Finding the right skin tone threads can be VERY hard, normally resulting in a super pink face, or a washed out face. However, with the sheer volume of threads out there, its not actually that hard to create really realistic skin tones.
We’ve created the above table so you can look up the skin tone you want to stitch and see both highlight and shadow thread colors for DMC to go with it. Equally, you can go down the table to see darker skin tones progressively.
With this, you can edit existing patterns to match skin tones you want, or you can make your own patterns with quality skin colors.
I am using 951 for skin. What similar color can I use to backstitch?
Well, that depends! Are you using shadows as well? And are you using black backstitch for the rest, or are you using color-coded (for example a dark red around a red item)?
Using shadows & black backstitch – Use 310
Not using shadows & black backstitch – Use 301 or 310 (depending on the look you’re going for)
Using shadows & colored backstitch – Use 3776
Not using shadows & colored backstitch – Use 3856 or 3776 or 301 (depends how dark the rest of the colored backstitch is)
It would be great if you could also include recommendations for black and grey portraits.
When you recommend the three, skintone, highlight and shadow, is it suggested to blend all three threads together in each stitch, or is it intended to stitch separately to create more three deminsional depth, so some of the face/body is in shadow?
It depends on your project, but in most cases faces normally have shadows and light points so we would suggest using them this way to give some depth.
Thank you for this. I want to do a diamond painting, and will use this guide to change the white skin to brown. Again thank you. I am able to purchase a wider variety if paintings now. 🙂
This is sooo helpful. Thank you!!