A Painterly Approach to Human Skin
Author(s): Peter-Pike J. Sloan, Bruce Gooch, Bill Martin, Amy A. Gooch, Louise Bell.
Misc: Short Research paper,
2001.
[BibTeX] 
Abstract:
Rendering convincing human figures is one of the unsolved goals
of computer graphics. Previous work has concentrated on modeling
the physics of human skin. We have taken a different approach.
We are exploring techniques used by artists, specifically artists who
paint air-brushed portraits. Our goal is to give the impression of
skin, without extraneous physical details such as pores, veins, and
blemishes. In this paper, we provide rendering algorithms which are
easy to incorporate into existing shaders, making rendering skin for
medical illustration, computer animations, and other applications
fast and simple. We accomplish this by using algorithms for real
time drawing and shading of silhouette curves. We also build upon
current non-photorealistic lighting methods using complementary
colors to convey 3D shape information. Users select areas from a
scanned art work and manipulate these areas to create shading models.
The flexibility of this method of generating a shading model
allows users to portray individuals with different skin tones or to
capture the look and feel of a work of art.