Fantasy world, low-magic, roughly Renaissance-level technology; not Earth.
The Situation:
I have a hard time describing real-life people and even more difficulty describing the characters I create in my mind. My core characters are of varying nations and ethnic backgrounds, and therefore varying skin-tones. In my mind I know what each character looks like and what genetic/cultural/national groups on Earth their societies could/would correspond to. However, since their world is not Earth, I can’t use those as analogous descriptors.
The searches I’ve done regarding skin-tones turn up a lot of fashion tips and precious little else. Wikipedia is of equally little help. Could anyone recommend a good resource to help me describe skin tones? In particular, I’m trying to describe Polynesian and Middle Eastern skin tones.