Skin?

[Silverclaw]

I notice that in a lot of werewolf movies, the werewolf transforming almost always changes to a different skin color. (You can see this because Hollywood weres usually have little to no fur ) Dark brown, gray, dark gray is used a lot. A lot of the time the skin also has a mottled look to it.
Ex: Dog Soliders, Underworld, Cursed...

What do you think? Would a werewolf remain their human skin tone and just grow fur over it? Would things like freckles or whatever stay? What does a shaved wolf look like anyway? lol

[RedEye]

Let's see: The skin...
I suppose that changing the skin color is what's called an "Audience Clue" that this is not the same lame actor being all Emo with fangs. Skin is also the means by which various sub-species of the Human Race identify each other. Then there's the observation that every hairless Werewolf on screen has a skin color that is NOT part of the normal human range of hues and tones.
Dark, mottled skin further hints at "disease" or sickness; which helps the movie Werewolf come across as "nasty, dirty, and evil".
IMHO: It's just a visual thing that is used to show the audience that this is a Werewolf, not an actor.
Shift skin coloring: Actually, most wolves and dogs have white (white, not caucasian) skin. If there's any change in the person, their skin should go pale white or remain the same color it was to begin with. Since animals also have freckles on what skin is exposed, I guess the freckles would stay; only you wouldn't be able to see them because of the fur.
Shaved wolf: There was a wolf with some sort of skin problem that did require shaving her to the skin. She looked like a shaved dog; ie: Take dog and remove hair. She was also profoundly embarassed, although it did save her life (some sort of mange, I think). She would only allow a couple of people near her at the time, and was literally clinging; she needed comfort so much. She survived, and the hair regrew.

[lycanthropeful]

It would seem most practical that fur sort of lurks beneath a werewolf's everyday skin. I see no reason for it to change its color. Sure, its texture would probably change, and would separate perhaps to allow fur to grow through the epidermis and things like that (see my intelligent scientific terminology? I have no clue what I'm talking about).

[Wingman]

It would seem most practical that fur sort of lurks beneath a werewolf's everyday skin. I see no reason for it to change its color. Sure, its texture would probably change, and would separate perhaps to allow fur to grow through the epidermis and things like that (see my intelligent scientific terminology? I have no clue what I'm talking about).

Very sciency.

Well, maybe this s just me, but dark skin lets the makeup and costume people get away with having only a thin layer of fur, which drastically minimizes the work they need to do. Last I checked, the "skins" for the costumes of the Underworld Lycans took something like 90 hours to make, each. If I recall correctly, that is. They were punching the hairs in individually. And when you've got about 20 of them to make, and the people are probably getting paid by the hour...
Thus, dark skin allows the illusion of there being more fur than there really is.

On a painting I'm working on, I'm drawing each hair in individually, and even now with about 20 hours in on it, he still only looks like a hairy, naked, slightly-malformed guy. Now, were I to darken his skin, I would only have a few things to do before calling it done. As is, I've probably got another 20-30 hours to go on it. That's without really doing anything for the background or accessories.

[Thunderclaw]

I think that the fur colour would be influenced by the human form. Thickness and colour of fur would depend on what the human's physical appearance is like. It's a bit like a reflection of the human in a more powerful, wild way.

[Terastas]

Redeye nailed it I think: the skin-changing is a visual cue; a means of taking out as much of the werewolf's humanity as soon as possible. If a werewolf had traces of their human form in their werewolf form, it would do two things most production companies don't want to do.

First, it will allow the werewolf's identity/humanity to be recognized, and if the audience can recognize the person inside the monster, that might generate some sympathy towards it.

Second, individual werewolves would require individual props from the FX team. It's easy to make an army of a hundred individual zombies -- just tell all the extras to show up in their old clothes and spend a few minutes painting them with dirt, chalk and kool-aid. Werewolves, however, are much more expensive to produce, so when it comes to movies that have more than two werewolves in them, the companies typically will want to use the same prosthetics as often as possible. To make it believable that individual people could all shift into the same werewolf, the shifting process has to remove the human element ASAP. A quick change in skin tone can accomplish that.

The reality, however, is that wolves actually have lighter skin tones than the average human on account of their fur shielding it from the sun. Remember Mr. Bigglesworth from the Austin Powers movies? That would be a wolf's natural skin color.

[RedEye]

There is another thing too, Terastas; by retaining any "human" appearance, the Werewolf might become sympathetic, rather than frightening.
And that's one thing the major productions don't want happening.

[FormicHiveQueen]

Real wolves, and most animals for that matter, have a skin color the same as their fur color, but lighter, so it seems reasonable that a werewulf would be no different. So if you're going with the classic grey- or black-colored werewulf, the skin would likely change to a grey to match. Or, perhaps the color of the fur is influenced by the existing skin color. For example, a white person becoming a werewulf (taking into account that most "white" people are actually some pinkish tan hue) would probably have brown-ish fur. A born and bred African would have very dark or black fur. A latino or Asian would probably have a slightly darker brown than "white" people.

In short, the answer really depends on which kind of fur you're after. If it's a set color, the answer is yes. If it's dependent, then the answer is no.

[Gevaudan]

Real wolves, and most animals for that matter, have a skin color the same as their fur color, but lighter, so it seems reasonable that a werewulf would be no different. So if you're going with the classic grey- or black-colored werewulf, the skin would likely change to a grey to match. Or, perhaps the color of the fur is influenced by the existing skin color. For example, a white person becoming a werewulf (taking into account that most "white" people are actually some pinkish tan hue) would probably have brown-ish fur. A born and bred African would have very dark or black fur. A latino or Asian would probably have a slightly darker brown than "white" people.

In short, the answer really depends on which kind of fur you're after. If it's a set color, the answer is yes. If it's dependent, then the answer is no.

If this is true, then racism is probably just as much of an issue for werewolves as it is for humans.

[Wingman]

If this is true, then racism is probably just as much of an issue for werewolves as it is for humans.

As opposed to normally, with their differently colored fur?

[Gevaudan]

If this is true, then racism is probably just as much of an issue for werewolves as it is for humans.

As opposed to normally, with their differently colored fur?

Maybe. Here's how I see it:
If fur colour is influenced by hair colour, then any discrimination would probably be only as bad as your typical blonde joke.
If fur colour is influenced by skin colour, it might go even deeper than that to include racism, segregation, "white supremacist" werewolves, etc.

Of course, it could be vice versa, and this is also assuming that the werewolves in question are even aware of what causes different fur colours.

[Scott Gardener]

Most canine skin is pretty pale, lacking need for melanin for protection, since there's layers of fur for that. That said, I don't see any reason to make melanocytes come and go with shifting. (Then again, shifting already implies overcoming much bigger problems.) I'd think the skin color would match the closest lupine equivalent, though fur might obscure the issue.

The implication I got with Underworld was that it was a fine coat of fur. The implication I got from Cursed was that someone put in charge of the effects was a complete idiot, tossing out Rick Fraking Baker in favor of rendering CGI on a Dreamcast.