due to the created contrast (which could be lacking in very pale skin). With charcoal and white pastel chalk it's more difficult unless i work on brown paper, but on white paper it's harder because charcoal can become harder to blend nicely as it is darker meaning the darkest shadows on a person of colour would make it a bit difficult. Just colour pastel chalk i find it a bit difficult too as i don't have the right chalk colours (no nice tan or brown colours for the skin). So, it all depends on what the medium allows you to do and maybe your artstyle as well. For me the medium i use has been largely the reason for why i go for certain skin tones more often, currently it's mostly lighter skin tones because i'm using watercolour brush pens a lot, but for my pencil drawings it's not at all uncommon for me to go darker.
For me, it’s completely equal between the two. I do actually enjoy coloring darker skin tones and darker hair colors because when I color, I always start with a pale color, and depending on how dark I want the object or whatever I’m coloring, I add more and more layers of shading, and I really enjoy shading and adding more layers.
We I started using copic markers I mainly colored pale characters, but I started creating oc's who had dark skin. At first I found it very difficult to find a way to color dark skin but after a while I finally found a way to achieve the dark skin that if wanted for my ocs. And honestly I have more dark skin ocs than I have light skinned, so I began coloring more dark skinned characters. And recently I started using gouache for about a month now. And I found it to be more easier to paint my dark skinned oc with gouache, even tho I struggled with gouache I somewhat knew what colors I needed to mix to kinda get the dark skin I wanted. And when I tried to mix a lighter skin color, boy I having a really hard time with it, I really had no idea of what colors to mix to get the pale skin paint that I wanted, thankfully I finally figured it out. So I think that it can be that ppl just don't practice coloring dark skin as much as they do with pale skin but, even so for me I color litter skin faster than I do with darker skin, so it might seem difficult because you need more layers to achieve a darker skin tone. Since I had realized that I find it extremely difficult to paint dark skin with watercolor.
I struggle with dark skinned characters because I mostly do grayscale or black as most of what I do is traditional pencil and inking. Now digital art is a lot different, and honestly I find it a lot easier than struggling with the shading on pencil and paper. I hope this makes sense. It's midnight and I can't even think at the moment lol.
Pyrrols How long did it take you to find that combination of colors though? How much did you expierment to find them? I ask because I struggle with that issue with more lighter tone characters and want to know what will work.
lakamokolaka Well what I use is a skin tone reference at the side when I colour. I get mine off of Google and I shade match. Acrylic paint is a lot easier to use for me personally cause it's more opaque and easier to use. For water colours I recommend from going to dark to light for a potential bleeding like how I've suffered in the past.
lakamokolaka (If you use watercolors) You could always water down a shade of brown as a start, but since its lighter skin tones you’re struggling with, there are a LOT of videos out on that. Danica Sills, Jenny Granberry, and Mind of Watercolor are youtubers i learned the most from when it comes to skintones. Ive been painting since about mid 2016 and even though i was still able to achieve lighter tones now, today im way better. A good example of a light skin tone you could achieve is using a cool toned yellow, cool toned red, and a yellow ochre. My best advice is to just get to mixing random colors on scraps of paper to see what you can get and go from there!
I don't even color enough...usually when I color, I color either with crayola markers or colored pencils that I got over the years when I went school supplies shopping. I find coloring dark skin with colored pencils easy, but with markers and a limited palette and knowledge of blending..it feels difficult. With pencils, I find darker skinned colored easier. I still try with markers..but it is still difficult to me
Digitally drawing different skin tones doesn't have the limitations that traditional art does. In any program you have the option of selecting any colour you want. So as long as you have experience with colouring skin tones then its all right. But traditionally if you buy materials, (colour pencil/markers) most colour palettes have at most usually 2-3 extremely pale and dark skin tones. The rest are usually mid skin tones. That usually leaves you with the option of mixing tones/colours to get the actual skin tone you are trying to draw. That is where a lot of difficulty arises for artists (especially those who can't afford buying more than the average set of colours/materials)
For me, my issue is just finding the correct color for darker skin tones AND I don’t have access to medium toned paper.I use colored pencils so whenever I use a darker skin tone, all my streaks and empty space all show up a lot more against the white paper. Also almost all Browns I find have really strange undertones that are hard to work with in a palette. That’s my little tea, hope y’all don’t spill it 🧡
I wouldn't say they're harder or easier to color. For me, it's like...I'm pale. So coloring people with peachy, pink undertones comes more naturally to me. That being said, I can color people of color just as easy. Having said that I don't do it enough and I need more practice.
I honestly do have the *worst* time drawing and working with dark skin tones in paint and alcohol based markers. Like.. if I mess up, I can make it a bit darker or shade more.. and it just snowballs from there. If I mess up on a light skinned drawing, I can darken and shade it and they become tan- if I darken and shade a darker skinned drawing it’ll get lost in the line-art and if it’s too dark I can’t shade or define. That’s only with paint and alcohol markers though because those are hard to manipulate.
For me I prefer using darker skin tones but that's due to my art supplies making the light skin tones muddy or too yellow. I'm also not the familiar with the art medium I've been drawn too (watercolors) and there's a pretty perfect cool and warm dark skin tone that I just add either a little yellow or red to and they're pretty perfect. Saying that tho, it's really easy to make dark skin tones, dark clothing, and dark hair muddy. I honestly think it depends on the experience of the artist, their art supplies, and what style they lean towards.
I don't think that it's necessarily harder but most people, like you said, have less experience in drawing darker skin tones and less exposure to darker character archetypes to follow.
On paper darker skin is harder but only because i dont have proper coloured pencils (but i do have very good markers for a darker skin, but then again, they are the only markers that i have). But digitally? If im colouring a white person i always have to change the colours later because they end up being straight up ghosts. POC characters are always fun to draw because i LOVE shading and highlighting these colours, which is why i mostly have ocs with dark skin, lol.
I personally feel like darker tones are trickier to shade, and lighter ones to apply lightings, so in order to make the skin look nice I try working on both - I feel like good lightings on a dark tone and good shadings on a light one are what makes them nice and lively, it's kind of logical when you know how light works, but it's just my trick to make it easier. I like unnatural colors so whether it's for the flat color or the light/shade, I wanna experiment with everything because those really set the mood and the setting of your drawing. Also I like using a white/lighter lineart whenever I want the character to pop up when it got very dark tones touching each other - such as the cute lil characters you showed. But really, I think the difficulty depends on what you're used to do and is something personal, so trying your own things is the best way to learn and get used! Also I've been trying watercolors and doing more traditional drawings lately thanks to you, I'm really thankful for the inspiration you gave me since I started watching you!!
I honestly find it hard to paint super pale people, or those with super rich, dark skin. I have no idea why. My people always end up being mid toned. Also, I've also found it harder to work with warmer temperatures of all skin degrees. So basically, I'm in a rut of mid toned, slightly muted, people, which isn't necessarily bad since I also draw plants, animals, landscapes. Back to the question, I do feel that medium makes HUUUUGE difference. I've honestly had an easier job making skin 3 dimensional using oil paint, and colored pencils, than I have with watercolors. I've also had trouble with gouache, but that's because it's still very new to me, but anyway. Overall, it really just is up to the skill level that the person has with the medium, and the knowledge of how skin works. When I think about skin when I'm painting, it's intimidating, because it never turns out how I imagine. Like you said, skin looks different depending on the location no matter the skin color, and that's why I find it intimidating. Anyway, I've rambled on enough. If you actually read my whole schpeal type chicken nuggets.
I don't think it's really hard for me to pick a color for skin, and I usually have fun with those colors. I mostly use browns or bright colors with desaturated shading and some highlight.
I feel like light-coloured anything is easier to colour because light colours are a bit more forgiving. It's hard to colour a black leather jacket because you go straight in with a dark colour, while a pale pink dress is easier as you can layer slowly.
To be honest, I've never tried colouring darker colour skin before. I like drawing more gothic looking stuff, so I generally work with a pastel/desaturated pallet with pure black for high contrast.
Try not to think about art or people in that matter. It's not bad to use contrast but it seems like you're avoiding coloring darker skin for the sake of contrast which is very limiting
Personally, for the longest time I added lighter skin tones and colors on people, then about a year ago, I just switched to drawing darker people, and it was like second nature.
It is more difficult for me to draw/color darker skin tones, but not due to inexperience, but due to the lack of good dark skin tones in art supplies. I try to counter that by mixing colors to try to get the right skin tone where I can, among them.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I think darker skin is going to seem more difficult to colour because many people learn from looking at other illustrators on TH-cam and famous art in museums which has alot of drawings and paintings of characters and people with fairer skin. Artists learn how to colour and paint fair skin very well because of more examples in tutorials and they also get more practice in it. In painting for fairer skin you can use a range of peachy and tan tones or local colours and you can concentrate on slowly darkening up shadows. With darker skin you can use more ranges of colours in the local or mass tone of the skin depending on types of light the concentrate on areas where light hits. It's like an opposite process for me.
Personally, its harder for me because I can never find the right shade with the mediums I use. The markers I use don't have any browns right for skin. And for watercolor, I can't make a dark skin tone without it being too dark or too purple etc. Its just in my personal experience. Its easier for me to mix or find a pale skin tone over dark.
For me they are. Even when I use myself as a reference. Probably because there aren't enough dark skin models in figure drawing classes for me to get a practice on. I'm still working to get better thanks to the internet holding some of these models, but it is taking me some time since the pictures are just that. Pictures. Not moving images or me moving to a different spot to get a different side and angle.
With darker skintones. I struggle with undertones. How some people are cooler toned and some are warmer tone. I usually draw myself with more reddish tones even though I don't think its accurate. Also there is the planning out part. Because the more color you build the more you can't go back, or more difficult to go back.
It's always been a little harder for me to draw because, When I was younger, I used to hate drawing darker things and would always lighten everything. Now, Because of that, I haven't quite became used to drawing darker skin tones, And I've only just gotten used to light skins and tan colours. I'm also very nervous about drawing darker colours, As I don't want to get the colours wrong and get hate from everybody. I also don't know many people or characters that are dark skinned that I like to draw or just like, And I don't want to make a dark skinned oc because, Once again, I'm scared of getting it wrong and getting bullied. I know maybe one character, In all of the fandoms I'm in, That is dark skinned, And I'm still nervous about it, Especially because of her hair and outfit. Overall, I'm just very, Very nervous about drawing dark skinned people in case people hate it, And say I got the skin colour wrong, And how I offended them by getting the skin slightly off, Or very off, And how they might Ignore that I'm not used to drawing that skin tone, And say I'm just making excuses. ♡Thanks for reading♡
So far in my art, I’ve found it hard to do darker skin tones. But the only reason for this is that I don’t really have a chance to. The only medium I have is a handful of copics that I got when I had money, and none of the stores that I go to that sell them provided something that could be used for a darker skin tone. I bought one marker that I think would be lovely, but you can’t make a gorgeous skin tone with one color. I know this has a lot to do with how copics never have any stock, but there were five or six very light skin tone colors that I was able to find no problem and are usually stocked. Hopefully I’ll be able to buy more soon so that I can give it a good shot.
They are for me. I do traditional art and use coloured pencils a lot, the main problem I have is what colours to use for the skin tone. I do want to though and I still do sometimes. Honestly I need to buy more browns and stuff lol
Its kinda weird for me hearing the idea that darker shades of skin are harder when you see some of the peole that use this argument draw purple red and blue skin without any trouble but the moment it becomes a more brown color they can't so it anymore
I think that for some people the reason why they dont make characters with a certain skin tones may be.. Money. Lets say I want to work with alcohol based markers, most of them are rather expensive, for a person who does not have a lot of money it will take tham quite a time to get a good range of colors to work with. Also look at some of the brands and their "SKIN TONES" sets - Graphit markers are selling skin tones sets, big one and small one, when you look at the colors in the sets they all pretty much LIGHT. Copic has two little sets of skin colors, one with the lighter ones and the other with dark ones, now lets imagine a situation where I can afford only one of these sets, now if I get the set 1 I will be only able to draw characters with light skin tones for as long as I wont get enough money to get myself another set, if I get set 2 I will be able to draw dark skinned characters only again until I wont get the other set.
With me I can draw normal human skin tones but if im making fan art of invader zim or Steven universe I find darker greens and oranges, extra harder to color with and even with more vibrant colors its hard, I can color iteams and clothing that way perfectly fine but just when it comes with that I guess its looks more weirder bc it's more of a human looking thing and most humans arnt green, idk
I think for me it's harder to paint darker skin tones in watercolor simply because of how light and translucent the paint naturally is but that just means it takes longer to build up the colors to make the skin darker. It's not impossible though. I think it's easier to do darker skin tones when using more pigmented mediums i.e. oil, acrlyics, marker, colored pencils. I dont really see a difference in difficulty in painting any skin tone when using these mediums
they're the same for me, as someone who's practiced them about equally from the beginning. skin is a little hard in general but it's way easier when you study life. :p
To me it depends on the medium, watercolor is easier for me with darker skin tones, mostly because I have nice colors for dark skin, markers are harder though because I don't have enough skin colors at all...
Ironically, I actually prefer drawing people of color because I find them so easy and fun to color. I started to practice drawing people of color this year, and I actually found I like drawing characters with darker skin tones more than ones with lighter skin tones, but that may be because I’m a digital artist. I find my pieces featuring characters of color to be easier to draw and color, and it helped me learn different techniques I didn’t excel at before. This is just me though, but I still personally recommend to at least try and draw/color characters with darker skin if you don’t already, because you may be surprised with how it goes!
When i draw with colored pencils, people with darker skintones are no problem but with watercolor, for me, it's much harder because you really need to play with the white of the paper, to not make it too dark. I also need much more layers. And i'm not so skilled with watercolor, so a lot of layers are hard to make without making big mistakes, that would ruin my painting. I still make a lot of paintings with people with darker skintones. But tbh I have a problem with darker tones in general with watercolor
Personally i find skintones difficult to do in generall though if im doing traditional art then i find darker skin a little easier because the cheap ish art supplies i do have kinda make it kinda difficult for me to do without accidentally making them look like a oompa loompa. Though to be fair this probably has more to do with my skill level and lack of proper understanding on how to do under and overtones in skin which is a bit more obvious in lighter skin which can have some blues pinks and reds in some areas. On computer i can just take a skintone reference photo online and color drop it and mess around with it untill im happy with what i have. Of course with my current skill level the skin ends looking a little flat but that's just something i need to work on.
I think darker (human) skin tones are more fun because you get to use lots of different shades of browns to get the color you want. However, if people don't want to draw people with darker skin color, then whatever! It's their choice as an artist what they want to draw.
Could it be that the darker the subject matter, what ever it is whether it be humans, rocks, animals, landscapes, that it is the lack of understanding and study of contrast and saturation and that people who find those generally difficult , will obviously find darker skin tones difficult, because they don’t understand how to lay how dark areas are and where the lighter areas are and learning to see those lights is a process in itself.
I hear some people say they don’t make characters of color because they want to be respectful and not end up with a caricature or a stereotype (or a “white person painted brown”, so to speak). Sis. Hardly anyone cares if you mess up as you’re learning! Plenty of artists regardless of ethnicity are willing to give tips and advice on drawing and coloring POC. In fact, you can find mounds of full-blown tutorials on the Internet. We live in an era where we have more access to more resources than anyone else in the history of the world, so by this point, there should be no excuse. I have to disagree that this applies to other colors, though. Plenty of artists (these same artists, even!) can work with any color on the skin because they realize making it look nice after the form (learning the form of a face is dependent on the features of a face and not the color) is a matter of good color theory, and they can make a light or dark blue face look nice. It just seems suspicious that I only see this come up when it comes to natural skin tones. Also. Vividra has warm, reddish purple highlights on her artwork! I think you could have prioritized that, but it still looked cute, anyway~ I keep editing this comment but! On a final note I want to recommend a watercolor artist who absolutely _kills_ painting dark skin; her name is Kelly Eddington and she does a lot of portraits of real people. It’s kind of a proof that you can reach that acrylic level of opacity using only watercolor. Anyway, this was a great video as usual, and thanks for being sensitive about the topic! (If it were me I’d have gone in a lot harder but. I like your take on it)
I find them more difficult to color *traditionally* sheerly because of my art supplies, but *digitally* they're not really harder to color for me. The difficulties mostly stem from the fact that I don't have supplies to line with properly, so the details of faces get lost with darker tones if I don't pay attention properly. This isn't*as* much of an issue with things like hair, or clothing, since there the details don't usually matter as much. However, losing facial features is an issue.
It's more about knowing what colours to use, how to put down, etc. from my exepierence. Digitally I struggle with darker skin with it either coming out ashy or too orange-although I've gotten better. Traditionally it kinda comes with ease? My colouring/shading style however just lends itself to darker colours. My main probelm traditionally is with paint mixing all skin tones. With watercolours pale skin tones are difficult, gouache its the darker tones because Ive got tube thats reely good for pale tones, and Im scared to try it with oil. I know that as I get more into oil I'll have too paint a person sooner or later and it'll prob be similar to my watercolour mixing skills. Also I do tend line after colouring in traditional. Its the norm for me to start lineless. Maybe that makes a difference? Its prob just how I view the colours and stuff personally.
4:24 I GOT IT! I think the reason some people have a difficult time coloring darker skin tones is that highlighting can get tricker, or if your using markers it may bleed out more then you'd want and cover the outline. I normally don't have trouble with drawing darker tones since I use color pencils which I test out before using the sort my tone and method of highlighting ( I like my stuff neat!) and sometimes it's harder to do that with markers since you might press down too hard or use the wrong marker. but then again I've had a decent amount of practice :D
I don't paint, but I draw, only with graphite pencils though. And I find it extremely hard to make portraits, and shade lighter skinned people compared to darker skinned people. Just an experience from a non-painter.
the best skin coloring/shading tip i've heard is that lighter skin is mainly given form by the shadows while darker skin is mainly given form by the lighting.
awesome tip, thanks!
Ari Neves this is really helpful!! I’m gonna right that one in my sketchbook!
Why is there no "love" reaction? Bah.
THIS
CHANGES
EVERYTHING
Ari Neves Wow.~ Yin & Yang!
Also thank you for the helpful tip
As a digital artist, I find darker skin tones much easier to color. I always worry about making lighter skin tones look too pale. Darker colors are easier for me to shade and highlight, but that's just me. However, I can see darker skin tones being harder to color traditionally (with markers, pencils, etc).
Hikaru Weasley FMA or FMAB?
Hikaru Weasley i find it easy
Because traditionally the colors they provide typically isn’t great with dealing darker shades. (Personally makes it look muddy)Unless you have the extra money for better art supplies. I, just not confident with doing them as I don’t want to do a shitty job on a dark skin tone. Tho I agree digital art makes it. More easy to access and process.
Hikaru Weasley, that's exactly how I feel.
picking colours for my Caucasian characters skintones is something that I still have no idea how to do
when I’m drawing traditionally, dark skin tones are hard
However when I’m doing digital art they are easier.
Idk why 😂 I still think that you should try drawing POC bc it’s just good for your skill, even if it’s hard.
Donut Cult Well just think about it, when you put a layer of paint (or wax/pastel/whatever) down you just have to keep working with it. So if you put too much of one color then you can’t immediately subtract it and instead have to compensate with more of another color, which can then just keep sending you in circles. Digitally, if you have a color that leans too far towards one shade, all you have to do is undo or erase it and start again.
I think it’s easier digitally because you don’t have to keep mixing colors if you’re painting. I find this faster as well! Though I still try to paint as well 😊
Ooh that makes sense
I don't think the divide is traditional, but medium.
A lot of traditional media only really let you move darker. Even when you can move lighter, you're either laying down pure blinding white, which isn't a good surface to do more work over, or it ends up washing things out, and doesn't look good either. Painting might actually be one of the better areas here for colouring darker skin tones, since you have a much greater capacity to work in either direction, and can much more easily mix colour to correct areas that aren't how you want them.
With digital art, you can go either way, and entirely throw out most of these limitations.
It's because a lot of traditional media doesn't allow you to go back from dark. Once you put too much color down it's a lot harder to put white over it with things like copic markers, watercolor and more opaque colorings. With colors that aren't as opaque like oil and acrylic you have to wait for the color to dry mostly to lighten and highlight. With lighter colors sometimes you don't even put down a main color and just use oranges and pinks to shade and still make an illusion of color. You can't really do this with darker colors.
Tldr version: most mediums go from light to dark and are harder to lighten up. It's not just skin.
Sidenote: many SJWs will accuse you of blacksploitation if you draw a lot of afro influenced themes as a white person. (I don't agree with this sentiment I've just seen it happen a few times with artists) Sooo watch out for that. It's another reason artists may not want to Branch out.
ALL SKIN TONES ARE DIFFICULT WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT
edit: skin tones are kinda easy for me to do now, I’ve leveled up 😎
GeekyGrace 10 OML SAME
especially traditionally!
Calm down you seem racist
And it’s not hard for me to do dark skin tones
😂😂😂
it could actually be a system of the fact that the darker colors of markers dont' have that much range and the paler colors. Its also hard to shade with more pigment with watercolors (especially if you use a cheaper brand). If you only know one technique for shading (anything) the art will be less forgiving the darker/ more saturated you go. I always find the more experiences/advance artists have more range and often actually go darker with their skin tones.
And thinks for the video idea, I might make a tutorial on coloring darker skin tones.
Fantastic insight and a balanced, understanding view, especially taking in account the materials being used and level of the artist.
I also think a tutorial for darker skin tones would be a great idea!
That's funny, I find it easier. Though that may be because of the fact that I tend to work with cheap art supplies. I use these Wish alcohol markers, there's only one pale skin marker and its came dryer and the most smudgy out of all the markers, but there tones of browns that worked well and because of that all my character are dark skinned because its that or they will be paper white.
Tbh they are the same to me.
I have difficulties on coloring any skins.
I find it is very hard for me to make black people's skin with graphite or charcoal on white paper because it requires more forethought, planning, and time to build layers of shading. But, with digital art I find it harder to make shading without getting too dark, so I don't add enough shading sometimes to avoid this, so the person comes out looking too pale and washed out, if I am not careful.
So for the most part, almost all of my portraits in black and white are white people, while almost all the colored digital paintings I make are of black people. I only diverge from this when I have a lot of time to practice so I can keep going back and starting over lol. :)
@@jamesandchante Aahhh, improving is really good!!
I am still trying my best to learn how to shade skin tones. I decided to practice with a ballpoint pen and I am shocked at the results, because I expected it to look worse comparing to what I saw on paper.
I think my biggest problems when it comes to shading skin with pencil, is that it gets really streaky. I am unsure how to fix that.
Do you have any tips on how I can improve on that????
I just have trouble using dark colours in general
Same. It doesn't help that I mostly do grayscale or just black and white unless it's digital.
Yeah
:o
XxLovelyLittlePotatoexX | what
nothing, im just shook ur here too :v
Honestly I think a lot of people avoid drawing dark skin, and I mean actual dark skin and not medium brown (cause people act like they're interchangeable), because they're too focused on contrast. Everything has to contrast; lineart against color, hair against skin against clothes, etc but dark skin people don't exist that way. It's not impossible to create a dark skin character with dark brown eyes and black hair. It can be done, those features don't need to be matched with pale skin
Honestly, there are so few people with skin so dark it doesn't contrast with their other features very well that there's rarely going to ever be any need to be worried about that. Even very dark skin tones contrast fine with hair, and humans have white sclera.
The biggest issue might be lineart, which seems to me more getting overly drawn into stylistic choices.
For someone who has a style of drawing dark environments, it's easier to see the effect of the darker environment on a pale person than a dark person. I've made a drawing with 4 of my characters, 2 paler and 2 darker and the pale 2 stand out much more and demonstrate how dark the room actually is much better. I'm not saying that you shouldn't draw dark characters, but it's easier to convey something about the environment in one drawing with pale characters.
pinkishtoast But in your case it is a direct choice that works for what You Are doing. You should not draw something to prove that You Can, but because it works in the situation You Are in.
@@pinkishtoast3561 that situation is awfully specific and the same could be said for lighter colours in a light environment.
I am black, and it discouraged me for a very long time when I first started drawing because I didn't see a lot of black people in art. It's also really hard to find examples or coloring tutorials and things, so I had a lot of struggles for a long time, and as a result, many characters I drew that I wanted to be 'black' came out far too light, or simply 'muddy'. I learned over time though, and yes, it is a bit more difficult sometimes, but I've found the more you do it, the easier it gets. I've learned purples, reds and blues are colors you often can't use on lighter skin tones bc they're so strong and dominant, but on darker skintones, they can bring more life to it. Same thing is true with lighter tones--sometimes greens, yellows, oranges look far better being used for paler tones. But it can be done beautifully in both ways, and I adore learning different ways now.
I’ll suggest studying stylised characters as they tend to exaggerate the colors . An example you could find is Tyler bolyard on artstation. He has really good example of brown skin characters. Hope that helped
As an african american with extremely dark skin and kinky curly hair, I definitely do think that darker skintones are much more difficult to master. When people start drawing, its almost entirely caucasian or other lighter skinned populations and fundamentally this causes differences in how light and shadow play across skin. The patterns of color are completly different as well, since lighter skin tones reflect so much more color from the environment and underneath the skin. We don't get taught how to draw african features, we have to figure it out ourselves later.
I am werid because I find darker tones easier to color for me, because the shade is easier to get right and blend in for me.
When I had to do more pale characters, I have to find pink and other werid shades that never look good to me for some reason.
I practice for hours and I still end up making paler characters more sickley looking than any darker tone characters.
lakamokolaka I'm the same way. I find working with pencils and markers especially challenging for lighter skin because they are much harder to mix and find the right shades, but I also struggle with mixing paint that looks good for lighter skin. Usually my characters turn out looking sickly (like you said), too pink, or just too lifeless
Lol I wouldn't call yourself weird for that. Some people are on the lightside or darkside and some are in the middle! :3
Xeed029 I wish I was the middle because all my light toned characters look like cancer patients due to how sickley they look
lakamokolaka lol, hey least you are trying! Coloring is hard for me. I usually stick with pencil art. I have just started to get into coloring in digital and with markers, all skin tones are hard for me!
I agree, I had to get really good at blushing or my light characters looked washed out. Despite being very pale and literally having a reference ON MY ARM, darker skin tones have always been easier and felt much more alive to me when I draw them.
i will say the lack of accurate and deep skin colors in art supplies is a reality ( like how any person with dark skin has struggles with finding a good makeup foundation among 20 beiges and pinks, hopefully thats changing) but traditional art ends up in this realm of Way too Many white artists that are comfortable drawing the exact same things and even the exact same light skin tone for every single piece they make , and i think people like that shouldnt be coddled, but i would also would like to see a change in the industry you know? for people to push further so anyone can have the oportunity and motivation to learn, in ends up being easier in digital art to color deep dark skin tones since you can easily pick the color dropper for it (yet ive seen some REFUSE to even try, imagine that) but yeah thats my opinion in this whole issue
Wonderfully said.
Yeah i agree. I've been getting back into art, and I've been illustrating full drawings and the dark skin tone options are so limited. The amount of mixing is deadly to my creativity sometimes. U really have to work or good browns etc
pepi diablo very true! Most browns I find are usually too red based, or way too yellow based; neither work well when searching for a good skin tone! I saw a good tip for alcohol markers though, you can get a slick surface; like a yoghurt lid, a glazed plate, empty metal tin, etc. deposit your color, add/mix another color and dilute with rubbing alcohol.
You can achieve lighter colors of the same shade or use this tip to color-correct a shade that’s too x-based.
Hope that helps!
There really isn't all that much need imo. Skin tone is not a thing you can stick in a tube or package in a stick. Skin is very complex, and color mixing is one of the fundamental things artists need to master.
Even when you get a pre-packaged skin-tone, it's shit, and you need to mix in or layer other colours to get something that looks realistic, and every person's skin varies. It really isn't that much harder to create darker skin tones.
There is also a large culture of people (especially for younger artists who are just starting out and using the internet like tumblr and deviantart) who like to use people's race as a box. If you're Caucasian, you draw people who are Caucasian, it might also be a thing for POC but I haven't seen it, though I haven't been on artist forums since people like to freak out about what I have decided to draw for whatever reason; most of the time they just say its racist because I drew someone and I was a white person. Same with gender ideals. Men aren't "allowed" to draw women because its "sexualization" if they draw a woman's form. It's offensive for thinner people to draw heavier set people because it's "fat shaming". There is no shortage of pure offence an artist can make people by their simple character designs...it puts a lot of artist in a box and they're scared to get out of that box because it's really scary being called a racist because the character isn't the same racial background as the person who makes them. Just talking from experience and why I have decided to not make a webcomic, not try and publish stories I've written, not posted art on my channel. I don't want to be witch-hunted because I wanted to draw my character who just so happens to be dark skinned.
Wait, this is an actual thing people say? I mean I've always worked with pastels and light tones, but I can definitely use darker colors and skin tones. It is a bit easier with digital art to do darker clothing and colors, but I do work on using darker skin tones and colors in my traditional art. I am all about diversity so I'm always working on creating unique and different characters.
Edit: Also, with lighter colors it is easier to make things progressively darker, and shade more, with darker colors in general it's a bit harder because you have to know EXACTLY what colors to put down in the right place. (In traditional art) That's why my digital art normally has more diversity.
Jelly Tiger Productions wow ur cool
@@skyt8327 eeyyeaahh my thoughts. Seems like virtue signaling more than a genuine comment. Of course, I could very well be way off base, as I don't know the poster. Just saying, if I overheard that in any scenario, it would sound cringey to me. I dunno. Not meant to be an attack, so please don't take offense! It just seemed like an unnatural comment to me.
In my opinion, it's actually not that different from pale skin. But I do understand that it can be difficult for people, since it is a pretty different pallette.
It's not about a different pallete, it's a completely different way of working. At least in traditional drawing. With pencils, for exemple, we work from light to dark in light skin tones, and pretty much any subject. We tend to work with a middle tone mainly, a few highligts and keep adding darker colors to have contrast. For darker skins, and any other darker subjects, this doesn't work that well, cause you either end up with a washed skintone/any other subject, or not enough contrast. It takes much more planning with the layers of colors and highlights for any darker subject.
@@amandalarissavieira7428 hm, I understand what you're saying. I guess since my style is pretty simplistic, I still don't take all of that in consideration. But I can see how it can be difficult!
(Ps: I looked at your name, are you Brazilian?)
That makes sense. For simplistic drawings I even prefer darker colors. Yes, I'm brazilian, you're very good with names. Rsrsrsr.
@@amandalarissavieira7428 Na verdade, eu também sou ksjdksjdkskskd
Hiahaiahiahaia. Ahazô. Vai BR
To be honest, it all depends on highlights and shadows, face shape, etc, you just have to have the right colors and supplies to work with. But it’s basically the same thing to me.
I think it’s also from the asinine color ranges in markers colored pencils etc. even from a young age we associate brown skin as that dark bright af crayola brown rather than a coco soft brown or a red less vibrant brown. I think people need to quit being so passive when they start taking art more seriously and really think about good base colors rather than what’s convenient.
Ahhh 😭😭 I wasn't expecting to be loved like this 😭😭 lemi you're amazing ❤️
When it comes to skin, I say just look at reference. There are some beautiful deeper toned people you can get for reference from Tumblr, pinterest, or even Google. Light is also a huge factor in doing skintones whether it be a light or dark skintone, but it is more apperent on darker the skin. Sometimes you might have to lay down the color of the light or light from the environment first then lay down darker tones (depending on The medium). Personally I love thinking about makeup and undertones of the skin for the base color. People can be an olive tone, neutral tone, warm tone, or even cool toned. But it just feels overwhelming when it comes to something more challenging and having to be more aware of things in the process, like you said, so time and patience is all you need to get through it.
I just hope everyone learned that we all should practice more on colors we aren't comfortable with. And not to be afraid to try something new, and if it's not working out take a break and come back to it
had the same thought, its more thinking of mixing different shades for the different tones, then just use darker colors.
I think it’s harder because with darker todays you actually have to work with the whole value spectrum and keep it in mind. Additionally you also have to make your own highlights. Where as with light skin colors you can shade the skin only and then the white of the paper will act as the highlighting section. You could also get away with this with medium skin tones but it would look super high contrast. I think people are also used to making blush tones darker than the skin tone, but if you have a darker skin tone it can be harder to get a color darker than that to use as the blush tone without it looking weird.
To me it is a bit hard since i dont use copic markers or sth like that and its hard. On digital art though it is super easy.
Edit: why do i get likes?
I've always thought coloring darker skin tones were harder to make "smooth" since darker pigments tend to show up more easily and, in my experience, requires more work to blend out since I love making smooth transitions and leaving minimal textures. I love to color with both dark and light tones and I have no problem creating different tones on digital art. On traditional, it just takes longer to get the results I want and watercolors tend to become more blotchy with the layering of darker colors. (I don't use markers, just color pencils, watercolors, and acrylic paint)
Also side note, its the same junk that make up companies try to say when it comes to darker foundations. Almost always have to buy more then one bottle to custom mix shades.
They're hard for me, everytime i do i always get the hues and saturation wrong and its really challenging for me (I'm a digital artist btw) Its also really hard to add blush on to dark skinned characters on to me, it always turns out WAY too unnatural and bright
XtrememeAbsols99 I have to agree with you on the blush thing because even tho I for the most part color dark skinned characters the blush is always difficult for me to do.
Try to look at makeup! Blushes for deeper tones are reds, deep mauve-y purple, straight up purple, and even deep corals. Try using the airbrush pen, dilute to like 20% opacity and use cool-red or a deep mauve
I recommend sinix design video on this, it might be really helpful
Y'all could try watching black/brown makeup artists on TH-cam to see exactly what foundations they use (base colour) what type of contour/bronzer (shadow colours) and what highlights and blush they use. I think it will really help to see it on real people (I can tell you we don't use the same colours as lighter skin tones, and I'm not just talking about foundation)
For adding blush on any skin tone digitally I will eye drop the skin’s colour then increase its saturation then move the colour wheel slider (sorta like a circle with a square in the middle) down, so oranges to reds/ greens to blue.
I use sai and the default marker brush for blush and play with layer opacity.
Hope this helps anyone 😅
One thing that really helps is just experimenting with other colors for shading!
When it comes to the lineart contrast thing, I will use a small eraser or a white paint pen to help keep that contrast~! If you have a lot of other colors on the page, you could add other ones from that area on the page. Using the dark mage example, the highlight there comes from the collar of their robes. Y'know, the light blue on it that appears to touch the face? It really pops!
Another issue that makes skin tones tough is making them look realistic. For lighter skin tones, it's pretty simple- yellower tones where there's less blood, reds where there's more, blue for where stubble could exist. When it comes to painting people with darker skin tones, it helps me to make the colors a little warmer to do this. :333
Here's my thought it's not that they're more difficult to color I just feel like I want to put more effort into doing darker skin tones because to a sense it actually matters more I feel like I could be somehow being rude to someone if I depicted it wrong which is something I truly don't want and in this world it seems like you can't be yelled at for drawing lighter skin tone that is my personal thought and I think this is interesting you talking about this topic specifically
Bruh, for real. I am by no means shading *ANYONE* (art pun not intended)
But if I draw, let’s say an anime character- slightly darker/tanned than usual nobody bats an eye, if I draw a character lighter than they usually art (sometimes it’s just the interior lighting!) you’d get backlash, called a racist, and get excused of white-washing.
Like.. I can totally see why some artists don’t even try to attempt darker skin toned characters because the pressure to not fuck up, portray it correctly, and make it looks good? That pressure is immense.
When I was first starting out they were difficult to me just because with a lighter skin tone it's easier to shade and make darker whereas a darker skin tone is already fairly dark so it's harder to contrast light and shadow, but I've had practice because I myself have a darker tan-red skin tone because of my American Indian heritage so I literally had a color palette on my body, and many of my characters (because of different species I've made) have dark grey or red or blue etc. skin tones. So it is really about practice, but I do think it is a bit more difficult to draw a darker skin tone because it's more difficult to make the light and the dark areas have a strong contrast.
I think it 100% depends on one's circumstances. When I was in an art class a while back, I noticed that a lot of fair skinned kind who grew up drawing people who looked like them really struggled with drawing and shading people with dark skin, and the darker skinned kids struggled shading lighter skin tones. As for me, while I don't find one skin tone more difficult than the other in media's I'm more familiar with like graphite, acrylic, and watercolor, I'm a total marker noob and I find it difficult to blend any darker colors without them getting muddy.
I personally find it difficult to color dark skin tones when I'm painting with watercolors and water based markers. Usually when I use alcohol based markers or digital art, I don't really have a hard time. The problem is that if the colors look splotchy or uneven, it's hard to hide (which can be super frustrating). Anyways, this video was very inspiring! I'm motivated to experiment with different skin tones now :D Amazing video as always!
Since I’m black I’ve kinda used my own skin colour as a crutch, I literally just take tones from pictures of myself, and study my face. That’s why it’s been easier for me to colour darker skinned people, on the flip side it’s harder for me to draw lighter skinned people.
I love drawing fantasy skin colors 😍 the difference in hues and shades always attracted me so coloring darker skin tones has never been a problem 💞 Coloring lighter skin tones howsoever is a lot more difficult 😂😂 I always make them look like they got a horrible tan 😂😂
One thing I’ve always found interesting though, is that it is easier for me to make dark-skinned dolls. I do crochet, and it is hard to find good skin tones in yarn. However, there are more options among the brown yarns. If I want to make a white person, I have to either make them olive-skinned or completely bleach white.
Hmm, I'm not sure if it's really difficult. I've seen people able to color dark tones all the time, on clothing, backgrounds, animals etc. So applying it to a person shouldn't be too hard. But for a long time i was only drawing lighter skinned characters. Even me, being darker skin, i would color myself light. And I think it ties to growing up only seeing that in cartoons/anime? It's what we're use to and seen as appealing at the time. Even blue or green characters were more common.
When i wanted to draw darker characters, i felt a bit of shame because it wasn't the norm, so i stood away from it. But eventually i stopped caring and when i started coloring darker characters, it wasn't that hard. I use the same techniques as i would lighter characters. It just takes a bit of practice and understanding color theory. But I think the big problem and this is why i sometime see it as an excuse is: People will say it's difficult and give up on trying or practicing, hiding behind "It's hard". A lot of things are hard when you start out but with time and practice you'll get better but you also have to "want" to do it.
This actually put together a lot of the ideas I had but couldn't voice eloquently. And it makes a lot of sense
aaah i love that you chose this as an art topic! i love drawing skin colors with colored pencils, but i do struggle with it when i use markers. for me using darker colors, not just deeper skin colors but dark colors in general, is always hard with markers so for me it really just depends on the medium. i can do it well with watercolors, colored pencils, pastels etc. my only issue has been with markers but i love the way you've colored skin tones with your markers so i think i might have to buy some new colors :)
my problem is that people on the internet love to point out that "your using the wrong skin color for [insert character name here]" and sometime it gets to the point that people will take your art and "fix the issue" for you to the skin tone that they think the character is. i just didn't want to run into that issue cause i dislike drama. I have nothing against any skin tone, heck i love all them all. I'd be bland if every human had the same color skin. I think i may try now anyway, and just hope no one tries to start anything. I was never trying to upset anyone by refusing, i just wanted as little drama as possible.
okay, if you can colour darker clothing then you can colour darker skin, I haven’t thought about this once and didn’t even know people struggle with it, I think it’s just an excuse because I draw all types of people without even thinking, even when I was around ten and only beginning to learn to draw
ellcemson well maybe they struggle with it or both and they are practicing it
SassyMegan 101 that I understand, if they find it difficult and do practice, but some people choose to only draw light skinned people which seems non-inclusive
ellcemson yeah I know and I’ve noticed that sometimes I do that
Clothing and skin tones aren't the same though, and therefore the coloring should convey that. My issue with painting darker skin tones was that it was impossible for me to paint the skin without making it look splotchy or just bad (color palette wise). This is because watercolor paper is white, therefore it is much easier to paint a white skin tone without making it look splotchy because it matches the paper's color much better than a darker skin tone does. So, when trying to achieve the soft blended looks that I like to have with my skin colors, the darker pigment would just look blotchy when trying to blend it in with water (because the pigment would move around, and since dark skin contrasts the white paper so much, the mistakes are even more jarring.)
The difference between that and clothes is that the eye doesn't mind too much when clothes look blotchy--because some clothes can look blotchy in real life, whereas skin tends to look quite soft--due to that reason, it's much easier to allow yourself to get away with blotchy colored clothes than with blotchy skin.
Dark skin tones aren't impossible to paint, but they definitely require a bit more practice than lighter skin tones.
Some people are afraid to draw dark skinned people for the threat of being called racist.
The panting around 7:50 is so pretty I love her hair, it's so fluffy and the fishes are so pretty :'3
Also I have to same problem my main character has dark brown fur and almost black stripes, I always have to pull out her highlights more then the other characters and it's pretty annoying. But I have problems with character's with alot of white or light colors too. Because it's harder to give them highlights and then the drawing ends up looking more flat
I work in greyscale pencil tones a lot, so I love drawing POC as it can add some real contrast to the work!
Nowadays I don't really find darker skin tones harder to color, but I know that when I was younger I just didn't know where to start. Because I just didn't know what the mid and undertones of darker skin were. I was just overwhelmed and ended up not really drawing it at all.
I actually learned to color darker skin tones, by learning to colour lighter skin with more colour. As in, blues, greens, purples, etc. And from there on it's much easier to go dark.
I think there's a whole mix of factors that go into this topic, that can really complicate it. For me personally, I don't recall having issues (ie fear/difficulty, doesn't mean I was any good in general, haha) with coloring darker skin, it just wasn't something I did often growing up, for reasons explained in the next paragraph.
Not to dive too much into it, but it's almost unavoidable, haha, but race does play a part, from my experience and from observing others. It seems like people can often feel more willing/comfortable to color skin that matches either themselves or the people around them. (Another fantastic example is gender. It's very common to find girls drawing only girls, and finding boys difficult to draw. Same with body types, age, etc.) I'm white, I grew up in a primarily white neighborhood with a primarily white school. Like you mentioned, cartoons I watched also had a primarily white cast. (Baring they were human, haha.) So I mostly drew white people. In middle school, one of my friends, who was black, showed me some of her artwork, in which she drew all black people. I'm not saying this as a blanket statement, but as a factor. (I would also mention racism as a factor, but that's too much for just a YT comment.)
I think another factor is contrast in general. Beginner artists often avoid dark colors and harsh shadows completely. Drawing darker skin tones often involves having to lay down an initial dark flat tone for the skin. There's a feeling of permanence, even amongst digital artists, from what I've seen. The fear of going dark probably also turns people away from darker skin.
For me personally, I find all skin difficult to color. Even in paler tones, there's so much that goes into it. But like you said, it all comes down to practice :)
Off topic: I've really missed your topic videos, they really bring a nice thinking vibe to an art video that you don't experience with them that often. The combination of a interesting speed paint and an interesting topic discussion is really quite attractive for an art video. Glad you made this one and hopefully (fingers crossed) we'll be seeing a lot more in the near future like before
For me, It depends on what type of media I am using at the time. If I'm doing a traditional piece, I have think of what approach I have to take, am I doing all shading or doing all mostly lighing with a little bit of shading. I find it easy to start from the neutral / the overall skin color of a person so I can know what to do. Then I work around that. What help me with dark skin was white on black paper because I use to only think of shading a piece not the light aspect of it. Since I had to change my focus from the dark areas to the light areas.
Another thoughtful video!! I try to learn how to colour more different skin tones, I practice and I think it’s going nicely
the only trouble i have with coloring darker skin tones is that i don't have enough darker skin tone colors! but I still enjoy coloring darker skin tones with the colors i DO have for the same reason--contrast! (i need to work on it) but i don't usually draw backgrounds so drawing darker skinned characters really pop off the page for me!
I think it might also be a lack of practice as well. Most people start drawing lighter skin tones and continue that way. If you only colour light skin tones most of the time, of course, changing up the pallet is going to be harder.
I honestly had never heard that darker skin tones were harder to paint before. I guess I'm more of an acrylic mind set when painting digitally since I add both lighter and darker tones to the skin while painting but I have to say mid tones are my comfort zone. I haven't experimented enough with either of the extremes.
I can't say much about lineart since I stoped using it a while ago but I guess one could say exactly the same about white highlights on a very pale skin.
Anyway, harder or not I agree it shouldn't be an excuse to not try at least :c
All skin tones have under tones + blood (under the skin). Skin essentially works the same way whether it's light or dark. The only difference I have noticed is the reflectivity of darker skin tones but this has more to do with how light works than the actual skin.
I guess I need to add that light skin tones with marker can have other problems. Like with dark skin, if I accidentally put a shadow color that's too dark, then it doesn't bother me so much. I have put too dark shadows on pale skin and ruined the whole piece.
My general opinions 1) For watercolour it really depends on the paper. 100% cotton is best for successful layering. 2) gouache and acrylic opacity does work better for darker skins correct! 3) mixed media is a great option for darker skintones! 3) start with coloured tone either digitally or coloured paper and use gouache or acrylic. Digitally I recommend midtone background as a great option for overall balanced colours and tone actually! 4) practice! Even if it’s hard do it anyway! 5) as you said the ambient lighting and luminosity of skin are interesting. If there is coloured light or bounce light source for example. 6) different tasks require different methods and techniques. Great video thanks!
I started art with acrylics and digital, I've never had much of an issue with coloring dark skintones, if anything I think it may be easier for me. Recently I've been working with some watercolor and it gives me a lot of trouble because of the transparency, and one of the issues I have is with darks in general.
I actually don't have much of an opinion on this because I don't even draw humans much, and when I do draw them the drawings aren't usually colored because right now I'm more worried about trying to get anatomy right.
I use as many mediums as I can. I use markers, pastels, charcoal, acrylic paint, water color, colored pencil and even digital. For me I don't find it necessary more difficult to color darker skin tones but just more so I don't draw them as often as I would like to. I find it interesting that some people feel like one color is more or less challenging to use than another color. For me I feel like it holds the same amount of difficulty.
It really depends on the medium. For example, with alcohol markers. They tend to have a streaking problem that is far easier to see with darker colors than lighter colors, so if you don't know what you're doing you can end up with a dark skinned person with a very streaky complexion (like I did in my very first marker illustration ever T_T.) It can be done well though, because I've seen 9tger people who can get ridiculously smooth laydowns of all their colors.
This doesn't mean I'm going to not color dark skin with my markers, I just need to figure out the best way to do it.
Now if we're taking something like digital art? There's really no excuse there.
For me it depends on the medium i'm using, with watercolour brush pens i find it quite hard (when you layer a lot of colour it can often lead to the paper pilling and the colours looking muddled). With just pencil i find it easier to do dark skin colours because it creates better contrast for shadows and highlights on the skin. Then when i used to do digital art i also found dark skin colours easier due to the created contrast (which could be lacking in very pale skin).
With charcoal and white pastel chalk it's more difficult unless i work on brown paper, but on white paper it's harder because charcoal can become harder to blend nicely as it is darker meaning the darkest shadows on a person of colour would make it a bit difficult.
Just colour pastel chalk i find it a bit difficult too as i don't have the right chalk colours (no nice tan or brown colours for the skin).
So, it all depends on what the medium allows you to do and maybe your artstyle as well.
For me the medium i use has been largely the reason for why i go for certain skin tones more often, currently it's mostly lighter skin tones because i'm using watercolour brush pens a lot, but for my pencil drawings it's not at all uncommon for me to go darker.
For me, it’s completely equal between the two. I do actually enjoy coloring darker skin tones and darker hair colors because when I color, I always start with a pale color, and depending on how dark I want the object or whatever I’m coloring, I add more and more layers of shading, and I really enjoy shading and adding more layers.
Both are equally as difficult even though it rare for me to do dark skin.
We I started using copic markers I mainly colored pale characters, but I started creating oc's who had dark skin. At first I found it very difficult to find a way to color dark skin but after a while I finally found a way to achieve the dark skin that if wanted for my ocs. And honestly I have more dark skin ocs than I have light skinned, so I began coloring more dark skinned characters. And recently I started using gouache for about a month now. And I found it to be more easier to paint my dark skinned oc with gouache, even tho I struggled with gouache I somewhat knew what colors I needed to mix to kinda get the dark skin I wanted. And when I tried to mix a lighter skin color, boy I having a really hard time with it, I really had no idea of what colors to mix to get the pale skin paint that I wanted, thankfully I finally figured it out. So I think that it can be that ppl just don't practice coloring dark skin as much as they do with pale skin but, even so for me I color litter skin faster than I do with darker skin, so it might seem difficult because you need more layers to achieve a darker skin tone. Since I had realized that I find it extremely difficult to paint dark skin with watercolor.
I struggle with dark skinned characters because I mostly do grayscale or black as most of what I do is traditional pencil and inking. Now digital art is a lot different, and honestly I find it a lot easier than struggling with the shading on pencil and paper.
I hope this makes sense. It's midnight and I can't even think at the moment lol.
i think a lot of people are just making excuses. i can get a pale skintone and a deep skintone mixing the same 3 colors using my watercolors.
Pyrrols How long did it take you to find that combination of colors though?
How much did you expierment to find them?
I ask because I struggle with that issue with more lighter tone characters and want to know what will work.
lakamokolaka Well what I use is a skin tone reference at the side when I colour. I get mine off of Google and I shade match. Acrylic paint is a lot easier to use for me personally cause it's more opaque and easier to use. For water colours I recommend from going to dark to light for a potential bleeding like how I've suffered in the past.
lakamokolaka (If you use watercolors) You could always water down a shade of brown as a start, but since its lighter skin tones you’re struggling with, there are a LOT of videos out on that. Danica Sills, Jenny Granberry, and Mind of Watercolor are youtubers i learned the most from when it comes to skintones. Ive been painting since about mid 2016 and even though i was still able to achieve lighter tones now, today im way better. A good example of a light skin tone you could achieve is using a cool toned yellow, cool toned red, and a yellow ochre. My best advice is to just get to mixing random colors on scraps of paper to see what you can get and go from there!
I don't even color enough...usually when I color, I color either with crayola markers or colored pencils that I got over the years when I went school supplies shopping. I find coloring dark skin with colored pencils easy, but with markers and a limited palette and knowledge of blending..it feels difficult. With pencils, I find darker skinned colored easier. I still try with markers..but it is still difficult to me
"I think people without legs who claim they can't walk are just making excuses, I can walk just fine"
Digitally drawing different skin tones doesn't have the limitations that traditional art does.
In any program you have the option of selecting any colour you want. So as long as you have experience with colouring skin tones then its all right.
But traditionally if you buy materials, (colour pencil/markers) most colour palettes have at most usually 2-3 extremely pale and dark skin tones. The rest are usually mid skin tones.
That usually leaves you with the option of mixing tones/colours to get the actual skin tone you are trying to draw. That is where a lot of difficulty arises for artists (especially those who can't afford buying more than the average set of colours/materials)
For me, my issue is just finding the correct color for darker skin tones AND I don’t have access to medium toned paper.I use colored pencils so whenever I use a darker skin tone, all my streaks and empty space all show up a lot more against the white paper. Also almost all Browns I find have really strange undertones that are hard to work with in a palette. That’s my little tea, hope y’all don’t spill it 🧡
I wouldn't say they're harder or easier to color. For me, it's like...I'm pale. So coloring people with peachy, pink undertones comes more naturally to me. That being said, I can color people of color just as easy. Having said that I don't do it enough and I need more practice.
I never found it hard to do. But then again I am brown myself haha
I honestly do have the *worst* time drawing and working with dark skin tones in paint and alcohol based markers. Like.. if I mess up, I can make it a bit darker or shade more.. and it just snowballs from there. If I mess up on a light skinned drawing, I can darken and shade it and they become tan- if I darken and shade a darker skinned drawing it’ll get lost in the line-art and if it’s too dark I can’t shade or define.
That’s only with paint and alcohol markers though because those are hard to manipulate.
For me I prefer using darker skin tones but that's due to my art supplies making the light skin tones muddy or too yellow. I'm also not the familiar with the art medium I've been drawn too (watercolors) and there's a pretty perfect cool and warm dark skin tone that I just add either a little yellow or red to and they're pretty perfect. Saying that tho, it's really easy to make dark skin tones, dark clothing, and dark hair muddy. I honestly think it depends on the experience of the artist, their art supplies, and what style they lean towards.
I don't think that it's necessarily harder but most people, like you said, have less experience in drawing darker skin tones and less exposure to darker character archetypes to follow.
This art in this video is stunning! 😘 and your message is a nice addition to this criticism
It's probably his harder if that person never breaks out of their confront zone and try, so they have to practice.
On paper darker skin is harder but only because i dont have proper coloured pencils (but i do have very good markers for a darker skin, but then again, they are the only markers that i have).
But digitally? If im colouring a white person i always have to change the colours later because they end up being straight up ghosts. POC characters are always fun to draw because i LOVE shading and highlighting these colours, which is why i mostly have ocs with dark skin, lol.
I personally feel like darker tones are trickier to shade, and lighter ones to apply lightings, so in order to make the skin look nice I try working on both - I feel like good lightings on a dark tone and good shadings on a light one are what makes them nice and lively, it's kind of logical when you know how light works, but it's just my trick to make it easier.
I like unnatural colors so whether it's for the flat color or the light/shade, I wanna experiment with everything because those really set the mood and the setting of your drawing. Also I like using a white/lighter lineart whenever I want the character to pop up when it got very dark tones touching each other - such as the cute lil characters you showed.
But really, I think the difficulty depends on what you're used to do and is something personal, so trying your own things is the best way to learn and get used!
Also I've been trying watercolors and doing more traditional drawings lately thanks to you, I'm really thankful for the inspiration you gave me since I started watching you!!
I honestly find it hard to paint super pale people, or those with super rich, dark skin. I have no idea why. My people always end up being mid toned. Also, I've also found it harder to work with warmer temperatures of all skin degrees. So basically, I'm in a rut of mid toned, slightly muted, people, which isn't necessarily bad since I also draw plants, animals, landscapes.
Back to the question, I do feel that medium makes HUUUUGE difference. I've honestly had an easier job making skin 3 dimensional using oil paint, and colored pencils, than I have with watercolors. I've also had trouble with gouache, but that's because it's still very new to me, but anyway. Overall, it really just is up to the skill level that the person has with the medium, and the knowledge of how skin works. When I think about skin when I'm painting, it's intimidating, because it never turns out how I imagine. Like you said, skin looks different depending on the location no matter the skin color, and that's why I find it intimidating.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough. If you actually read my whole schpeal type chicken nuggets.
I don't think it's really hard for me to pick a color for skin, and I usually have fun with those colors. I mostly use browns or bright colors with desaturated shading and some highlight.
I feel like light-coloured anything is easier to colour because light colours are a bit more forgiving. It's hard to colour a black leather jacket because you go straight in with a dark colour, while a pale pink dress is easier as you can layer slowly.
To be honest, I've never tried colouring darker colour skin before. I like drawing more gothic looking stuff, so I generally work with a pastel/desaturated pallet with pure black for high contrast.
Try not to think about art or people in that matter. It's not bad to use contrast but it seems like you're avoiding coloring darker skin for the sake of contrast which is very limiting
Personally, for the longest time I added lighter skin tones and colors on people, then about a year ago, I just switched to drawing darker people, and it was like second nature.
It is more difficult for me to draw/color darker skin tones, but not due to inexperience, but due to the lack of good dark skin tones in art supplies. I try to counter that by mixing colors to try to get the right skin tone where I can, among them.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I think darker skin is going to seem more difficult to colour because many people learn from looking at other illustrators on TH-cam and famous art in museums which has alot of drawings and paintings of characters and people with fairer skin. Artists learn how to colour and paint fair skin very well because of more examples in tutorials and they also get more practice in it.
In painting for fairer skin you can use a range of peachy and tan tones or local colours and you can concentrate on slowly darkening up shadows. With darker skin you can use more ranges of colours in the local or mass tone of the skin depending on types of light the concentrate on areas where light hits. It's like an opposite process for me.
Personally, its harder for me because I can never find the right shade with the mediums I use.
The markers I use don't have any browns right for skin.
And for watercolor, I can't make a dark skin tone without it being too dark or too purple etc.
Its just in my personal experience. Its easier for me to mix or find a pale skin tone over dark.
For me they are. Even when I use myself as a reference. Probably because there aren't enough dark skin models in figure drawing classes for me to get a practice on. I'm still working to get better thanks to the internet holding some of these models, but it is taking me some time since the pictures are just that. Pictures. Not moving images or me moving to a different spot to get a different side and angle.
With darker skintones. I struggle with undertones. How some people are cooler toned and some are warmer tone. I usually draw myself with more reddish tones even though I don't think its accurate. Also there is the planning out part. Because the more color you build the more you can't go back, or more difficult to go back.
It's always been a little harder for me to draw because, When I was younger, I used to hate drawing darker things and would always lighten everything.
Now, Because of that, I haven't quite became used to drawing darker skin tones, And I've only just gotten used to light skins and tan colours.
I'm also very nervous about drawing darker colours, As I don't want to get the colours wrong and get hate from everybody.
I also don't know many people or characters that are dark skinned that I like to draw or just like, And I don't want to make a dark skinned oc because, Once again, I'm scared of getting it wrong and getting bullied.
I know maybe one character, In all of the fandoms I'm in, That is dark skinned, And I'm still nervous about it, Especially because of her hair and outfit.
Overall, I'm just very, Very nervous about drawing dark skinned people in case people hate it, And say I got the skin colour wrong, And how I offended them by getting the skin slightly off, Or very off, And how they might Ignore that I'm not used to drawing that skin tone, And say I'm just making excuses.
♡Thanks for reading♡
So far in my art, I’ve found it hard to do darker skin tones. But the only reason for this is that I don’t really have a chance to. The only medium I have is a handful of copics that I got when I had money, and none of the stores that I go to that sell them provided something that could be used for a darker skin tone. I bought one marker that I think would be lovely, but you can’t make a gorgeous skin tone with one color. I know this has a lot to do with how copics never have any stock, but there were five or six very light skin tone colors that I was able to find no problem and are usually stocked. Hopefully I’ll be able to buy more soon so that I can give it a good shot.
They are for me. I do traditional art and use coloured pencils a lot, the main problem I have is what colours to use for the skin tone. I do want to though and I still do sometimes. Honestly I need to buy more browns and stuff lol
Its kinda weird for me hearing the idea that darker shades of skin are harder when you see some of the peole that use this argument draw purple red and blue skin without any trouble but the moment it becomes a more brown color they can't so it anymore
I think that for some people the reason why they dont make characters with a certain skin tones may be.. Money. Lets say I want to work with alcohol based markers, most of them are rather expensive, for a person who does not have a lot of money it will take tham quite a time to get a good range of colors to work with. Also look at some of the brands and their "SKIN TONES" sets - Graphit markers are selling skin tones sets, big one and small one, when you look at the colors in the sets they all pretty much LIGHT. Copic has two little sets of skin colors, one with the lighter ones and the other with dark ones, now lets imagine a situation where I can afford only one of these sets, now if I get the set 1 I will be only able to draw characters with light skin tones for as long as I wont get enough money to get myself another set, if I get set 2 I will be able to draw dark skinned characters only again until I wont get the other set.
With me I can draw normal human skin tones but if im making fan art of invader zim or Steven universe I find darker greens and oranges, extra harder to color with and even with more vibrant colors its hard, I can color iteams and clothing that way perfectly fine but just when it comes with that I guess its looks more weirder bc it's more of a human looking thing and most humans arnt green, idk
I think for me it's harder to paint darker skin tones in watercolor simply because of how light and translucent the paint naturally is but that just means it takes longer to build up the colors to make the skin darker. It's not impossible though. I think it's easier to do darker skin tones when using more pigmented mediums i.e. oil, acrlyics, marker, colored pencils. I dont really see a difference in difficulty in painting any skin tone when using these mediums
they're the same for me, as someone who's practiced them about equally from the beginning. skin is a little hard in general but it's way easier when you study life. :p
To me it depends on the medium, watercolor is easier for me with darker skin tones, mostly because I have nice colors for dark skin, markers are harder though because I don't have enough skin colors at all...
Ironically, I actually prefer drawing people of color because I find them so easy and fun to color. I started to practice drawing people of color this year, and I actually found I like drawing characters with darker skin tones more than ones with lighter skin tones, but that may be because I’m a digital artist. I find my pieces featuring characters of color to be easier to draw and color, and it helped me learn different techniques I didn’t excel at before. This is just me though, but I still personally recommend to at least try and draw/color characters with darker skin if you don’t already, because you may be surprised with how it goes!
When i draw with colored pencils, people with darker skintones are no problem but with watercolor, for me, it's much harder because you really need to play with the white of the paper, to not make it too dark. I also need much more layers. And i'm not so skilled with watercolor, so a lot of layers are hard to make without making big mistakes, that would ruin my painting. I still make a lot of paintings with people with darker skintones. But tbh I have a problem with darker tones in general with watercolor
Personally i find skintones difficult to do in generall though if im doing traditional art then i find darker skin a little easier because the cheap ish art supplies i do have kinda make it kinda difficult for me to do without accidentally making them look like a oompa loompa. Though to be fair this probably has more to do with my skill level and lack of proper understanding on how to do under and overtones in skin which is a bit more obvious in lighter skin which can have some blues pinks and reds in some areas. On computer i can just take a skintone reference photo online and color drop it and mess around with it untill im happy with what i have. Of course with my current skill level the skin ends looking a little flat but that's just something i need to work on.
I think darker (human) skin tones are more fun because you get to use lots of different shades of browns to get the color you want. However, if people don't want to draw people with darker skin color, then whatever! It's their choice as an artist what they want to draw.
Could it be that the darker the subject matter, what ever it is whether it be humans, rocks, animals, landscapes, that it is the lack of understanding and study of contrast and saturation and that people who find those generally difficult , will obviously find darker skin tones difficult, because they don’t understand how to lay how dark areas are and where the lighter areas are and learning to see those lights is a process in itself.
I hear some people say they don’t make characters of color because they want to be respectful and not end up with a caricature or a stereotype (or a “white person painted brown”, so to speak). Sis. Hardly anyone cares if you mess up as you’re learning! Plenty of artists regardless of ethnicity are willing to give tips and advice on drawing and coloring POC. In fact, you can find mounds of full-blown tutorials on the Internet. We live in an era where we have more access to more resources than anyone else in the history of the world, so by this point, there should be no excuse.
I have to disagree that this applies to other colors, though. Plenty of artists (these same artists, even!) can work with any color on the skin because they realize making it look nice after the form (learning the form of a face is dependent on the features of a face and not the color) is a matter of good color theory, and they can make a light or dark blue face look nice. It just seems suspicious that I only see this come up when it comes to natural skin tones.
Also. Vividra has warm, reddish purple highlights on her artwork! I think you could have prioritized that, but it still looked cute, anyway~
I keep editing this comment but! On a final note I want to recommend a watercolor artist who absolutely _kills_ painting dark skin; her name is Kelly Eddington and she does a lot of portraits of real people. It’s kind of a proof that you can reach that acrylic level of opacity using only watercolor. Anyway, this was a great video as usual, and thanks for being sensitive about the topic! (If it were me I’d have gone in a lot harder but. I like your take on it)
I find them more difficult to color *traditionally* sheerly because of my art supplies, but *digitally* they're not really harder to color for me.
The difficulties mostly stem from the fact that I don't have supplies to line with properly, so the details of faces get lost with darker tones if I don't pay attention properly. This isn't*as* much of an issue with things like hair, or clothing, since there the details don't usually matter as much. However, losing facial features is an issue.
Not all of us have all the color skin pallete, plus considering my maped color pencil is very much missing darker skin tones.
If anything its harder for me to draw pale skin, my shadows must be too dark. But i've never really had an issue with either
It's more about knowing what colours to use, how to put down, etc. from my exepierence.
Digitally I struggle with darker skin with it either coming out ashy or too orange-although I've gotten better. Traditionally it kinda comes with ease? My colouring/shading style however just lends itself to darker colours. My main probelm traditionally is with paint mixing all skin tones. With watercolours pale skin tones are difficult, gouache its the darker tones because Ive got tube thats reely good for pale tones, and Im scared to try it with oil. I know that as I get more into oil I'll have too paint a person sooner or later and it'll prob be similar to my watercolour mixing skills.
Also I do tend line after colouring in traditional. Its the norm for me to start lineless. Maybe that makes a difference? Its prob just how I view the colours and stuff personally.
4:24 I GOT IT! I think the reason some people have a difficult time coloring darker skin tones is that highlighting can get tricker, or if your using markers it may bleed out more then you'd want and cover the outline. I normally don't have trouble with drawing darker tones since I use color pencils which I test out before using the sort my tone and method of highlighting ( I like my stuff neat!) and sometimes it's harder to do that with markers since you might press down too hard or use the wrong marker. but then again I've had a decent amount of practice :D
I don't paint, but I draw, only with graphite pencils though. And I find it extremely hard to make portraits, and shade lighter skinned people compared to darker skinned people. Just an experience from a non-painter.