Shading/Lighting Techniques

This is where you can share how you do your shading and lighting.

I have a few different ways to shade and light, I do whichever I feel like.

1) I take a brush of any size, whichever works best, turn it to either black (for shading) or a light yellow or white (for lighting) and I color in wherever needs to be colored in with the brush at full opacity and then when I am done I turn down the opacity to whatever looks good to me lmao (shading and lighting must both be done on separate layers)

2) I take any cool-looking brush, turn down the opacity, change it to the color I need, and color where I need, or 3) I take a brush that's fairly small, choose the color, and scribble around everywhere that needs it. Then I take the blur brush and blur it together

- Pip (FallingRain07)

1) When I do my shading, I usually make the color the same as where I am going to shade on, and then make it a few shades darker. If you use black to shade, the atmosphere becomes darker (unless you want to do that intentionally). I shade this way to make my shadows more realistic, because shadows normally aren't black (unless at nighttime).

2) I rarely use lighting in my art, but I would use a brush mode called 'color dodge' or 'color burn'. If I'm making something look shinier, I would color the sides using color dodge. However, if I'm trying to make eyes shinier, I would use the luminosity tools.

- Lynx (Lynx1215

1) For shading, there are two different methods I use. I either shade the parts I want to shade with a black airbrush and turn down the opacity of the shading layer, or I draw the shading marks with a black pen brush and lower the opacity. I then carefully blend it together with a blending tool. If backlighting is wanted/required for whatever you are doing, fill the shape you are backlighting in (on another layer) with black pen or the fill tool, then turn the opacity of the layer down and erase the parts where light hits the figure.

2) Lighting is my favorite part of doing art, since it makes the piece feel a lot more real. I always use an airbrush tool, and I often use different “blending modes“ on each layer. Blending modes can be found in many art programs, such as IbisPaintX, Autodesk Sketchbook, Medibang Paint (I think) and more, but some programs don’t have this option.

If this is true for your program, take the color you want for lighting, lighten it up a bit, turn down the opacity of the lighting layer, and draw the parts where the figure is being lit. Drawing light rays, turning down the opacity of that layer, and blurring the ends of those rays is also a good method to make it look more real.

If your program does happen to have blending modes, good! I usually use Add and Overlay, and occasionally Hard Light when I am drawing fire. Add makes the color you are using a heck of a lot brighter and is good for direct lighting, while Overlay makes it only slightly brighter and is better for indirect lighting. Hard Light, I’m not exactly sure what it does, but it’s great for making fire. If the Add layer is too bright, feel free to turn the opacity down. Using both Add and Overlay blending modes in one piece is recommended, but you are free to only use one!

If you want to light up the sky, use a combo of Add and Overlay blending modes. Use add to draw the sun, moon, stars, or other light source, and overlay to light up the sky around it. It looks pretty good in the end, and I suggest giving it a try if you have blending modes in your program.

(DISCLAIMER: For all of these, new layers should be made for different blending modes, lighting layers, and shading layers. Keep in mind that shading layers should be below lighting layers if you decide to shade and light in one piece. Selecting the figure using a select tool or layer is recommended for the neatest lighting.)

-Unchained/Raven (UnchainedSpirit)

1) When I shade, I normally create a new layer, so that when you erase your shading, you don't erase part of your art. For shading, I use a dark grey lineart brush and turn the opacity about 65% down, and I shade the parts of my art that need shading.

-Moonlight the Seawing

1) Take a lineart brush, and then the opacity waaay down. Then, color along where you need the sharing in a dark grey color.

2)Take a blending brush and blend the grey into the rest of the art.

3) fix any mistakes and do touch-ups

(Arid/AridTheSandWing3)

1) Select a area and fill it with lowered-opacity black. Then deselect it and use a blur brush on the edges.

2) Select a area and fill it with lowered-opacity white. Blur the edges