Tutorial Intro to Digital Shading

[Saki_Sliz]

In response to some DM's I get,
This is a brief overview of a simple shading technique for those new to digital art.

NUDE WARNING, nudes everywhere

Spoiler: NUDE: A preview of the results is starting with this, and ending with this

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Here is an overview of the process,
Planning and Setup (4 hours)
Sketching and Final Lining (4 hours)
Slicing and Filling (2 hours)
Shadow Slicing ( 1.5)
Shadow Shaping 1.5 hours
Shadow Smudging and Redding 1.5 hours
Lighting and Highlighting 1 hour
Hair 1.5 hours
*** to do, clothes***
(basically A day (8 hours ish) not related to painting at all, a day drawing and setting up the first ‘starting’ image, and about half a day actually shading

Spoiler: Setup and Organization

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Spoiler: Main Painting, Shadow layers, and some theory stuff

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Spoiler: Lighting or Highlights, very minimal

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Spoiler: Hair, also quick and simple

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[lobotomist]

i really recommend checkinf fuetakishis twitter feed

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he periodically posts his cover arts progres pictures wich include his color palettes.


One thing youl notice he and most of the best artist out there do is they use 2 colors for shadows one for hard shadows and one for soft shadows.




Another useful thing to add is rim lighting. there's also this thing with what i call soft rim in which shadows don't touch the border of the char. for example in this pic:

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you can see on her leg how the hard shadows are centerish that adds to the roundness and gives a good effect to indicate that the light comes from the back. But it doesn't need to come from the back this is useful also with soft shadows and characters in the open, to show that the light comes from all over the place like sunlight boumncing around.

 

[lobotomist]

i just saw this video and at around 48:00 they mention some rules for hard and soft shadows:

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[Saki_Sliz]

I've so far found that there are two dichotomies

1 The more something is shaded, the more the shading allows the viewer to perceive the art as 3D, the more sensitive the viewer is to body ratio's and proportions. IE if you try to model a 2D cartoon character in 3D the proportions look disturbing if rendered, but less so the more abstract the art is visualized (ie just 2D lines and flat shading).

2 The thinner the line work, the more your art is trying to be shaded vs 2D line work which works better or encourages simpler shading.

I already decided I want a more 2D cartoon feeling than 3D model, but now that I'm comfortable with making basic character bodies, I'm fighting with this second dicotomy. I 1 want to make what seems like simple toons, thick lines... but I also want to make these characters for visual novels which often require 'close' (actually medium) shots, and the flat shading just isn't working, so I need a bit of that 'form turning away' shading effect (as shown in the op and mentioned in the video you linked). I've played with rim lighting before, and while it is amazingly powerful, I find it goes against having thick cartoon lines. Some get away with this by actually shading the line work itself, however, for the line thickness I want it just doesn't work for me. The exception to this is to actually move the entire light source behind the character, a complete change in scene lighting. One reason I want to focus on one project is to force me into situations where I do this, rather than just doing so for experimentation without context.

I figure it will take some time till I'm comfortable shading with one style before I start exploring other styles and investigating nuances that I may want to adopt.