Shading in digital
2yr
Alfio Parisi
Hello guys,
after some months of drawing I'm trying to get into digital painting, but I don't understand how to shade.
Basically the process would be to make a Normal layer with color then a new one on top set on Multiply, choose a shade of grey and draw with an opacity brush. There is no need to color pick, it is all about pressure sensitivity.
Is this correct?
Sorry this is a noob question but I just don't get it :(
2yr
Hi @Alfio Parisi, I think it's a great question! I'm no digital painting expert, but I've done some digital painting sketches where I tried to shade. I think that process can be one way to shade.
Sometimes I'll pick a light color and a shadow color and then blend between them. Like for painting an orange, I might pick a bright yellowy-orange for the part in light and a sienna color for the part in shadow. Then I'd paint the shadow part as a separate solid shape on the orange, and use the color picker to blend between them, like I learned in this ctrl+paint tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwoZoUj9kuE
Plus if you pick a separate shadow color, I don't think you'll even need to set the top layer to multiply, though that is one way to do it. You can just ease the darker shadow color into the lighter areas with the pressure sensitivity brush.
I hope this can help!
Alfio Parisi
2yr
Hey, thank you.
In these past days many things became clear. Now I'm trying to do like you suggested :)
My main issues was that after my poor shading "bands" remained, and that was because I went in with a small brush. Instead the "trick" is to go in big and get smaller for the details.
Now it is just a matter of practice to get those smooth transitions. Doing tons of apples lately :D
