How to Shade a Character

1. Intro: Hello, my name is Katie. I'm an illustrator and comic artist and today I will show you guys how I shaved my characters. There are many different ways to shoot a character. So keep in mind how I draw will be different from another artist. This is just a technique I use when shading for comics and simple illustrations or just character art. We'll also be using Photoshop, but you can use any drawing program you prefer. It will also include the base character with flat colors in the project resources. If you wanted to shade and follow along with me. If you have your own drawing that you went to shade it, then please feel free to use that. With introductions. Then let's get started. 2. Drawing the Character: Before we can create a character, I need to have a drawing with flat colors ready to start. I'm going to sketch line and color in illustration. I will show a time-lapse on how I drew this character to help you get a better idea. If you want to jump right into the shading, please go ahead and watch the next part. But if you want to see how I drew this, then please keep watching. When I sketch, I keep in mind the pose I want, as well as creating the form out of simple shapes to help make this character look three-dimensional. When starting out, I like to draw a circle for the head and a lot of loose lines indicate the arms or legs. For lighting, I like to use a tapered brush that changes with when I put pressure on my tablet. The one I specifically use for this joint is called Kyle's ultimate Inking, thick and thin. It's a free brush you can get when you have Photoshop, but you can also just use a default brushes or whatever you like. It doesn't need to be tapered like mine. You can just use your favorite brushes for this part. For me personally, I like to have spaces in between my lines, which makes it a little longer for the coloring part. But that's fine with me because this is how I like to draw. If you're curious how I draw a character in detail, please let me know and I'll try to make more classes on the subject. Now as her coloring, I like to use the Lasso tool to make selections for each different color. If your learner is clean, then you could probably use the paint bucket tool for larger blocks of color. Just be sure to keep the colors on a different layer and watch out for areas where the colors meet the lines the paint bucket tool may not reach. For colors. I just like to get everything on one single layer because it just makes it easier for file management for my drawings. Now that our character is lined in colored, it's time to move on to shading. 3. Preparing to Shade: Before we jump into shading, there are a few things to keep in mind. The first and main thing is where the light source is coming from. In order to find where I want the shadows to be, I like to draw a circle indicating where the sun or light is. The next thing to keep in mind is how intense are light? Is a character sitting inside their house? Or they next to a large light, maybe they're outside during the sunset or afternoon. Once I determine this, I will know how intense or how soft I want the shadows to be. For this character right here, we will say that they're outside with the sun slightly off to the side. For this demonstration, I will try to keep the light in a typical afternoon setting, something similar you will see in your day-to-day life. To help separate the base colors with lighting, I like to make a new layer above the color. Right-click and create a clipping mask. This way, whenever I shade, it will stay inside the colors. I will also set the layer mode to Multiply. This is a key to being able to create cohesive shadows over all the different colors in my character. Let's also name this layer shadows. It will also make another layer called light. This will also be a clipping mask layer, but we will set the mode to screen. I will talk more about this later because right now we're going to focus on the shadows first. To shade this character, I like to imagine that they are made up of a bunch of simple shapes. The head is like an oval, the arms cylinders and so on. If you're new to drawing, then it would help if you draw a few simple shapes. First, probably cubes or circles or cylinders, find a light source and color where you think the shadows would be. If you are more advanced than I would recommend looking into something called the Asara head. It basically breaks down the face into simple shapes so you can see where the shadows will fall. 4. Shading the Character: Now it's time to show you. What I like to do is pick a cool blue or red. I also like to keep the color more desaturated and close to Greg. You're welcome to start blocking in shapes where the shadows lie. But for me, I like to use the Lasso tool to make the shadow shapes. When the Lasso tool is set to add to selection, I can create multiple areas of shadow and hold down Alt when I went to erase some of this selection. From here, you're welcome to use the paint bucket tool and fill in the areas of shadow. If you want that really clean associated look, then you will continue to do this. But for me, I like to have softer shadows. When the area is selected, I will use a soft round brush, one of the default Photoshop brushes, and focus the brush on the darker areas of the selected parts. When I de-select the area, you can see that we now have areas that have strong sharp edges in areas where the shadows are more softer. To further emphasize this, I like to use a smudge tool or soft eraser. If you want more grit to your shadows, you can also use a textured brush instead of a soft round brush in the selected areas. For this character, I will stick to the soft round brush and lasso tool. I will keep repeating this method for all the other areas of shade. Sometimes I will only select shadows on the clothes or hair, color them with the soft brush and then de-select and focus on another area of the picture. And if you don't like the little dancing lines the lasso tool creates, then after you select an area, press Control H to hide the selection, you can go ahead and color how you want. And then once you are done, you can either press Control D to deselect or Control H to bring the Lasso selection backup. Now that our character is shaded, I want to add a bit more color variation to the darker areas. We're going to lock the layer so anything new will stay in the shadows. And I will now change the color to something else and go over the different areas. Depending on the lighting of the character. If you have, let's say warm lights, you can make your shadows more cooler. If you have cool lights and you can make your shadow's warmer or you can just shade it however you please. It always helps to have photo reference shown the kind of light you desire. For this picture. I'm not looking for anything extravagant, so I'm just going to add a little bit of color variations into the shadows. Like I said, adding bits of color variation into the shadow isn't a requirement per se. But if I wanted to add a little bit more to a picture, it's something that I would do. If you want. You can also add these different color variations with a different brush. 5. Lighting the Character: Now that the shadows are done, it's time to focus on the light. Going to our light layer. I have it set to screen, but you can play around with the different modes to find when you like. For this demonstration, I will keep it to screen and pick a light warm color. We will use the same process as the shadows to color the light. Which is selecting areas with the Lasso tool and using a soft round brush to color it in. Again, always keep in mind where the light source is when laying down the light. If you're having trouble finding out where you went the light or shadow us to fall on your character. Then it's great to find some references, both from artists and photos of people just to see how a person or character is shaded. At this point, we can call the character done. But let's do some finishing touches to make this drawing better. 6. Finishing Touches: What I'm calling for comics, I would usually stop at this point. But if you wanted to add a little more detail so the colors and light, then here are a few things you can do. Let's go back into the line layer and change the color of the lines. Simply lock the layer, pick a different color and color over the lines. This can create a softer feel for your character, in my opinion. If you want to make the light stand out more above all your layers, we're going to make a new layer and use the color dodge mode. Pick the color of your light or something warm if you prefer, and go over the brightest areas you want to focus in on. If your character, let's say has a glowing object. This will be a great way to emphasize that. You can use a grayscale photo of some gritty texture or even a digital brush. What I like to do is make a new layer with a clipping mask and set that to multiply and dragging and texture. It was a little too dark. You can also play around with the other modes, like screen or lightened to find something that works. 7. Outro: In with that, here are the final results. I hope you guys were able to follow along and learn something new. There are many different ways to create a character. So if this way doesn't work for you, then please feel free to experiment and find what you love. If you've followed along, inserted this character or your own, then please let me know and share in the student projects. I would love to see it. Also. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to let me know in the discussion section. I hope you all have a great day and make lots of beautiful art.