{"id":142,"date":"2016-06-23T20:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T00:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.learncsp.com\/?p=142"},"modified":"2022-05-25T21:37:36","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T21:37:36","slug":"skin-tone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/skin-tone\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do I Pick the Right Skin Tone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Skin colors&nbsp;are tough and there are all sorts of theories behind creating and using them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The easiest thing to do, of course, is to bathe every scene in a strong red light and color everyone&#8217;s skin red.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s my useless <strong>#ProTip<\/strong> for the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s a much more useful one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Skin Tone Color Palette<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The folks behind Clip Studio Paint recently uploaded&nbsp;a&nbsp;color&nbsp;palette for free&nbsp;that&#8217;s an incredible help. The page is in Japanese, however, so you&#8217;ll be doing some guessing to get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the native <a href=\"http:\/\/ClipStudio.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ClipStudio.net<\/a> website, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clipstudio.net\/tc\/dl\/materials\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">there&#8217;s a materials page<\/a> that gives you all sorts of brushes and palettes to download for free. &nbsp;In the top couple of rows, you&#8217;ll see this sequence of palettes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"573\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/csp_materials.jpeg\" alt=\"Clip Studio Paint Skin Tone Palette\" class=\"wp-image-144\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/csp_materials.jpeg 573w, https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/csp_materials-300x154.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 573px) 100vw, 573px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Skin&nbsp;Color Set<\/li><li>Hair Color Set<\/li><li>Web Safe Colors<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That last one is most useful if you&#8217;re designing a web page in CSP or drawing&nbsp;a webcomic for computer screens only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The hair colors palette&#8217;s usefulness is somewhat questionable. &nbsp;It&#8217;s a handy set of suggestions, but it&#8217;s far easier to fake a hair color than a skin color. The wrong shade of brown won&#8217;t look wrong in the hair, but will utterly destroy a drawing if it&#8217;s the wrong skin tone. &nbsp;Also, the colors are a bit crazy, including lots of blues and greens. &nbsp;Odds are good you won&#8217;t ever need more than 20% of those colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Skin Tones Set, though, is pure gold. It has a series of gradients of colors from the purest white to the darkest blacks, with lots of reds and browns in between. &nbsp;It has you covered. &nbsp;But how do you install it? &nbsp;Which links do you click? &nbsp;What does it do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to Download It<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s the trick. &nbsp;That blue writing on the page? &nbsp;They&#8217;re not links. &nbsp;They&#8217;re just text written in a blue font. &nbsp;You want to click the color set they&#8217;re showing on the page. It&#8217;s the part circled in red:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"164\" height=\"276\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/csp_materials_link.jpeg\" alt=\"Clip Studio Paint Skin Color Set link\" class=\"wp-image-145\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;ll bring you to another indecipherable page. &nbsp;To download this color set, click this link that I&#8217;ve again circled (er, <em>rectangled<\/em>?) in an unimaginative red color:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"271\" height=\"368\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/csp_skin_tones_download.jpeg\" alt=\"Clip Studio Paint Skin Color Set download link\" class=\"wp-image-146\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/csp_skin_tones_download.jpeg 271w, https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/csp_skin_tones_download-221x300.jpeg 221w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 271px) 100vw, 271px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>That will kick the download process off, where the file will likely save in your <strong>Downloads<\/strong> directory, or wherever you&#8217;ve set up your default downloads directory to be in your web browser of choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Install the Palette<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Go&nbsp;to the Color Palette window with all the different color options. &nbsp;Click the <strong>Color Set<\/strong> tab.&nbsp;That&#8217;s this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"213\" height=\"185\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/color_set_window.jpeg\" alt=\"Clip Studio Paint Color Set options\" class=\"wp-image-151\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also get there from the menus with <strong>Window &#8211;&gt;<\/strong> Color Set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, the key to this whole process is the little hamburger-like icon in the upper left corner of the window that looks like it&#8217;s grayed out. &nbsp;Don&#8217;t click the wrenches, which is what you might have gone to first. &nbsp;No, go to this options choice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"213\" height=\"185\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/color_set_window_options.jpeg\" alt=\"Clip Studio Paint Color Set options\" class=\"wp-image-153\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Choose &#8220;Import Color Set&#8221; and insert the file you just downloaded. &nbsp;This adds a new option in the dropdown menu called &#8220;Skin color set.&#8221; &nbsp;You&#8217;ll see it at the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full wp-image-435\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/choose_skin_color-1.gif\" alt=\"Clip Studio Paint choose skin colors palette\" class=\"wp-image-435\"\/><figcaption>I added the hair colors palette after the skin tones, which is why it appears at the very bottom here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Instantly, you can narrow down your choices in skin tones to far fewer options than you had when you were fiddling with sliders to get the right orange or brown shade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional Resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I had a full bullet point list to share here, but all you really need is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/linkartist\/thead-portraits-skin-coloring-palettes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this Pinterest page<\/a>. &nbsp;It has dozens of useful tutorials and examples of artwork that deals with picking skin tones. &nbsp;It&#8217;s all you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I had to narrow it down to just one, though, <a href=\"http:\/\/design.tutsplus.com\/tutorials\/how-to-paint-realistic-skin-in-adobe-photoshop--cms-25876\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I like how this tutorial<\/a> describes undertones and environmental light, then uses them in a digital Photoshop painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With a topic like this, it&#8217;s important to realize you don&#8217;t need to just look at CSP tutorials for answers. &nbsp;There&#8217;s a lot of information on skin textures and tones out there. Some of it is written for Photoshop, and some of it covers oil or acrylic paints. &nbsp;You can easily translate those steps to Clip Studio Paint. A lot of the tools and settings look alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Choosing a good skin color just got easier &#8212; thanks to a Skin Color palette that&#8217;s freely available from the makers of Clip Studio Paint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[41,42,8],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tutorial","tag-skin","tag-skin-tones","tag-v1-5-4"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/05\/skin_tone_header_web.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1221,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/1221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipelinecomics.com\/learncsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}