How do you build a color grade from scratch in Resolve with proper skin tones?

[LunaLM]

I'm a freelance videographer who mostly films corporate interviews and events, but I'm trying to branch into more creative short films to build my portfolio. My biggest weakness is definitely color grading; I understand the basic sliders in DaVinci Resolve, but my footage always ends up looking either flat and lifeless or overly stylized and unnatural. For editors who have developed a strong eye for color, what foundational color grading techniques or workflows did you find most helpful when you were starting out? I'm particularly interested in how you approach building a look from scratch, using scopes correctly to maintain skin tones, and whether you rely heavily on LUTs as a starting point or prefer to grade manually for more control.