I'm really big on progress, so I decided to take all of my art and put it into a book, so I can see how far i've Come! And this way I can stop cluttering up my Literally Everything book.
So, this was requested by StickyCarpet, and I guess I'm just going to talk about how I shade and maybe just some tips that I've learned. But disclaimer, I am NOWHERE NEAR PROFESSIONAL so I would also recommend checking anything you maybe learn here with like, artists on YouTube.
Jeez, where do I even start....
If you're a beginner beginner, the thing you mainly need to focus on is where the actual shadows would be. For this, I either draw one arrow, pointing from my light source to whatever my drawing is, and then imagine the light radiating off of it, or I draw a bunch of arrows, kind of in a star shape? Since light radiates in all directions.....
Now shading really depends on your style, whether you like hard or soft shading, and for me, I'm trying to learn both. For hard shading, it's pretty simple you pick your color (I would recommend using a multiply layer if you're working digitally) and then you lay down your arrows (or you don't, whatever) and then you shade. Pretty simple.
For soft shading, I mean digital painting. And guys, these aren't the only two ways to shade. If you use hard shading and then blur it, you do you. But for digital painting, you basically take one of your existing colors, make a slightly darker version and paint in your lightest shadows for that color, then slightly darker THAT color and paint in your next darkest shadows, and so on. OR, you take your original color, make a much darker version, paint that down and grab the colors in between those two and start filling in the gap
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You can see the shading on his jacket and face are a bit lighter, and in some places, like on his neck and in between the bumps on his coat it's a bit darker. That's basically what I mean, just grabbing a light color and making it darker the further you get from the "light source". (This is soft shading/digital painting)
Honestly, it's all personal preference. What colors you use, how you use them, how you shade, it's all up to you. The only thing I would recommend is learning where certain shadows go, so that you can get that out of the way.
I doubt this was very helpful, but if it was, yay! If not, then YouTube is honestly your best friend. If you guys want, I can upload pictures to try and illustrate my point better, just let me know
Also, if you want a lighting chapter, THAT I know a little more about
