Skin Tones

So I'm designing some skins. I've got just about everything done as for stubble/hair versions and different face styles. I've got 2 base skin tones, light ones. One is pinkish and ones yellowish. I'm trying to find a good way to make a few darker skin tones, some tanned versions. I've tried the pain bucket with a golden brown color set on overlay, I've also tried just straight up using CTRL+U And screwing with the sliders, then chaning the lightness with CTRL+L. I've still not found the best way to achieve a balanced few darker tones. One other thing I've tried, setting an alpha under all 3 skin layers set at 94%. While this is a great idea I cant get the brownish tanned color. It just darkens the skin, and also the standard linden nipples ghost though over my skin (which are in the WRONG place I might add...ick!)

If anyone can help me out by giving me a few tips or pointing me to a usefull tutorial I'd be very greatful. I'll tip you if it helps!

Feel free to contact me inworld too

-Nerolus

You were on the right track with laying color over the top, but an overlay layer isn't the way to do it. Instead, try a hue/saturation adjustment layer. You could also simply flood a normal layer with your brownish color, and set the layer's opacity to a fairly low setting. I can't tell you which one would be better since I don't know how you made the rest of your image. Experiment with both.

Oh, and try not to get frustrated. African skin tones are the hardest to mimic convincingly, which is probably the biggest reason you see so few of them in SL. Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Latino tones are much easier by comparison. Despite the difficulty in producing them, however, dark skin tones can make for some of the most artistically compelling skins of all if done well, so keep at it.

Going from a lighter skin to a much darker skin can be thought of as a function of luminosity and saturation. Lower sat and lower lum. Very general observation, but should give you a good running start or a solid base to work from.