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It can be really hard to choose skin color for your characters in Procreate. You spend all of this time perfecting the perfect shade of skin color within the color wheel, only to drop it into your character and realize that it looks awful.
What gives?
Skin color is notoriously challenging to get right when creating art of any kind, whether it be traditional art or digital art.
If the shade is off, even just a little bit, it can feel unnatural and draw attention to itself in a way that you didn’t intend.
Overtime, the goal is to understand how skin works so that you can craft your own shades to your liking. But, that will take a lot of practice and work.
In the meantime, let’s use our resources to our advantage! There are some great skin color palettes for Procreate that have already been created. Simply import them into your Procreate app, save them in a skin-specific palette, and you’ll be ready to go!
And, the best part? All of the skin color palettes we’ll be talking about are absolutely free! Free. Isn’t that a nice word?
We’re going to dive into 4 of my top choices of skin color palettes for Procreate that you can use today!
If you’re not sure what to do with the color palettes you find here, don’t worry. I have a full guide on creating Procreate color palettes that includes instructions for importing any pre-created palettes.
1. The Skin Color Palette by Ebb & Flow
If you don’t want to be overwhelmed with choices, yet still want a good collection of skin color options to choose from, the Ebb & Flow skin color palette will have you covered. It comes with 30 colors to choose from so that you can quickly and easily achieve the skin color you’re looking for.
What I love about Ebb & Flow’s skin color palette is that it gives you a lot of options to work from. Either use one of their 30 skin tones as is, or use it as a jumping off point to develop your own skin color.
You can download this skin color palette for free here, either as a .swatches file, or a JPG.
Before we move on to the 2nd skin color palette, let me explain how to get a color palette into Procreate on your iPad. If you don’t need a refresher on this, keep scrolling down to the 2nd option on this list.
How to Import a Color Palette into Procreate
Import a .swatches file into Procreate by downloading the file on your iPad and clicking on it. You can also download it to your computer and Airdrop it to your iPad. Either option will automatically import it into Procreate.
If you’ve never heard of .swatches files before, you’re not alone. They’re unique to Procreate color palettes.
There are two ways to upload a .swatches files to your Procreate app:
1. Download the .swatches file to your computer. Right click or double click on it to access the context menu.
Click on the Share button and choose AirDrop.
Make sure your iPad is awake and choose your iPad in the list of AirDrop options.
Your .swatches file will automatically be imported into Procreate. You’ll see your new color palette added to the bottom of your color palettes list.
2. Download the .swatches file to your iPad.
Save it to your Files app.
Within your Files app, click on the .swatches file. This will import it into Procreate. You’ll see your new color palette added to the bottom of your color palettes list.
Now, let’s say that you only want to import some of the colors in a color palette, but not all of them. In this case, it might be easier to import your color palette as a JPG instead of a .swatches file.
This will let you pick and choose the colors you want to add to your color palette instead of being forced to import all of them with a .swatches file.
Save the JPG of your color palette to your iPad. You can also take a screenshot of it.
Open Procreate and your Procreate canvas. Insert the image of your color palette.
Use the eyedropper tool to individually select a color that you want to add to your color palette. Create a new, empty color palette and click on one of the empty squares to add your color to it.
Repeat this process for every color from your color palette image that you want to add to your own color palette.
When you’re done, simply delete the picture of the color palette.
Alright, now that we’ve reviewed the process of importing color palettes into Procreate, let’s get back to our list of skin color palettes.
2. SkinTone Palettes
This option will give you access to 3 color palettes of many different shades of skin color. Ranging from light to dark and everywhere in between, these skin color palettes give you a lot of choices when coloring the skin of your characters.
If you need more skin color options than the Ebb & Flow color palette gives you, you’ll want to check out the 3 color palettes provided here. Disclaimer: While I have successfully downloaded these palettes to my own iPad, I cannot vouch for their future upkeep.
There are over 70 skin tones to choose from, which is more than enough of a jumping off point! Simply import the provided .swatches into Procreate to get started.
Before we move on to my 3rd option, let me take a second to tell you about my favorite Skillshare class that you can take for free! It’s called:
Color Palettes in Procreate: Find Your Unique Color Style
It’s an AMAZING class that will help you level up your color palette creation skills really quickly. It’s phenomenal. And, what’s even better is that you can take this class for free with a Skillshare free trial.
Grab a free trial to Skillshare and take this amazing color palette class!
3. Haze Long Easy Skin Tone Palette
This Haze Long Easy Skin Tone Palette is a complete color palette containing 30 skin tone shades. What I love about this color palette is that it offers more unique shades of color than you may find in other skin tone palettes.
When you get this color palette, you’ll have 30 skin color tones to choose from, many of them fun and unique. I love how this palette explores pink, green, gray, and other shades that you can experiment with when creating your art.
Haze Long offers this palette for free here – make sure to choose the free option from the dropdown. You can also choose to donate to the artist in exchange for this color palette.
When you purchase this palette for free or for a donation, you’ll receive an email containing the link to download your .swatches file that you can import into Procreate.
4. Skin Tones Color Palette from Kia Designs
The Skin Tones Color Palette from Kia Designs is a solid and comprehensive color palette that will give you a lot of skin color options for all of your Procreate people and characters. This free download includes 30 colors for you to use, fitting nicely into 1 Procreate color palette.
You can download this Skin Tones Color Palette as a .swatches file from Kia Designs for free here.
You can also have fun looking at all of the other color palettes that Kia Designs offers for free.
It can be tricky to get the perfect skin color shades for your Procreate people and characters. With the help of these skin color palettes, you’ll have a lot of options to choose from, plus great jumping off points should you want to design your own skin color shade.
Diana has been an artist for over 26 years and has training in drawing, painting, digital drawing and graphic design. Diana’s latest obsession is digitally drawing with Procreate and creating t-shirt designs with Canva. Diana has experience selling her art across a number of platforms and loves helping other artists learn how to make money from their art as well.