Fixing Skin Textures

After presentations/crit on Monday, I was told that my characters look too much like African Americans and that I should be conscious of issues concerning race and how the audience might perceive my characters and concept. While this was not at all my intention, it hadn't previously occurred to me (I saw their skin colour as a dull green/grey symbolising rotting and sickness).

In photoshop I created a new skin texture which was light and dark in different areas (to be used to show some depth/shadow.

I made the green a lot greener so they couldn't be confused as ANY race.

Here I have put the new layer into AE to see how it would work with the clothes.

I am happy with this result so I will now apply the texture.

The character with the new skin applied. I like how the scratches on the texture give the characters scars. When you move the character across the stage and reapply the texture, it changes the character's skin to match that specific part of the texture, so I played around until I got the right balance of light/dark and scars.

This is the character with his skin worked out. The face and a few other areas are light because they will be most affected by the TV's light. The feet in the back will be more shadowed. Now I have characters that don't belong to any specific race.