Shading

[Mind]

Ok well, I'm not very good with the whole digital artistry, and I was wondering if someone could show me how to go about shading digitally. From the pictures in the sketchbooks I've seen, the shading looks like it takes hours and hours, and I'm not too sure on how to start.

Appreciate any advice ^^

[oolong]

well shading digitally isnt that different from shading with a pencil, except that there are a variety of different tools you can use to do it. the basic technique is the same - figure out what direction the light source is coming from, and what angle the plane you're drawing is compared to it. If it's a flat surface pointed directly towards the light source, it will be completely light/unshaded, and if it's a flat surface pointing directly away from the light source, it will be completely dark/shaded. if it's curved, there will be a transition of tones with the brightest point being where it's most facing the light source and the darkest where it's most pointed away, so start by gently shading lightly with a low opacity brush and get darker and darker as you get into shadow. every time there is a bulge, it will be light on the side of the light source and dark on the other side. If there is a dip, it will be the opposite. then there is reflected light which comes in every time a bright area is pointed towards a shadow, and for that you just treat that 'bright thing' as if it were a second light source.

that's the 'form shadow' - then you also have to draw the cast shadow which is what happens when there is something sitting directly between the light source and another thing. how big the cast shadow is depends on the angle of the light source - draw a guideline from the light source to the top of your object and to the bottom of your object, that's where your cast shadow is going to end up, and its going to be drawn in perspective depending on the shape of the surface its' being cast on.

this all should be pretty fast. what takes minutes or hours is how much time you spend rendering the shadows, how smooth you want the transition to be between light and dark, and whether you're going to have a lot of subtle reflected lights and stuff in there or not. for some styles you may do it very quick and sketchy, and for others you may want to slowly to have a smooth gradation. but it all depends a lot on the complexity of your drawing, too.

[Lamp]

I'm not totally sure what you could mean by "shading," in reference to digital art. Could you provide some specific examples of pieces you are curious about?

Regarding the term "shading" in general, from Loomis' book Successful Drawing:

"For some reason many students seem to have their greatest difficulty in what they call 'shading.' This is probably because there is no such thing as 'shading' in the sense they mean. The term 'modeling' is more accurate. The student wants to add tone to outline, so he is likely to put in a lot of meaningless grays and darks between the outlines.

There can be no forumula, because every subject has its own particular values, determined by the light, its direction, its brilliance, and its particular effect upon the local vaues. But the student can gain much understanding of light very quickly if he can learn to distinguish the differences between areas of light, halftone, and shadow, and set them down."

[Kaycy is tanning]

Doesn't take hours, you should look at the guy who did Prince of Persia artwork for the game, he just smacks everything on one layer with a very rough brush, in a matter of minutes and the artwork looks great. The better you become at shading and "form", the faster you become at conveying something.

[Kaycy is tanning]

20:00 minutes, he doesn't even use more than one layer I think

he draws with the eraser too, which makes him so amazing

YU-Gr3ULRPM&

[SoufMeng]

he draws with the eraser too, which makes him so amazing
Good if you find him amazing but just to clarify, the eraser tool in Photoshop is exactly the same tool as the paint brush, only it paints/erases with the background color (which you can change to any color you want).
Also, as far as i know, you cannot color pick with the eraser by pressing alt.

[Lamp]

Good if you find him amazing but just to clarify, the eraser tool in Photoshop is exactly the same tool as the paint brush, only it paints/erases with the background color (which you can change to any color you want).
Also, as far as i know, you cannot color pick with the eraser by pressing alt.

That's not true at all. The eraser tool does not paint, with the background color or otherwise. It erases. That's why erasing from a top layer reveals the contents of lower layers.

Also, I didn't see anything in the video to suggest that the Prince artist "draws with his eraser." He's just painting with white.

[SoufMeng]

Whoops i totally forgot layers, my bad!
Likely because i very seldom use them. But on a flat canvas however the eraser does act like the paintbrush with the bg color.

[Lamp]

Well, sort of. In that case you're really just erasing Layer 1 to reveal the background layer beneath it. If you delete the background layer, erasing will simply reveal pure transparency.

Anyway, sort of getting off topic here! To Mind: your question is simply too broad. Asking how to shade digitally is essentially asking, "how do I use value to create form?" This is a topic that even a whole book could not hope to answer thoroughly. You'll have to be more specific, or provide some example about which you are curious.