Hey all, I've wrapped my brain into a bit of a knot trying to sort out the colour of light and it's effect on skin tones in dim indoor settings. I'd love it if someone could help me sort out what colour the shadow areas would have been in my attached mini example painting (Zelda), or explain some of the reference images' colours attached. (The post is a bit long, so no need to answer all questions, any help with this topic is appreciated!) - My Thought Process/More Specific Problem Points: If the figure was in moonlight, I think the expected colour is a greenish or blue ambient hue, and if they had a lamp or a warm light on I'd expect a yellowish or orange colour cast on them. (Correct me if i'm already wrong) In the referenced examples, characters are in indoor spaces without man-made lighting. All of them, despite the rooms and spaces not being overtly purple, have an ashy purple-ish tone to the skin. (This is where my brain gets all confused - how do I know the underlying skin's base colours!? Why purple?) My example image was trying for a block of brighter highlights as the sun gets lower (thinking, just before golden hour) streaming in a nearby window, and I initially mapped out transitional blocks where the light might come through ("1"). I made these light spots transition with a yellow/orange from the light getting lower in the sky. Do you think, since it is falling on the skin, I should have made this transitional shade a red colour only? If the light is relatively bright, even if only in the few mapped out spots, Is the problem that the rest of the face being in shadow is unrealistic? I also couldn't decide why the references all seemed roughly purple. If the indoor space is a white, grey, brown etc you'd think a simple brown/grey colour would be the main shadow colour, but I already knew that wouldn't look right. My current conclusion is the reference images look purpley and ashy due to a blue tinted cool lighting from remaining atmospheric colours from the sky outside (as there's no other lights to override the blue tone, even if they aren't directly exposed to the sky when indoors) and the purple is created through some subsurface scattering type effect where the redness of the skin is being enhanced? ie. weak remaining light is blue + redness of skin is showing through more = purple I also tend not to work in digital, so the colours i gave for examples ("2") aren't exactly the same ones I can mix on my palette, but the un-pictured middle stage gave me a very lifeless looking skin. How do you think the skin keeps some livelihood even in such ashy cool-toned settings? I tried just adding a warmer pink blush colour, but it was a bad patch for the problem which I later painted over. - Thank you if you read this far :) I hope to read your thoughts!