Painting Skin Tones and How Light Affects Color - Marco Bucci

So we should have something catchy for the 12 Days  of Proko. You know, like uh... ♪On the first day

of Christmas Proko gave to me a video from Marco

Buchi...♪ yeah, except I can't sing that song,

someone else has to come in and sing it  for - [clears throat]. Is that camera on?

Hey everyone. So, in my last lesson here on Proko,  we talked all about how the planes of the head

interact with a light source and we painted a  complete black and white version of a character.

Let's pick up the lesson right where we left off  and talk about ideas for adding color to this.

We'll be tackling three overall topics; what  to look for when painting flesh colors, how

light interacts with flesh colors and how color  is influenced by its surrounding environment.

Fleshtones and Color.

I have some good news, there really is no  such thing as a "correct fleshtone color".

In fact - hang on a second, I  could scroll my own skin through

all the hues we have available to our  vision and it still looks like skin.

One thing that can really help with believable  skin tones though, is the idea that skin isn't

just one color. In fact, there are three pretty  common zones of color we can think about.

It's quite common to look for  a more oakery colored brow,

warmer reddish cheeks and nose and  an ever so slightly cooler jaw.

You can apply this idea, starting from any base  color, to establish an overall color key. I’ll

show you what I mean, but for the moment,  let's replace the complex form of a head

with a simple egg. Now, let's give these  eggs some fleshtones. To establish this,

start first with an overall average bass  tone. This can essentially be anything.

So, here I’m using the palettes we just  sampled as reference. Then from that point,

make a shift toward ochre for the upper area.  You don't have to go to a saturated yellow

ochre or anything like that, just a little  move toward ochre is enough. The resulting

colors in our two studies here will be different  because they began from different base colors.

However, the general relationship I’m going  for is the same. I’ll apply the same idea

for the reddish zone now. Moving toward  red to various degrees on each of these.

It doesn't have to be the same red either.  So long as it's redder than what's there,

it'll read just fine. I’m letting the colors  mix on the canvas. Sometimes I’ll sample the

result and paint with that color just to get  whatever blending style you're looking for.

And now the same thing for the cooler lower area.

Chances are, the paintings you choose to study  from will give you quite different looks.

But these are all totally valid starting  points for believable flesh tones.

Okay, but stop everything... I’ve used the words  "cooler" and "warmer" a few times already in

this lesson. Now, those words don't describe  actual objective colors, rather, they indicate

the relationship between colors. Any color on the  color wheel could potentially be warmer or cooler

given the right context and we need to dive into  these concepts before moving on with our painting.

The most basic idea of warm versus cool is that  they occupy two opposite sides of the color

wheel. Generally, we think of this area; reds,  oranges, yellows as the warm side of the wheel,

which kinda makes sense since these are the colors  of literal hot fire [Ya-ouch] and then this area,

blues, violets, we generally think of as  the cool side. I guess that makes sense too,

right? Because these are the stereotypical colors  of, you know, ice, water, snow and cold stuff.

Then the colors in the middle, you can think of  as transitions between the two overall categories.

Anyway, those are the basics that a lot of  us learned in elementary school. And while

this categorization is accurate, I guess, red is  often thought of as objectively warmer than blue.

It lacks subtlety and isn't enough to  carry us through any real art scenario.

As artists, the colors we have to deal with  are often much closer together than these

two swatches. For example, how about these two  colors? Which would you say is the warmer one?

The answer is a little less crystal clear, isn't  it? But I’ll posit that this one is still warmer.

But here, that red that was cooler before  is now warmer compared to this new swatch.

These are the comparisons we have to get used to  making over and over again. You'll make thousands

of them in a painting. And the way I like to  determine warm versus cool is by basing it

on a model of how color actually moves in real

life. So, what moves color? Well, light does.

Light and Color.

The problem with local colors or  base colors is that's not all we see.

Whether it's an egg or a human head or  anything else, what we see is always a

combination of the local color plus the light,  but it's not an equal balance of the two.

Light weighs more than local color or base  color, those two terms mean the same thing.

And light nearly always accounts for most  of the color that ends up hitting our eyes.