For the next part we are going to start working on the skin. This is where things can start to get a little hectic. I am going to be using gradient meshes for this part as well, and most of the next section might be more images than text. Images will show where I placed a new anchor point. I will explain which and where I may have moved some of those anchor points. The next section will not be as detailed as the lips and the eyes were either in order to keep this already long tutorial as short as possible. Just remember everything you learned above already, and put it into practice while following along in the next part.

First things first I'm going to start with the nose. Because I feel it's the hardest part. I'm going to be making a separate shape for the nose, as find it to be easier than doing the whole face together. So lets start with our basic shape.

I made an outline of the nose (RGB:240, 208, 180). I didn't go go over the shadow in the nostrils or any of the other shadows around it. When we make the next part we will make sure the parts that need to blend together do just that.

Add two anchor points on the right nostril (her left) These will connect all the way to the top, but you will need to adjust the handles so the meshes can stay within the nose.

Add another row just above the ones you just added. This will essentially be right where the little round part on the outside of the nostrils end.

Add another row just above that one. This will work to keep the colors we will add from spreading all the way up.

Next we will begin adding a few colors. The next image will show where I added colors.

After adding the colors I noticed they didn't blend that smooth. So I moved the anchor point in the middle a bit to allow it to blend the colors better.

Next we will add 4 new anchor points in the middle of the nose.

Add some color to the new middle points and expand the new side points a bit.

Essentially as far as the color goes, we want some darker colors on the edges of the nostrils and the bridge/center of the nose is going to be brighter. So to try and shorten up this already long tutorial, I'm going to speed this up with some screenshots..

So I added two rows up higher on the bridge of the nose. And added some columns on the left nostril (her right). Aside from that I just played with the colors, like I mentioned above, essentially I went from dark to light, outside to the inside of the nose..

So next we want to make the rest of the face. The tricky part here will be to get the nose and face to blend properly in the right spots. So lets start with a basic shape. The good news here is since this layer is below our hair layer, we can just make a square, aside from the chin.

We will begin working with the eyes. So lets go ahead and add some anchor points. Try and make them curve around the eyes, the way her make up would look.

Note: Notice in my original shape the anchor point on the left side of her chin is slighty higher than the one on the right. In order to get the rows and columns to go straight accross, I moved that left anchor point down, so it exactly across from the other anchor point on the right.

Now I started adding some color and some some more anchor points. Biggest thing to remember is how color flows. Essentially color is going to be darker coming from the eyes and gets lighter as it goes out. Also you will have to add new points and adjust other ones to get them to blend with the nose. Essentially you need to get anchor points on the face to match up with the points on the nose. This next part is going to be more of a simple look. A big part of this tutorial is to get you acquainted with Gradient Meshes. But with you're own practice, you will be able to make some way more amazing results.

NOTE: I wont be saying the RGB colors from here on out. But you already have all the colors as swatches that I am using. To access them go to the top right corner of your swatches palette, open the drop down menu and go to Open Swatch Library, and select Skintones. For all of the skin I have only been using the top row of Swatches. So use these to experiment, when you need a darker color, use a darker brown from that row.

Next we will add some points to the chin. Color here is darker on the edges and gets lighter as it goes inward.

Next we will add some points to kind of make that little bump on the chin, under the lip. we will also add another row in the nose area.

Add some a new column a long each side of the face. These will be a darker shade of brown.

Make sure the colors on the lower left side of her face are blending nicely.

Add a row across her forehead and make the edges anchor points a real dark brown. The row you just added make it a slightly dark brown.

Make the edges of her face just below that a bit darker as well. Right after that I took the time to make the edges of the eyes a bit of a darker shade as well.

Next I'm moving back to the nose and the nostril area. I added two rows above the lip, and shifted some of the anchor points that were behind the nose down a little bit. I made those points be a darker shade, so it gives of the dark shadow under the nose.

Next I shifted some two of the anchor points behind the right nostril (her left) a little closer to the edge and really made them a dark shade. I also moved and darkened the anchor points on the skin right next to that area.

Note: Be careful when selecting anchor points that are behind another item (like the nose) since it will select the item on top by default. It's easy not to realize this and you end up making changes to a different object.

Now we got ourselves a pretty good looking vector face.

I wanted to keep this tutorial as simple as possible, and as you can see it is already pretty long. So I am going to go ahead and stop with the skin right there. Feel free to keep experimenting and adding in details where you feel you need them though. As I mentioned this is basic Meshing, with practice, much more amazing results can be achieved.

To wrap this tutorial up lets just add a bit of make-up around the eyes. I'm going to go ahead and make a new layer above our skin layer, and use the RGB color 242, 0, 93. But you can use which ever color you wish.

Using the pen tool make a shape right around the eyelids.

And another layer around the shade of makeup outside the eyelids. Make sure you push the second shape to the back. Make sure you get this shape to be the same as the other one on the inside part of the eye. On the outer part it can expand.

Now we will just play with some transparencies. Make the inside shape 50% and the outer shape 25%. Make both of these be overlay.

Now to make that outer shape a little subtle, turn it into a gradient. Only for the other color, which would be black or white, turn the opacity all the way down to 0%.

Now just do the same for the other eye.

Now take a breather, and give yourself a pat on the back. You got some basic gradient meshes down.

And with some practice, you're on the road to making some really amazing illustrations.

I'm sure this tutorial was a pain in the ass. Truth be told, I have never seen a gradient mesh tutorial that wasn't. As a bonus, and to help you out, you can download the source file here.

Part three of this series of tutorials we will be simply be finishing up the rest of the image. Mostly Illustrator work, but probably a few touch ups with Photoshop at the end. Stay tuned.

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