Texturing
5) Skin Shading

1. Begin with a completely blank image, and sketch out at least half of a cartoon like face (right). Here I am using green as the base, and a slightly darker green as the sketching agent. The paint tool I am using is quite large, making my mouse movements look smoother on the page.


2. Next I have just copied the left half of the above picture, mirrored it, and pasted it onto the right side of the image.I have also used the fill tool to black out the eye sockets. As you can see, I am working on a scary skull like face. (A green one!).

3. Lighting! It's probably best to start with a lightening tool first, as this is more forgiving, and brings the image out quicker.
Decide which parts of the image are going to be exposed to light. Note: With skins, the light almost always comes from above.Here you can see that the eyebrows, nose, head, and cheekbones are highlighted.


4. Now we can begin shading. Opposite to lighting, we shade the parts that face downwards, away from the light above.
(I have also silhouetted the image)Left I have shaded below the cheekbones, the chin, the eyes, eyebrows, and slightly around the base of the skull.
Be as gentle as possible when shading, since overdoing it can make the image look cartoony again.

5. Next start to lighten again, adding more light to the very edges to give a sense of 3D relief.
By slowly building up layers of lighting and shading we can give the image a great sense of depth, and make it look very detailed.


6. Here I have added some colour to the face. Only whitening the teeth with a white brush, and a stroke of red to give the impression of eyes glowing in the eye sockets.
Also notice that I have pushed the contrast even further from the last picture by continuing to build up the light and shaded elements of the face.

Finally!

I have made the face asymmetrical here with a snarl. This promotes the idea that the face is a real, organic object. Art abhors symmetry as much as nature does straight lines.
This took no more than half an hour to work on, and could easily be converted to fit onto a model. When you are making an actual skin it will be a good idea to start with the FlatMesh as a base, so you won't have to convert the texture to fit onto a model.