Tips for shading and highlighting

Hello and welcome to this week’s post: tips on shading and highlighting!

For this post I will be using my newest artwork: Overloaded as an example.

Tip 1- Find Your Light Source

The most important part of shading is to find your light source. Don’t just shade wherever and hope it looks okay- figure out where the light in your drawing is coming from and shade on the opposite side of that. In Overloaded, I have my lightsource coming from the left, so most of the right side of the face will be shaded.

Overloaded before light source

Overloaded after light source

Tip 2- Add a Variety of Different Colors

When shading, don’t just stick to one hue (color). Use all different kinds of shades and variations of that color.

For example, when I am shading the pink hair of the girl in the picture Overloaded, I don’t just use a darker version of the base color. I use bright pinks, dark reds, fluorescent purples and everything in between! (As seen in the image)

Tip 3- Play Around with the Colors!

This tip basically means to have fun changing the hue, saturation, and vibrance of things to make them pop!

In Overloaded, I change the colors of the girl’s eyes to a dark but at the same time very vibrant red. I feel that this gives the drawing the certain effect on people that it needed, whereas in the very first image displayed in step 1, the eyes are a dark purple. This is still okay, but I feel that purple kind of blends in with the color scheme of the rest of the drawing too much.

Tip 4- Add Highlights!

Adding highlights can make your drawing feel ten times better with just the simple step of placing bright colors where the light source is coming from. In Overloaded, I make sure to add a pinkish highlight on the left side of the face and on the hair and clothes.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post!! I am proud to present to you the final version of it!

Chong

4 Apr, 2022