# I need advice for a new shading technique.



## Tiarhlu (Mar 21, 2009)

Now that I have a tablet, I feel a bit more free to experiment and really want to improve the look of my shading. 

I use Photoshop 7.

What I used to do was get a new layer (or more as needed) and set it to overlay, and then use various grays to darken or lighten the underlying color. That works pretty well for cell shading. The problem comes when there is a lighter color because I'll have to either get a much darker gray to make it work, or I'll have to use a new layer type all together. That leads to a bit of mess where the lighter and darker colors meet. That always happens when going to light belly fur or scales. Using overlay also gives unnatural looking color at times.

Lately I've been trying a more realistic shading. What works to an extent is using a multiply layer with the brush set to multiply and a low opacity. Fuzzy edges and using the same color I'm shading over. I can get a pretty smooth, detailed look from this, however it leads to other issues. Due to the multiply setting, I can't go back over anything. For example, say I thought I needed the shading to extend a bit further and I needed the same darkness that was all ready there. Well, when I go to shade, there's going to be an even darker line where the new color starts since the old one is being rubbed over just a bit. Have that happen in several spots, and you have a mess. Another frequent time that happens is if I somehow miss a spot (edges are common) and need to go in and fix it up. I can't do it without darkening the surroundings.

This also leads to the above problem when there are contrasting colors beside each other since the brush color has to be changed anyway. I try to shade each main color on a new layer this way so I can at least erase where the colors meet, but there's still a bit of overlap. If the line between those colors isn't smooth (hair for example) it's even more difficult, and I don't know how to go about it.

What do you all use? What works and what doesn't?


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## Coug (Mar 21, 2009)

I use photoshop 7.0 as well,and there's 2 methods I use when I do shading.

1 method is doing the shading first before I lay any colors.
I shade the picture with gray-ish color,then set the layer setting to multiply.
then I make the color layers under that shading layer and throw some colors.

The another method is separating the parts by colors,
then do the shading in the same layer in color layer.
this might be annoying when you need to change the main color,but playing around with color balance tool,you can change the color to whatever you want quite easily once you get used to it.


I think your problem is caused by you picking the colors that are aleady multiplied on base color,not real color you used for shading.
if you want to get the exact color you used,just turn off the color layer and pick up the color from shading layer only.
by the way,it's nice to save the shading color you used,to the pallete.(I mean,to the color swatches.)

sorry if this was kinda hard to understand,my english isn't good.


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## QT Melon (Mar 21, 2009)

You might work better with an Overlay layer than multiply. Overlay is great for working one layer in a value scale of grays while Overlay is good for adding color on top of the gray layer.

Multiply only helps darken values, screen only helps lighten values and Overlay does both. 

There are different methods as the poster above mentioned, but Multiply is good for lineart but it's a horrible layer if you decided to color in greyscale and added a color layer on top. 

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2004/08/30/overlay-blending-mode-in-photoshop/

One thing to remember in painting is do a hard edged brush first. It can be the simple round brushes in PS, try to avoid airbrushing when you're doing your first renders and leave the airbrushing for smoothing out the details. Most beginners seem to like using the airbrush because they think...smooth = good. But good art also has a lot of what is referred to as "lost and found" in edges. 

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/06/depth-and-edges.html

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=125553
I hope that helps.


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## el-noxitano (Mar 21, 2009)

I've never used any layer effects when I shade, I've never been able to get them to work where they didn't look like crap, or where they had a consistent effect. Good old fashioned painting methods over this way >.>.

For Cell shading/Gradient shading I always duplicated the layer, clicked the lock colour button, coloured it in a darker colour and selected where my light areas were going to be, then deleted the fill. Instant, easy shading. But thats  very cartoony

For more realistic shading I just make a new layer. Or not. And pick a darker colour. And shade, XD. Er, nothing really special. Though to blend nicely I use specific default brushes on specific settings and paint them in on low opacity. Then I use the eyedropper tool between colours to blend. 

*cough*
Yeah, I'm lame. . Though I do know how to use the fancy stuff I just really go more arty.


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## krisCrash (Mar 22, 2009)

Am I the only one who wonders why you guys are using grey to blend shades?



> I've never used any layer effects when I shade, I've never been able to get them to work where they didn't look like crap, or where they had a consistent effect. Good old fashioned painting methods over this way >.>.


same here, don't feel bad... sometimes its just more fun to paint it all.


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## Tiarhlu (Mar 22, 2009)

krisCrash said:


> Am I the only one who wonders why you guys are using grey to blend shades?



Well with an overlay layer it often works. Say I've got a red on my color layer, then when I use a gray on a new layer with overlay it'll darken or lighten, depending on the value of the gray.

I don't know how to quote multiple people, but to the above poster who mentioned a hard brush: When trying something more realistic I've avoided those because it always comes out looking choppy. I can try to use the smudge tool between shades, but that's only so effective.  I want my work to eventually look as good as someone like Zen or Athus,  but I can't seem to figure out how to manipulate my colors to achieve the effect.


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## Smelge (Mar 22, 2009)

I've been playing with the opacity settings, brush hardness and other things. Setting opacity to pen pressure, etc, etc but nothing really worked.

However, in the Natural Brushes section, theres a Pastel Light brush that works perfect, just work from dark to light, and they blend together pretty nicely without much interference. Just gradualy lighten the colour used and alter the pentip size.


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## krisCrash (Mar 22, 2009)

Tiarhlu said:


> Well with an overlay layer it often works. Say I've got a red on my color layer, then when I use a gray on a new layer with overlay it'll darken or lighten, depending on the value of the gray.
> 
> I don't know how to quote multiple people, but to the above poster who mentioned a hard brush: When trying something more realistic I've avoided those because it always comes out looking choppy. I can try to use the smudge tool between shades, but that's only so effective.  I want my work to eventually look as good as someone like Zen or Athus,  but I can't seem to figure out how to manipulate my colors to achieve the effect.



Yeah I know it will blend to look like the original colour

First of all I understand that you should use a slight hue for shading, not black, that's one thing. The other is, this is overlay with gray:






the shadows are very saturated, normally you'd want the saturation in the midtones. Look at how "burned" the darkest one is? Also I've overlayed with black to near white and the value span is very small.


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## Smelge (Mar 22, 2009)

Something like that is going to look a bit rubbish though, as it goes from one shade to another. If you blend them together so its more of a gradient, it shouldn't look too bad. Failing that, sod overlay, play with Hue/saturation to get a similar but slightly darker colour,then go for a soft light or something.


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## krisCrash (Mar 22, 2009)

I still think the colours look wrong.


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## Smelge (Mar 22, 2009)

Zoomed out, it would look fairly good.


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## tomwaya (Mar 23, 2009)

Everyone has their own ways which work for them.
I've always scanned in my inked picture. Then set that layer to "multiply" and locked it. Then create a layer below that which is for colour. I then colour it by firstly doing a base colour all over the body (in black and white terms this would be a mid grey), then the darker areas for shadow and depth, using a brush tool with a low opacity so its a soft fade, and then the lighter areas. simples.


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## Arshes Nei (Mar 23, 2009)

krisCrash said:


> Am I the only one who wonders why you guys are using grey to blend shades?
> 
> 
> same here, don't feel bad... sometimes its just more fun to paint it all.



Overlay is actually rather effective and used often. The thing about coloring is that you do need a bit of saturation even in shadows, so it depends. Most people assume it's just a darker/greyer shade of the the color, not so in skin tones. 

Saturation isn't so much found in the mid tones (in a sense - don't think I'm disagreeing with you yet), it's actually found near the terminator or edge of an object http://itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm to explain, people assume midtone as just the "middle color" but it's a bit more than that. It's by the transition of the terminator. 

Color points are found in reflective light too but you have to be careful not to overdo it. Less saturated people think is the absence of color. It's less of it, not a pure grey/black tint.

James Kei at Massive Black (who was nice enough to push for me to help out with the back end of CA) has a very nice download for about 15 bucks explaining how he uses overlay layers. http://dvd.massiveblack.com/  **NUDITY WARNING*** - go to the download section and you'll find his there, and I'll plug him because he's also going to post one with clothing soon. 

I actually do most of my work on one layer unless it's an effect I'm unsure about (spots, texture). I may keep the original linework separate. 

Most furries paint their furs...like...skin with translucent quality. There is fur that breaks up this kind of look which often _isn't_ done. 

As far as the mention of hard brushes, I have to agree, many artists stuff looks like mush (when they use soft brushes). You need to use the SCAPALO (sample colors and paint at low opacity) method. Most of the time airbrush and soft brushes are supposed to be blenders. That is a detail left for last. 

I'm one of the few that don't like using blenders actually but I'm getting back to using them. It's because my color decisions were indecisive and made edges uninteresting when I was trying to make everything look immediately blended. I can blend later. 

Craig Mullins is a great contemporary example of why hard edge brushes work: http://www.goodbrush.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=14 (Mullins is a John Singer Sargent fan)

Look how readable those images are in the thumbnails, when you blow them up you're probably going...WHAT!?! THOSE ARE SCRIBBLES!!!

Why sit there and painstakingly spend hours on trying to overdetail something that you may not even see in the finished result? 

You can either work tiny and try to zoom in and do every detail or you can work large and use less strokes and a better line/paint economy. It's just all up to you.


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## Tiarhlu (Mar 24, 2009)

krisCrash said:


> I still think the colours look wrong.



Me too. That's one thing that bugs me about overlay. It especially looks wrong if I try to lighten a color, and that's been a huge reason why I've shied away from highlights for years. What I've tried recently is using a screen layer and brush, while keeping my original color set. It's like the opposite of the multiply brush/layer combo. I don't fully understand how all of that's working, but it seems to come out a bit better than overlay.

What do you all mean by saturation? I'm not sure about blenders either, at least in photoshop terms. When I had a drawing class ages ago in highschool we had these rolled up paper blending pencils that did a good job of smearing stuff around, but otherwise I'm not sure. I guess you just mean the fuzzy edges smoothing out the colors on each side, but I don't really know how to properly do it.

The Craig Mullins art looks great. I wouldn't even know where to begin to do something like that. Hah.


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## Taasla (Mar 24, 2009)

Personally, I never use gray or any shade of black to shade.  Ever.  A good rule is to use an opposite color of your light source to shade.  Such as yellow light would mean you would have purple shadows.

To do this, I make a new layer, set it to 13% opacity, and then use the paintery brush on photoshop.  Of course, that one brush doesn't work so well if you don't have a tablet.  The brush is pressure sensitive.  You can use as many shadow layers as you need to.  As for my lineart and flats.  The lineart has it's own layer and may be on multiply if I scanned it in from my sketchbook.

Here's an example of shading with anything but gray.   The progression there was dark green > red > purple/red > some red/gray





It's sometimes good to use a near gray color in the darkest areas.


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## Tiarhlu (Mar 24, 2009)

Taasla said:


> Personally, I never use gray or any shade of black to shade.  Ever.  A good rule is to use an opposite color of your light source to shade.  Such as yellow light would mean you would have purple shadows.
> 
> It's sometimes good to use a near gray color in the darkest areas.



That looks good. How would I know what the opposite color is? And how would I know what color the light source is? If I'm outside does that mean it's blue?


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## Arshes Nei (Mar 24, 2009)

Tiarhlu said:


> That looks good. How would I know what the opposite color is? And how would I know what color the light source is? If I'm outside does that mean it's blue?



Look up Complimentary colors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_color

The color opposite of the other on the color wheel can be mixed with the other color to make a neutralizing or greying color

It's actually a misnomer to say "I don't use greys" ... you don't use *pure* greys to shade with exceptions. Colors will have some kind of grey in them. It's bad to use pure blacks or pure whites to shade or tint.

Hyung Tae Kim uses a lot of greys in his works to create depth actually http://www.hyung-taekim.org/gallery/index.php?cat=18

As far as light source it's generally this rule: "Warm light, cool shadows: Cool Light, Warm Shadows" ...there are exceptions http://www.wetcanvas.com/Articles2/1805/264/

I highly advise you to visit and do some practices from this thread: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=53517


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## Taasla (Mar 24, 2009)

Arshes Nei managed to cover what I was trying to say very well.  (Props to her.)

If you are outside, then the sun would be your light source.  The sun gives off yellow light, so the shadows are blue.  Go outside when the sun is setting and look at the shadows.  They are not black.





This is what I meant by not using grays.  The row of colors I outlined on my swatches tab are strict no-nos to use for shading.  The brush I have highlighted is the type I tend to use for shading it.  It can be very smooth and add a paintery feel to your work once you manage to work with it for a while.


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## Aden (Mar 24, 2009)

Taasla said:


> If you are outside, then the sun would be your light source.  The sun gives off yellow light, so the shadows are blue.  Go outside when the sun is setting and look at the shadows.  They are not black.



Shadows are blue outside because of the blue diffuse coming from the sky. The outside is an exception rather than a rule.

If you had a warm light source inside a closed, white room, the shadows would be warm. Why? The warm light is bounced off the walls and into the shadow as diffuse. However, this is not to say that using complimentary colors to make shadows is bad - it makes the subjects "pop" very well. Just don't take it as physically correct unless you realize that there must be a complimentary fill light.


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## Taasla (Mar 24, 2009)

Aha.  Thank you for the short lesson.  C:  I've been wanting to get a few books on color theory to understand more since I'm pretty much self taught.


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## Tiarhlu (Mar 25, 2009)

Aden said:


> Shadows are blue outside because of the blue diffuse coming from the sky. The outside is an exception rather than a rule.
> 
> If you had a warm light source inside a closed, white room, the shadows would be warm. Why? The warm light is bounced off the walls and into the shadow as diffuse. However, this is not to say that using complimentary colors to make shadows is bad - it makes the subjects "pop" very well. Just don't take it as physically correct unless you realize that there must be a complimentary fill light.



What do you mean by a warm light? 

And do you all mean that if a character is outside, that I'd want to use blues to shade instead of darkening the main color? What if I'm in a white room like you suggest, with a white light overhead? I can't think of anything that would work, other than gray.


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## Aden (Mar 25, 2009)

Tiarhlu said:


> What do you mean by a warm light?
> 
> And do you all mean that if a character is outside, that I'd want to use blues to shade instead of darkening the main color? What if I'm in a white room like you suggest, with a white light overhead? I can't think of anything that would work, other than gray.



Warm colors = yellows, oranges, reds. The most typical examples of a "warm" light would be the common incandescent bulb and the Sun.

If a character is outside, then yes, using some subtle blues in your shadows to represent the sky diffuse would be generally correct.

In a completely white/colorless room with a white/colorless light, the shadows would have no color. There is no colored light that can reach the shadows via secondary bounces. Only way that color can be introduced is by passing your white light through glass and accounting for dispersive refraction (such as what occurs with prisms).


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## Taasla (Mar 25, 2009)

I pulled this straight off of google.  It should help you.

If you're in a white room with white light?   But how many of us paint/ color images in those conditions?  C:  Playing with color helps your work pop.


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## Tiarhlu (Mar 25, 2009)

Taasla said:


> I pulled this straight off of google.  It should help you.
> 
> If you're in a white room with white light?   But how many of us paint/ color images in those conditions?  C:  Playing with color helps your work pop.



Oh no, I had no plans to do that, I was just curious to help me understand all this lighting stuff. 

Back to grays, I think one reason I did that was because rarely did I have a background planned. I was just drawing a character and then shading, so my goal was to darken or lighten certain areas. If I do add a background it always tends to be an afterthought to "complete" the picture. I guess I'll have to think up something prior to shading for a change.


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## tomwaya (Mar 26, 2009)

If I want to add a colour to create a mood, I usually tend to do this last and not think about it too heavily during the colouring process.
such as here > http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2053215/

This was done with a simple tweak of the hue/saturation setting to give a calm blue feel.


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## Arshes Nei (Mar 26, 2009)

I'd advise getting a book on color theory, you seem to have a lot of questions.

http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html

This site is also fun for finding color combinations: http://www.colourlovers.com/


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