Hello! I’m back for yet another shading tutorial! I know, I didn’t get around to the last character’s clothing shading. Her clothes will get shaded soon, but I first need to figure out what texture her clothes are going to have and how the light source will interact with her clothes. So this face shading tutorial is going to be thrown right in for no reason other than that it will hopefully be helpful to those who are trying to figure out the intricate (or in some cases, very simple) art of shading.

Last night, I was looking at Marisol and the light source completely struck the side of her face. The majority of her face was completely shaded, but there was a highlight on the right side of her face. The lighting effects look so cool when the light interacts with the nose, cheeks and eyes. I tried to take a mental snapshot so that I could cover that type of lighting. We both looked at each other’s faces and it was really need to see all the subtle features that you normally don’t notice when you look at someone at a distance. For instance, you kinda forget that your skin, when you look at it really close, is made up of criss-crossing lines.

Also, I decided to try a lineless piece of art. This is the second time I’ve tried a lineless piece of art and it was really fun, though sorta time-consuming. The good news is that the more you draw, the faster you get at drawing and the less time it takes. I remember the last very realistic drawing took all day. Of course, it had a bunch of colors mixed in for the skin tone and I’m probably not going to get to that until some other day.

I did a really quick, rough sketch. Though this is going to be lineless art, I started with lines just to lay down some guidelines and get a sense of where everything will go on this character’s face. In the absence of lines, you have to rely on different tonal values, shading and highlights in order to make up the features. For instance, the nose is made up of nothing more than shading and highlights that are done in such a way to create a nose.

Photoshop Tips: Place the outline, base colors, shading and highlights all on separate layers. Then you will be able to remove the outline layer when you no longer need it. You will also be able to run blur filters on the shading and highlight layers in order to get a more natural blending.

So before shading, figure out what your base colors will be. In reality, skin is made up of a variety of tones and colors that all blend together beautifully, but for now let’s start with one base color for the skin, one base color for the iris, one color for the hair, one color for the top eyelids, and one color for the lips.

Now, start laying down the shading for the face. This face is relatively smooth and rounded, so the shading on the side of the face is going to be in the shape of a crescent with the rounded side touching the side of the face. There will also be shades underneath the mouth where the cleft of the chin is.

Highlights are the next part. The concept is basically the same, except you will be using a very light color and then blend. Create small crescents for any parts where light is reflecting directly upon the skin.

Now, remove all of the lines off of the picture. Use a tissue, blending stick or smudge tool on Photoshop and smooth all the edges so that they look more natural.

For long hair that is mostly just falling downward, draw several lines that extend from the scalp down to the bottom of the hair outline. Draw these lines very faintly and use at least 3 shades for the lines in order to give them diversity. After all the lines are down, use a blending stick, tissue or smudge tool to smooth the lines together.

Shade over the part of hair away from the light source and the part of the hair that blocks out the light source.

Then highlight the part of the hair closest to the light source.

With the eyes, be sure to draw glares that face the light source.

I think a lip tutorial is due, since lips can look really ultra-realistic if a lot of time is put into them. I’ll be creating a skin tone tutorial soon too.

Till then, see ya!

Alex