Spinning Skin Tones in My Head

For the "basic" ready-to-wear prosthetics, I offer 5 skin tones including Ivory, Warm Rosy, Caramel, Mocha and Ebony. 

For those that do not find their size in my ready-to-wear prosthetics and decide to have me make a "custom" prosthetic from their own finger molds, I really wanted to offer more variety of skin tones. I needed to create samples that can be borrowed and sent along with the home mold-making kit in the mail, to be tried on in person; It is way too difficult to mix a skin tone from a photograph online, where every computer shows different lighting, etc.

The design for skin tone samples has been spinning around in my head for quite a while. I finally sculpted the basic shape of the finger for my skin tone sample and cast into it just like a prosthetic. You can actually slip a finger into one of these skin tone samples. The top is filled solid just like one of my prosthetics and the rest is hollow, with thin and stretchy bottom edges. You can see the skin tone, as well as get a feel for the material that I use for the prosthetics. Each skin tone sample is imprinted with a number or number/letter combination.

Once I had the design, I was off to mix up 20 more skin tones. I wanted to be sure to go light and dark enough on the color spectrum. To get a very realistic skin tone, it has to be mixed up by hand. The color needs to show depth and translucency at the same time. I have all of the recipes that I have concocted like a chef plastered to my wall in front of my steel work table. 
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