Cartoon Skin Tones & Facial Features in Procreate

1. Class Intro: Hey guys, my name is Dave Reed. I live in Brooklyn, New York and I've been an artist as long as I can remember for over 30 years. I even went to art school in New York City and went to school of visual arts as an illustration major. And I loved it. So the past few years I've been mainly focusing on children's book illustration, which I love. And that's what I wanna do professionally for my career when I grow up from immemorial. But you know how it is we're always throw is growing as artists. Another passion of mine has been teaching. I love just trying to teach everything that I know to beginner artist, to experience artists, people that just want to do a different type of art. I'm always learning. I love tutorials. I love to learn new tips, new tricks. I love to, to take different styles and add everything together and my own style. So that's why I'm here, that's why I'm making this classes. Because I want you to grow and get better as an artist. Because there's always more that we can learn. There's always something different. Everyone always does everything a certain way. So if you see something that you don't like the way I do it, change it. There's no rules. You can do whatever you want. That's the beauty of art. You can make it your own. So this class is going to be about cartoon skin tones. You know how to make skin tones look better, how to make them look alive and warm eyes and add shadows and lighting. All of the things that will make your characters look the best they can look. Alright, so the next video is going to be about the class project. So I'm just going to talk about what we're gonna do in this class. Alright, let's move it along. And I don't know what that means. 2. Class Project: Okay, class projects. So for this class project, we're just gonna make some skin tone. So we're going to base mix. You download my, my line work. You can download the line work. So when we move forward, All you have to do is color in and just follow what I'm doing in the lines. You can change the nose, you can change the eyes, you can change the hair. You can use your own artwork if you want to. But I have included the line work that I'm working with. So if you want to follow along, then that's cool. Also make sure to download my faves, brush back. All of this is included in the class. It's free so you can download the same exact brushes I'm using that way. You don't get confused or you don't. You'll be able to find all the brushes that you need that I'm using. Every time I use a different brush on screen, I'll just put a little note that way you'll know which brush I'm using. That way. It'll be just easy and simple. So this isn't really going to be too in-depth on super hyper-realistic skin tones. It's just simple. It's just going to be cartoon skin tones. It's going to be simple. And you're gonna do a great job. And make sure after you, after you finish, make sure you upload it to the class because I love to see your work regardless if it's my line works something you create another character. I don't care. I just want to see what you do. Of course you'd have any questions, reach out to me here. And my other social media just reach out to me. I'm here to help. I'd love to help and I can't wait to see what you make with this class and for this class project, alright, so up next we'll be getting started. So let's get started. 3. Adding Base Color: Alright, so I'm gonna show you how I would color her and give her lifelike skin tones and lips and all that fun stuff. The image I'm working from is actually black and white. But clearly she's white with dark hair. So that's what we're going to work with. So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a layer underneath my line art. So this is my line art. I'm gonna make a layer underneath. I'm going to label it color. And we'll start with the skin. So I'm just going to take a random color. I'm gonna take orange. And I'm going to color. I'm just gonna color and the color in the, in the line work here. So of course you could use, a lot of people would think about using what's it called? Like a masking thing, reference layer. A lot of people would use reference layer. I personally don't, because a lot of times my artwork intentionally doesn't have closed lines. And I don't want the lines to all be closed like this right here. I don't want I don't want all the lines to be have to be connected. And they all have to be connected if you're going to use a reference layer. So it's somewhat now I wouldn't say that it's useless if I'm really trying to do something really fast. I might use reference layers. But for the most part I don't, I don't really like using them. Another reason I don't like using reference layers is because if I was, if I used a reference layer and filled all this in, underneath this black line would still be white. It wouldn't be coloured in. So then eventually if I wanna change this line or if I want to move it, then I have, then I have a black I have a white line underneath, which I don't like my black outlines. I'm constantly changing the outlines. So reference liaise really don't work that well for me. And the reason I use orange is because it's easy to see on the light background. It's easy to see when there's gaps and things like that. If I was using a skin color, it would be a little bit harder to decipher. These small gaps. Like small gaps like that. If I was using a lighter color, these would be harder to see. So that's why I use orange. Sometimes I use green. Ok, so now the skinny is pretty much filled except for the eyes. So I'm just gonna color drop. And now she is bright green, very bright orange. And the first thing we wanna do is find a good skin color. So somewhere between the red, orange and yellow. Somewhere between orange and yellow. So I'll go up here. And it looks like a decent color. So we'll see how that looks. So I'm just going to drop that. Just be careful when you drop your color threshold up here is fairly high. Otherwise sometimes it can, it can color it in weird and it'll be little artifacts. So let's practice like a darker skin tone. That's actually quite nice. And I go over two hue and saturation and I can adjust it as I need. It looks nice. So I'll duplicate this. And so we'll have one light and one dark. So the next thing that I would do is make a layer underneath the collar layers. And I'll just colored in color the eyes and wait. So the next thing I'm gonna do is color in the hair. So I'll use my trusty orange again. And I'm going to go below everything else. I'm just gonna color in the hair. Okay, so now that we have all the hair code in, another trick that I do is I'm gonna take the layer of the skin layer and I'm going to hit select. So basically the only thing that is selected is this beige or skin color. And I'm gonna go down to the hair layer. And I'm going to three swipe down to bring up my options. And when a cut. So basically what this what I just did is I cut all of the skin layer out of the hair. So now it's not, it's not there. And that's a nifty trick that you should do often, for example, for the eyes, since I only want them to be in the eyes. And right now, as you can see, there's sort of modeled around this layer doesn't even have to be active. So I'm gonna do select. I'm gonna go to that. The i layer three swipes down and I'm going to cut. So now it's clean. It's just a good habit to get into. Because when you're coloring different elements of the artwork, you want them all to be separate. You want everything to be separate. So if you need to do something on one layer, if I wanted to do some sort of stripes or something, it's better just to have everything on one layer and be able to do that without messing with any other layers. Okay, so I'm gonna make a new layer and just sort of do a random, just some random colors for the rest of the outfit. Really quick. Now for the hair we're just going to bring over. We'll just try this dark brown fur. Now. Another trick that I did before, you can walk in and then just fill layer or you can call it drop. Same difference. Another thing that I see people do all the time is they keep everything really dark against the line work. So what I'm gonna do is increase the saturation. And that's not bad. Ok, so now that I have these little details, and I'm not going to worry about this for now. Now that I have all these little details now I'm going to change the color of the line work. 4. Coloring the Outlines: So I've just chosen Mike Brown and I'm gonna go to my line art. And I'm going to fill layer. Okay, so that looks pretty good. The only thing that I'm going to change is I'm actually going to make, I'm still an awful lot to my line layer. I'm actually going to make the lines on the hair black. And the only reason I'm doing that is because the hair is so dark. And I don't want the lines to be white, but I do want you to see them. So this is one of the rare times that I that I keep the line were black. I really don't like black line work anymore. I just think it takes away from, if you're doing something in color, it takes away from it. Because black is, it's just like I used to do ice, do a lot of my work with black outlines, but once I got rid of it, can't really go back. Since I did this line work up here for the face. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna alpha lock that so that I can only draw on the black lines. Take my, my fat little air brush here. And I'm gonna color in color in this line. I'm going to color in this side of the, I mean, the bottom to make the bottom a little bit darker. But I like to just keep this line black color in the nose. And we're gonna do the same color for the lips. Sometimes you can go with a little bit of a type color for the lips. I might erase them anyway, but for now, I'll go a little more of a mauve color. Let me just change the color of this thing because it looks funny. Little close to the skin color, but I don't know. I kinda like it. Okay. So one thing that I kind of picked up from Grand Theft Auto artwork is I'm gonna make a line above, above that white eyeliner. And I'm gonna go for black. And then I'm gonna do 30% opacity brush. I'm just gonna use this brush, but 30% opacity. Ok? So all that line does is sort of serve as a shadow from the from the eyelash. But I always do it, so okay, so now for the lips, I'm just gonna do a color above, above this color. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take the color of the skin. I'm gonna make it a little redder. And then I'm going to get a little more red. Selected, base it off of the like to base it off of the skin tones. Aren't too bad. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back up to I'm gonna go back up to the line work for the face. Erase it because I really don't like having I don't need that extra line there. Okay. So I'm gonna make a new layer underneath that lip. So I'm gonna make it underneath this. Kinda just wanna like a pinkish color. A lot more pink than the tuplet. It's not bad at all. Okay. So the only thing it looks weird is this upper lip. And if you want to change the, can change the opacity of the upper lip if it looks too dark. And you can always do that. You can always change it. It looks kind of nice. It's a little bit lighter. Let's see if we change the color a little bit more. Sometimes it's nice to add a little bit of red. And also she has lipstick on and the photo. And it looks nice. 5. Adding Warmth to Skin: So now I'm gonna take this color layer and I'm going to select it. And then make a new layer above that layer. And then I'm gonna go to read airbrushed, any soft airbrushed, we'll do just this sort of air brush. I'm gonna bring the opacity down to about 30%. Okay, so what I have selected is her skin tone. I have that selected, but I added a new layer. So the only thing that I'm going to draw on is her skin tone. But it's not going to be on the same layer as a skin. It's right above. It. Is better not to do work on the actual skin layer. If you do it above, then you can always edit it and change it if you need. So what I'm, I'm this softly, whoops. I'm just softly adding some read to her ears and her cheeks. And I'll add some to the nose as well. And then I'm gonna go a little bit over two. Orange is red. I'm gonna make it bigger. We lower the opacity a little bit because sometimes what these brushes, it can be a little heavy. So now I'm just going to just do a little orange up here. A little bit orange down here. Orangeish read. Just to kinda give her that little, little bit of a toasted look. The red seems to be a little heavy there. So I just used the same brush in a ratio in eraser. And then I just sort of slightly erase away where I think it might be a little bit too much. You can also smudge same brush. I don't like this break here, how it looks like the so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna kinda smudge it. Just social a little more. So it's not so evident that there's like a brake and color breaking the red color. 6. Adding Shadows: So the next step is going to be adding shadow. So I usually add shadow. I use like a darkish like Muddy read. And so what I'm gonna do is select the skin layer Again. I'm gonna make a new layer above this, but underneath the red. I'm gonna make the layer 20% graffiti rush at a 100%. Okay, multiply new layer 20% must select the skin tone and then go back up to our layer. Bring it a little bit. Software. Okay, that's better. So the shadow in the ER, lovely air, shadow down the side of the face. Okay, so that's looking pretty good. You can always change the opacity if he wanted less or more. And I'm gonna do a little bit of shadow under the lip and and I'll do some on the nose as well. Okay, so now I'm gonna change my opacity brush. And I'm gonna do a little bit here. Okay? Now actually doesn't look too bad with a darker skin tone. You might have to just play with the opacity like you can make it a little darker. Things like that. You might have to change the line color as well. So that's pretty good with color. So next one we will do the eyes. 7. Eyes: Alright, so let me just color this thing in real quick. Alright, so we're gonna work on, so they're gonna be, so they're going to blow this like shadow line and above the eyes. So new layer is going to be pretty simple. Will match your eyes, will color eyes are, but we're gonna give her these dark, kind of brownish maroon ish eyes. The same color as the, as her hair. Alright, let's see. It's kind of nice. Just gonna duplicate. And all this is is a circle. All this is is just a regular circle that I made since she's turned. That's why it's an oval. So gnomes kinda squinting at my canvas. For some reason I have to, I have to squint to try to get that get that right sometimes. Think I'm happy with that. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take this iris, duplicate it, fill it black. I'll go and close. And then I'm just gonna make uniform. Changed my selection tool to uniform. And go ahead and make that small. And we'll do the same thing with the other one will duplicate that iris, make it black. And then we'll just shrink it. It's not too bad. So what I'm gonna do now is put the pupils layer together and I'll put the eyeballs and a layer together. Just so nothing gets lost. And I'm gonna go ahead and, and alpha lock the irises. And then I'm just gonna take the air brush. And I'm gonna airbrushed top of the i. Make a new layer. I'm gonna select the irises. And the new layer I'm gonna make that ad. And then I'm gonna go back to the color. I'm gonna make it a little lighter. And I'll make it. And then just take my air brush and just to sort of give a pop of light. Ok. And it looks pretty good. And here's another alternative thing you can do. You can alpha lock the white, and then you can take a nice off-white color. Use your air brush. And then I'm just going to lightly give that, give that white some some color. Can always make it a little darker. Eight is just a touch. You don't want to like you don't want it to be too severe. So just to touch. So we have an empty layer above the pupils. And I'm just going to go to White 30%. And I'm going to add, to call these jellybeans. Add these light opaque highlights. And then I just go to a regular graffiti brush right below that, just a regular brush and Papa light just like that. I think that looks pretty good. 8. Final Touches: So just adding a little bit, just a little touch. Darken up. Add a little bit of a highlight to the nose, maybe. Highlight my air brush. And another layer above. And we'll make it an Add Layer. And not take a nice kinda like orangey color. And see if we can get a little pop of light. You can do is you can select the hair. Question a little bit. Not so hard. So you know, I think that's pretty good. Oh, I wanted to change this ugly green screen is a nightmare. If something like that looks grace to the background, a little change. 9. Before you go!: Alright guys, we made it to the end and thank you so much for sticking with me and taking the class. I hope you really found it useful. Take all my tips, take all my trips, or my trips. Take all my tips, take all my tricks because that's what all that's what we all do. That's what all artists do. They take bits and pieces of things. They see, things they see other artists do. Just take what you want, take what you will. And if you, if you want to do something differently, change it. You don't have to do everything in my style. You can make it your own style. I just wanted to give you some knowledge. I hope you found it useful and I hope that you upload what you create to this class because I'd love to see it again, reach out to me on my Instagram and drug free, Dave, I'm on YouTube at drug free, Dave, I'm on I have a private Facebook group about tutorials. You can also you can, you can hook up with me there. Feel free to send me a message. Anything you need. I'm here to help. So once again, I really appreciate you coming through and taking the class. I'm gonna do a bunch more, so make sure you follow and stay tuned because there's gonna be a lot more skill share classes because I have some really cool ideas and we're both going to learn and grow together. Alright, so keep drawing. And I'll see you in the next video. I really hope that in the data and so silly.