How to Render SKIN: Soft vs. Cel Shading

In this short art tutorial, instructor Jessie shares how to render SKIN both with soft and cel shading techniques. She goes over painting light skin and dark skin, as well as general tips such as subsurface scattering. Which type of rendering do you prefer? 🤓

🕓 Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
0:28 - How to soft shade light skin
2:32 - How to soft shade dark skin
3:31 - How to cel shade light skin
4:40 - How to cel shade dark skin

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Winged Canvas is an online art school based in Canada specializing in virtual art programs. We are known for our Art Mentorship program and quirky art nerd culture. Our instructors are professional artists and designers with a passion for teaching and nurturing creativity, sharing our artistic skill sets and industry experience with others.

Music credits:
Memories ー BGM DOVA-SYNDROME

Artist software used:
Adobe Photoshop

[wingedcanvas]

Ready to deep dive into the world of digital illustration? 🤩

[thorne-pple]

“No you don’t need a seperate tutorial for darker skin” I’ve been waiting for someone to say that a long time

[ss]

This is the first time a lesson tells me "Hey, dark stuff don't get as intense shadows because they're already pretty dark." Which sounds so logical when mentioned but I was the kind of people that when coloring a black object would go for the blackest black possible to make the shadow even if it looked weird as hell, so thank you for opening mi eyes lol

[ashrwoah]

You have no idea how much I needed this I just started painting so I need to know this stuff 😭

[savspicious]

"thats just how it is" it genuinely my favourite thing to hear when i'm learning things. the second my math teacher said "thats just how it is" instead of overcomplicating things, it got easy

[DOPIllustration]

For all you interested, your go to must be:

1. Pick the base colour.
2. For the shadow you go a little bit more saturated and closer to purple. (To the right in the color picker, down in the hue picker)
3. For the lights, you go less saturated and closer to yellow. (To the left in color picker and up in hue picker)
4. You also need a reddish tone in the transition zones in cheeks, ears and fingers.

All in all, from light to shadows, the color picker must go in kind of an inverted C shaped path.

[ple]

The way I shade skin is more like a mix between the two. Usually I pick a color palette for shadows and light up-front. Say, if it's a daylight, colors are more warmer tones, so brown and dark brown for shadows and light beige and even lighter yellow for lights. I like to add shading with layers. 1st layer is cel shading in brown (in this example of palette I gave before) usually 30% opacity (that depends of how reflective the texture is) in multiply. I copy and paste the exact shading on a new layer, changing color to dark brown, changing opacity to 15% on shade mode of the layer and I blur the edges like it was soft shading. 2 more layers like that and shading is done. Similarly, I make lighting. I honestly really like the results. It's a nice mix between soft and cel shading :D

[feldspxr]

This is exactly what I was wanting, I cannot shade faces for the life of me-

[kracyndalabombarbe]

I tend to use both types of shading. And sometimes I'll lean more towards shell or soft depending on the look I'm trying to go for

[SUTAZZZ]

I swear your videos are so helpful and easy to understand ty!!!

[PochoNieves]

Holy crap that soft skin shading! Best quick explanation ever!

[hannahrose]

thank you so much for doing dark skin too! so many things only use lighter skin

[itz_arrchie]

I need to get myself to use bounce light. I always forget or underuse it.

[Lemonberrys]

Just found out you video & i really like the way you guys video are ! You sound upbeat, you go straight to the point instead of talking round around that make it boring, and you also write the point of what you about to teach ! Thank you

[Delialikesmusic]

I didn’t know that I could learn so much in 6 minutes

[zyphyris]

always ever did cel shading so this rlly helped demistify rendering for me. hoping to step more out of my comfort zone this year. 🙏

[loverrlee]

So growing up I really loved art and drawing but I had some mean art teachers tell me never to use black ink to ink my drawings because it looked to “harsh” and “not natural” and “cartoony.” Turns out my natural style was just cell shading and not the soft style. I am still salty about it. Let people have their unique style! Especially with the invention of ai art, I think an emphasis on different and unique art styles will be even more important. I’m embracing my natural style of art again and I don’t give af what anyone else thinks about it because I like it and that’s what’s important when creating art. Because if an artist doesn’t even like their own work than what’s the point? Art should be about self expression not just an aesthetic contest imho.

[fadeski]

ur my favorite tutorial person AAAAHHH

[ENZEED]

Thank you. Ive been waiting for a simple tuts like this in years..

[Galena]

You said that this technique can work with just about every skin tone. Could it work for something a bit more fantasy? Like, purple, grey and such? Also, how would you blush those types of skin?