Show HN: Simple algorithm and color space to generate diverse skin tones

Hacker News (score: 327)
Found: August 04, 2026
ID: 6603

Description

Show HN: Simple algorithm and color space to generate diverse skin tones Hello HN!

I found that picking out plausible but diverse skin tones for my digital art and game development projects was kind of difficult, and I got curious about if there was a way to define a color space that made it easy.

I've built a color picker and procedural generation algorithm based on the space as well as a bunch of other fun js features and demos throughout the page that use the equations. If you find it interesting, I have lots of explanations of how I built it and what properties the space has.

The methodology might be a bit shaky, but hopefully the result is as helpful for others as I have found it! There's lots of room for improvements (see the Future Work section), but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

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