#shading tutorial

[kodasea]

Rendering step-by-step (2022)

[kyri45]

Time to reveal my SECRET TECHNIQUE to the world!!

What we’ll do:

Blending modes PRO/CON

Basic light theory and local color properties

how to shade ANY scene

What you’ll need:

NO DRAWING TABLETS or PROGRAMS needed! You can use yours if you have them, but you can follow with you PC/tablet with mouse and keyboard and with the FREE website Photopea.com

1 hour of your time

psd files you’ll receive a couple of days before the workshop

The lesson will be RECORDED! So as long as you are registered, you can watch it later during the week in case you miss it :)

[chubs-deuce]

Do you have any tips on shading/rendering hair? Your hair always looks so fluffy and beautiful and I’m so jealous because I struggle with it a lot! To add on, any tips for rendering dyed hair, like Felix’s? Where there’s a color gradient!

Hiii~

I felt like this was best answered with visual examples, so I kind of set up a whole tutorial for this? :'DD

I'm sorry this post turned out so long LMAO I went a bit overboard ------------------------------

Firstly, something you need to know about the way I color is that I abuse the SHIT out of certain hotkeys and layer settings.

To make following along the process of the gifs I recorded for this easier to understand, I set up my recording in such a way that you can (hopefully) see more clearly when I use them.

Namely:

Then I'd also like to elaborate a bit on the two brushes I primarily use:

(1) The "turnip pen" - I use this one for the base colors and overall hair texture (I use this also for blushing on skin a lot)

it layers over itself without smudging and both opacity and size are pen pressure controlled.

(2) The "guache brush" - this is what I use for almost all of my shading.

the amount of paint applied, the density and how much it blends whatever other colors it's applied over (on the same layer) is controlled by pen pressure. Its rotation is also stylus angle sensitive, which is VERY handy for texture control!

(3) your very average, basic airbrush tool :'D this one I use very sparingly, usually to soften gradients and apply atmospheric lighting.

NOW-

STEP 1: THE BASE COLOR

as you've probably noticed, I included two/three different shades on the setup page there! I start by applying the darker one first.

(note: the gifs are all set to 2x speed)

I cut the footage a bit to the "highlights" but what you should be able to see here is how I toggle "use brush as eraser" on and off repeatedly during the process. It helps with keeping the edges of the coloring looking a bit "fluffy"! I also occasionally use the ALT GR + drag hotkey to quickly resize my brush, which helps with the tighter curls of the curly hair variant especially.

With multi-toned hair like Felix's I go about it *slightly* different because I block out the parts that won't get dye on them on one layer (i.e. sideburns + hairline in this case) and then create another layer above that to do the dyed hair on top of. It's technically not *necessary* but it lets me feel more in control with less of a hassle over where the gradient goes in the next step.

Speaking of which:

STEP 2: TEXTURING/DEFINITION

I make an extra layer and clip it to the one with the darker base color on it, then start blocking in individual strands to give the whole thing some texture - this step also carries a lot of weight in making the shading look more defined later!

Along the way with the curly hair variant you can also see me using the lasso tool to apply a bit of airbrush to the ponytail - this gives the fringe, the bound back hair around the head and the tail itself some extra definition! I also airbrushed the tips of the hair with the lighter color a bit to give it more of a wispy vibe.

Felix' hair gradient goes in on two layers instead of one - one layer for the mid-tone and one for the blond!

resulting in this:

This is the state I'd keep it at for a "flat" colored artwork.

STEP 3: SHADING (stage 1)

For the shading I start by throwing the flat colors into the same group/folder, then make a multiply layer that I clip on top of the group/folder.

Then I paint-bucket on the layer using a medium grey-ish purple (the actual color used depends on what tone of you're going for with the lighting), and add white to the other of my little color switch squares.

Using the guache brush, I can then "paint" the light on with the white and blend/correct with the purple by toggling between the two using my X hotkey.

While shading I try to keep in mind what direction the light is coming from as well as the shape it's falling onto. With the straight hair variant here you can also see that I'm using the textured shape of the guache brush to create quick highlights - I paint on a stroke of white, then use the purple with medium to high pressure to smudge it out only a tiny bit. This gives it a more hair-like texture!

The highlights usually form towards the "edges" of the surface area that's facing the light, so keeping curvature in mind helps a lot with placing them.

Lighter pressure = more blending, less color application.

Once again, Felix' hair makes for kind of an exception, since the dark and light tones in his hair make it kinda tricky to see what I'm doing, so I turn the layer back from the "multiply" setting to "normal" and temporarily reduce the opacity a tad before I continue - the rest of the process stays mostly the same though.

This completes Shading stage 1:

I like to kinda think of this stage as me chiseling out the 3D shape of what I'm shading - and with the multiply layer on the "normal" setting, it kind of almost looks like a marble statue too :'D

STEP 3: SHADING (stage 2):

Once again I make a new layer and clip it to the coloring group, above the multiply layer we just made, set it to "add" and then bucket-fill the entire layer with black - black doesn't show up on "add" and simultaneously makes it easier to blend! Think of it as "priming" the canvas in a sense?

I was unfortunately an idiot who forgot she was recording and to be mindful of how I position the canvas/keeping to a neater order for editing purposes later, so the next gif clip is kinda awkardly framed for the straight hair and slightly out of order.

I also want to note that somewhere near the start I decided to hit CTRL+U to open the hue/saturation/luminosity sliders and shifted the hue around a little, so it starts out blue but ends up more turquoise. I often do small adjustments like this along the way throughout my process. No shame in changing your mind!

This is what I like thinking of as "ambient occlusion" or "bounce light" - though in my mind I tend to just apply it to the darker areas that could use more definition or to add more shine to the highlights.

This results in the following output:

STEP 4: COLOR CORRECTION

Idk if you've noticed, but by now the base colors started looking a little bit muddy. Let's fix that!

First I copy the base color layer group in its entirety and paste it above the shading layers. I then select all layers inside that group, right click on it, and then click on "merge selected layers".

The merged result I then make a copy of and turn the merged original invisible (this is more just in case I need to copy it again than actually necessary).

I then turn the layer mode setting to "soft light", hit the CTRL+U hotkey to bring up the hue/saturation/luminosity sliders again and pull the saturation to about two thirds to the right and then pull up the luminosity to taste before clicking OK to apply the effect. I then mess with the opacity of the layer until it looks right. In this example I happened to land on circa 79% opacity.

I then decided it needs more of the original color back, so I copied that safety copy of the merged layer from earlier again, turn its mode setting to "color" and turn the opacity down until I have what feels like a good contrast. It doesn't look like much changed when you compare it to it with just the "soft light" layer, but it makes a difference to *me* okay? :'D

STEP 5: FINE TUNING

Normally Step 4 is where I finish, but if I really want to amp up the fancy rendering, I go into Step 5 next.

This one is a lot less technical than the previous ones, as I basically just make a new layer that I place above everything (including the lineart), and then just... copy colors from the image and then draw in details such as stray hairs and extra shines and adding definition. The brush I use in this case is a flat marker tool, it does essentially the same as the turnip brush, except it's flat and slightly angled :'D

Aand... that's it, pretty much!

:'D now you have a detailed run-down of how I go about coloring and shading/rendering hair!

I hope this helped, it was very fun to make haha <3<3

[sznycelekshapedcreature]

art tutorial let's go

ok there was like one person who wanted a rendering tutorial so,,,,,,,,,, here it is!!

[note: this tutorial was made with ms paint, windows 11 version]

[emeldiir]

ROWE'S BASIC ASS SHADING GUIDE

Hi ya'll, i recently made a shading guide for some friends of mine who then recommended that i post it here too! This is a guide that will go over the building blocks of shading, and should help you get a good grasp of the foundational concepts so that when you begin to try other techniques and intermediate shading, you have a good base to go back to. This guide is meant for beginners, and is pulled from all the knowledge i've gained in my over 12 years of experiance as a professional and hobbyist artist. Please keep in mind that i am not a teacher, and feel free to ask any questions in the comments, or through asks! Happy Shading! ROWE'S BASIC ASS SHADING GUIDE: PART ONE

Shadow Follows Form

to begin with this concept, we will need three things

Any shape. a ball is the most basic shape to begin with, because it does not have any defined planes which can quickly become complex and confusing. (a plane is any flat surface that makes up an object)

A light source, this is the key to any type of shading, the direction of the light will show us where to place our shadows, because shadows are created through the absence of light

A value chart. The value refers to how dark or light a shade is. If it has a darker value it sits closer to pure black, and if it has a lighter value it sits closer to pure white. Grey, where black and white meet, is the middle value.

When we place these colors into a shape we use the labels of Highlight, Midtone, and Deep tone to help us figure out where our shadow is going to lie. Let’s define these terms.

Highlight: The highlight is the lightest value on the canvas overall. On a 3D object, the highlight will be placed closest to the light source, and will usually be a pale white color but this depends on a variety of variables, like the color of the light, how close the light is, what material our object is made out of and more, that are a bit too advanced for this guide.

Midtone: This is the middle tone between our shadow and light. This tone will typically be the base color of our object, or the color that it would be if it was shown in a completely neutral light with no shadow or highlight present. For example, If you have a red apple, the red color is the base, or the midtone, and the lights and shadows are built off of said red color / midtone.

Deep tone: This is the darkest tone on the object and is positioned opposite of the highlight and light source. This is the shade we use for the actual shadow that is being cast, both on the object itself and the surface of whatever it is sitting on.

Drop, or Cast Shadow: This is the dark shadow that lays underneath of our object on the surface that it is sitting on. This shadow moves in tandem with the light source, and light will always move in a straight line, never curved, so you cannot move the light source without also moving the drop shadow. To place these values down correctly we need to remember that the highlight and the deep tone will always be opposite of each other on any object you can think of. The Highlight is showing where direct light is hitting the object. The highlight will move across the object depending on the angle of the light. The midtones are showing where the light is still illuminating the object, however it is no longer direct light and would mores be considered indirect light. The deep tone can vary in darkness depending on the type of light being cast onto the object. If the light is more direct, or closer to the object, the deep tone will be dark with hard edges, clearly defining the shape of the object that the shadow belongs to. In the example below, both the sphere and the cube are being lit with direct, harsh lighting, which means that the shadows on the object itself and the shadow underneath are clean and dark, with no feathering or blurring (softness) of the shadows beneath. If the lighting were to be softer, less direct and more ambient, the shadows would not be as harsh, would be less dark, and may have more variation in the dark color, leading to gradients or softer transitions between values.

ROWE'S BASIC ASS SHADING GUIDE: PART TWO The Colors

Whilst the physical location of the light source and shadow remain in opposition to each other, the colors we use to represent light and shadow, (though a more complicated aspect of shading), act in similar ways! Categorically, the color of light and shadow typically reside within a Complimentary color palette. To explain this further, let’s define some terms!

The Color Wheel: The color wheel is a tool that artists use to help us describe the relationships between different colors and how they move from one hue to the next. The color wheel consists of the Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue, and the colors between these main three are born out a combination of two different primary colors. For example, Orange is a combination of Red and Yellow, Green a combination of Yellow and Blue, and Purple, a combination of Red and Blue.

Complimentary Colors: A Complimentary Color Palette consists of two hues, which sit on opposite sides of the color wheel. This color palette is especially suited for use within light and shadow, because complimentary colors work together to enhance each others contrast whilst simultaneously creating a harmony between two vastly contrasting values (Deep Tone and Highlight). The color of our shadow will be the opposite color of our light, so for example, A green light will cast purple shadows, a red light will cast blue shadows, and so on.

Now before we go painting a bunch of complimentary colors everywhere we also have to talk about saturation and vibrancy. When looking at light and shadow in the real world, they often look much more dull than a lot of artists represent them in their art, and this is because in reality, unless you have a strongly colored light the difference in color between light and shadow is pretty difficult to see, unless you are well trained in the art of spotting the undertones of these shades.As a basic rule of thumb its important to remember that the light will often be more vibrant then the shadows themselves, as light brings out all the colors present in an object whilst shadow dilutes them.

Vibrancy: Vibrancy refers to the brightness and liveliness of color in visual work. When colors are described as vibrant, they are perceived as bright, rich, and full of energy. Vibrancy helps create dynamic and engaging visual scenes.

Saturation: Saturation is the level of intensity a color has. high saturation refers to bright colors. In traditional painting terms, the highest saturated colors are the colors that are holding the most pure pigment. For example, a highly saturated color would be a red paint straight out of the tube before you add in other colors, or mix it with water or a painting oil / binder. Low saturation refers muted colors, or colors that have less pigment to them. These are colors that have been mixed with others to lower the amount of pure pigment to them. Muted colors and bright colors have to work together, and this is what helps us build realistic light and shadow. High saturated light helps us define the colors of the object and the less saturated colors are necessary to support and enhance the bright colors.

ROWE'S BASIC ASS SHADING GUIDE: PART THREE

Let’s Put it Together!

To review! We’ve learned about value, how the highlight, midtone, and deep tone combine to build a 3D object in 2D space. We’ve also talked about color, how bright, vibrant, and high saturated colors work with dull, muted, and low saturated colors to build up harmony and contrast. We’ve also gone over the color wheel and how complimentary color palettes work within light and shadow. So how do all of these concepts come together? Im going to use a painting of some tomatoes as a reference for these concepts because this is a fairly simple painting with little complexity to the values.

The first step we have in creating the light and shadow is to understand our form, the basic shapes we are working with here. The tomatoes are a simple sphere/circle, and due to the direct light have a very small deep tone and highlight. A majority of the color used within them is the midtone (the bright red). The midtone itself has slight variations in its red color, as the red develops into an orange tone the closer it gets to the highlight, due to the fact that the light is a yellow color. As the red midtone gets closer to the deep tone shadow, it gains a darker purply color because the color we used to shade the red is a dark blue. We don’t use a drop shadow in this painting because the tomatoes are hanging and are not resting on a surface. In the reference photo the drop / cast shadow lies behind the tomatoes on the floor, about a meter away.

I hope this guide can help some of you out, and you contunie learning and improving your art! Art keeps all of us alive, your work is more important than you know <3

[wilmvandrr]

Speed paint/art tut?

if you want a speedpaint of any of my art you can just ask for it in the replies and ill post it :)

here's a little skin tut i did for another ask in the meanwhile

i don't really know how to do tuts so please just ask for speedpaints to learn by osmosis 😭

[ae-llish]

Hell yeah' more shitpost drawing studies'

I mostly to these scribbles/notes for myself, but sharing is caring and my brain simple won't acknowledge and comprehend how light works.

It's actually so simple doing shadows ( in theory ), still' i wanna rip and tear at my hair whenever i actaully have draw dynamic ones.

[taikk0]

I love your art! Do you have coloring tips? Like how do you know what colors you use to shade? It's pure eye-candy! /Pos

Thank you, and thank you for asking!!

My favorite coloring tip of all time is:

MOVE THE COLOR WHEEL

Here is a demonstration:

Basically

The darker = the colder. blue, purple. etc. DOWN The lighter = the warmer. yellow, orange. etc. UP

This makes my art look richer and more colorful. really depends on the vibe you want to go for, but this is mine. My main inspiration are the sonic IDW comics and how they tend to go purpler for it's shading and yellower/oranger for it's highlights.

My favorite example is definitely when that shading is done to Knuckles. Which was what made me recognize the coloring style in the first place. from then on I just never shaded the same :P

Hope this helps!