heres a little tip from tumblr user frogopera on how to not whitewash the undead that i found helpful!
Hey! So I was having issues with drawing an undead character of mine, mainly because... He isn't white.
So, i wanted to make a general thread that complies some tips I've learned on how to make your characters look... More dead.
Some things to think about:
If they're not decayed much, his skin may actually be bloated and stretched looking.
Are they wet or dry? Dry skin becomes cracked and details are more pronounced, like wrinkles and finger prints.
Dead skin stretches differently.
Subsurface Scattering doesn't have the same affect on cadavres, because of the blood not being oxygenated and the various skin layers diffuse/absorb light differently.
Dead people don't sweat and glands don't produce anything. Their face shouldn't have the typical shininess in oily areas.
Other Tips:
Try changing their skin undertones from red to yellow, or even blue.
Give them dark bruises to emphasize how pale they are.
Down the saturation on the skin a little bit to a lot, depending on how dead your OC is.
Think about the folds of your skin - how it folds over when you turn your wrist. A dead person would have lots of these folds, more than likely in many more places than we do.
Nails (from my own observation) tend to dull and blend in with the rest of the skin when one is dead.
Human bones may or may not be sticking out of your oc. Unless your oc is a complete skeleton they will not be white! They will likely be pink tinted/stained because your oc lived in it at some point. Even older bones are yellow-tinted.
I hope this was helpful! If you have any more tips and such feel free to state them below!