Shading… and highlights

There is nothing quite like shading in the world of drawing. Shading is one of the most important parts of realistic drawing. Shading also plays a major role in the stylistic aspects of animation. Shading tricks the eye into seeing 3D on a 2D plane. With shading, an object can really jump out at you.

Shading can be as difficult or easy as you want it to be. Light from a powerful and consistent light source like the sun, creating a gradual increase in the darkness of tones the farther you get away from the light source. Objects can block the light source and create shapes that have defined or blurry edges. Shadows can occur gradually or can be cut off abruptly. Highlights shine and sometimes even reflect images opposite of the object you are drawing. Shading can be a pain and creating guides on how to shade can be a pain. But the results are oh so worth it.

There are tons of ways to shade. Since there are so many factors that affect shading, one of the easier ways to shade is to break shading down into different components. Also, since different kinds of lighting and different objects interact to create different shading effects, with this guide I am going to focus on skin and hair with an overhead sun.

Learn to love shadows. The only way to truly learn shading is to observe objects and their interaction with light.

For this picture, I’m going to lay down different shades of the character’s skin tone. Then, I’m going to blend these shades together in order to create a gradual change in tone. Then I’m going to cover highlights.

For an overhead sun, think of crescents and V’s. The sun is coming directly downward and brightens the top parts of the body. The further downward you get on the body, the less light you are going to see.

Now I’ve laid down a second layer. As I move more towards the top and the center, the shading will become closer and closer to the actual skin tone.

Okay, now all of the shading has been laid down. Next, you must decide how shiny you want the body do be. Shiny parts have less blurry edges and do not gradually blend in with the rest of the body part. If you decide to have a less shiny body, lay down the highlight already. Place the highlight where you think there will be the most light.

Now that all of your tones are laid down, it is time to blend them all together. If you are drawing with a pencil, there are many ways to do this. One way is to use a tissue or blending stick and rub over the skin until you have a gradual shade that gets lighter as you near the center and top. If you are using Photoshop, use the blur or smudge tool. The blur tool will create a more uniform blending, while smudge allows you to control how the tones mix together. Think like you’re finger painting. Finally, an additional trick is to use the lasso tool to select an area and then run Gaussian blur. Sometimes the blur tool just won’t blur to the extent that you want to blur, but Gaussian blur does a great job. However, in order to make the selected area match the blurred area, you will probably have to us the blur tool to blur the edges. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you probably will when you try this technique.

Now that everything’s blurred together, if you chose to have a shinier character, you can add the highlight. In this case only, be careful with how clean and symmetrical the highlight looks.

On this character, I haven’t shaded the clothes yet. Can you see the huge contrast between the shaded character and the non-shaded clothes. The clothes look flat while the body seems to pop out.

Are we done yet? Heck no! This is just a gradual shading that results from the light source. However, the human body is not perfectly round and bumps and crevices on the face create all sorts of shadows. There is often shading around the bridge of the nose and the cheeks also create shadows. Also, the torso and neck need a good amount of shading to indicate the throat and collarbone. There’s also highlights to add to the lips, eyelids and eyelashes.

While not completely necessary, eyelashes and the lower eyelid often are shiny enough to need highlights. If you don’t feel like adding these tedious highlights, don’t worry about them. But do consider highlighting the lips, since they can add a lot to a drawing.

Finally, there are objects that might be blocking the light source, casting shadows in the shape of the objects. Things can get even trickier if there’s multiple light sources hitting the character from different directions. The character’s also wearing clothes that haven’t been shaded because much of the shading depends on the type of fabric. Do not worry, all of these will be covered next time.

Cordially,
Alex

Tags: Blending, high, light, shading, Tones