Break – Shading Process 01

Reality pages are super time-and-energy consuming. Hopefully, soon, I'll get faster at them so we can stop having these breaks.

18 Comments

Ah, the good old “let’s use this horrible pink as stand in 100% alpha channel” technique for transparancy. Reminds me of the spritemaps of Civilisations 2.

Well, to be fair, it *does* stand out as a “Not actually using this colour.”

At least until Kleya enters the scene again.

Anyways – thanks for sharing, Aneeka. It’s always fun to see how something gets made like this.

I have the same issue with shading faces. I can’t seem to understand how faces shade so I also do better in black and white because it’s easier to understand shadows when you don’t have to think about how the color change with the shadows.

Houston, we have noses.

Aneeka’s sharing techniques! Yay! I’ve been wondering about that for a while. (Bounces up and down excitedly)

Does this mean we’ll get to see how Aneeka draws such awesome hair?! 😀

Ah, that explains some things. ^_^ If you are having trouble learning the complex bits of coloring/shading…. I’d suggest picking up a box of Crayola crayons. Not the 64 pack either! Get a pack of the fat ones with about 5~6 colors meant for small children. And a kids coloring book to go with it. Then do a coloring page every time you practice your gesture sketches.

With fat crayons, you can’t do fiddly details. The waxy texture DOES allow for layering/blending but… only to about 3 layers. The coloring book will let you practice on other people’s drawings instead of your own. And with only 6 colors you will have to get creative. Its the perfect way to figure out a lot of the basic coloring/shading tricks.

I’d never tell an artist “your skills are fine where they are now”. Strive to be better! But don’t feel that your current drawings are a waste. They don’t hinder your story, they enhance it.

Cool idea! I shall have to try it out.

Ah, you do your shading in black and white. I figured it was something like that. Maybe have a go at this tutorial on colored shading. I find that using the techniques described therein really causes things to pop out, and avoid the desaturated shadows that really plague your R.L. drawings.

The colored shading is one of the things my brain fails to comprehend despite the tutorials. But thanks for the tutorial tip. I shall continue to try and figure it out.

That tutorial basically just says “don’t rely on the doge/burn tool for shadows and highlights”. Instead make sure to pick a different color, any different color and it will look better. Which color you pick doesn’t even matter all that much! Ok…. it matters some. But in real life shadows and highlights off human skin reflect the colors of nearby objects. And human skin is basically “brown” so any color you want to use looks perfectly real.

You can even use your current work method. Just pick a color for your brush before you turn on the Black/White masking. ^_^

I always enjoy a look behind the scenes to see what’s involved in the production. Thank you for sharing this with us; I found it fascinating!

Yes; like Stellarj said, behind-the-scenes peeks are definitely interesting. Plus; no matter what -you- think of your skills they are waay better than mine! So, I also try to learn from things like this. Thanks! 🙂

The Poser 3D software was originally sold as an artist’s reference, though it and its competitor, DAZ Stuudio, have since become tools to render finished images, as well. You might find it helpful to pick up DAZ Studio, which is free, and just use the included figures to set up lighting situations and look at the resulting shading patterns on the face, etc. You can adjust the general parameters of the figures to approximate the body and face shapes of your characters, but more to the point, you can set the poses, expressions, and lighting to match your scene. Kind of like having a very patient human model in a lighting studio, willing to stand around in whatever pose you what while you figure out how you want to draw something. 😉

Something I keep forgetting, for example, is that there’s a T-shaped zone of shinier skin on the face, including the forehead, nose, and chin. This means these areas should have slightly more highlights than other areas, which is going to make a difference in how you shade noses. 🙂

I actually downloaded DAZ Studio like a year or two ago, but never got around to figuring out how to make it work 😳 Seemed like it has a steep learning curve that I never had the time to devote toward.

Well, I’m happy to help if you’d find it useful. You know how to reach me. 🙂

You know, there is ONE thing you can do instead of fretting over getting the pages finished for posting. The artist of Goblins would post each page and follow the stages. Hed post a new page with the roughs, then inks, then colors. It worked out amazing as we not only got to see the story, but the progress each page went through from start to finish. So why not try that?

The method worked amazing, we got to enjoy the story with an added bonus of watching each page be created. Even give creative feedback that could improve the page along the way!

By the way, if you need help sorting out how to shade and contour the human face, 3D models work wonders. Blender is free, and you can find free heads to reference for lighting. Or I can render a few for you if you end up with a direction you get stumped on.

I guarantee that Walter’s reduced handsomeness is largely due to his cheekbones. The beard hides the line of his jaw, but the shading of the cheeks is different from the sketch’s implied shading.

Two cents of a fellow semi-artist.

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Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

Break – Shading Process 01