How to Shade a Drawing
This lesson has a premium version with extra content. Get it now!

How to Shade a Drawing

3.3M
Mark as Completed

How to Shade a Drawing

3.3M
Mark as Completed

Use the photo of Yoni or choose another pose from my pose sets to draw a fully shaded figure. I recommend drawing large so that you have room to shade some details. In my example, I’ll be drawing on an 18×24 inch paper. Also, don’t rush it. A student in most ateliers will spend at least 3 hours on a figure drawing. Personally, I recommend longer, especially if this is one of your first long figure drawings.

Newest
Amortquio Flores
Had a hard time doing this, I need some tips on how to do better shading.
Richard W
26d
I choose another model (from line of action). At first, I was pretty happy with the result. Then I realizd my measuring is not ok, one again (The torso is too short, the waist too thin...) and definitely lack of contrast (more on the scan than on the original drawing). But there is hope. It's better than few weeks ago!
Rachel Dawn Owens
Here’s a fairly quick fix I see. Your drawing looks really good. It wouldn’t take much to level it up.
Drew Froehlich
still need some practice doing face proportions, but decided to give it a go with the col-erase
Jocelynn Darlene
At the end of this journey I'm quite proud of how the final pieces turned out, although I could certainly use more practice and will continue to do so! I've learned more than I could have ever imagined, thank you Stan for creating a course that was fun to follow and easy to grasp. I am so appreciative! I cant wait to start another.
Lauri Panopoulos
Beautiful work, Jocelynn!
May Berry
11mo
Practiced this for 10 days. I found a reference photo with a higher contrast. I overlayed the construction drawing with tracing paper and made 2 versions of the same reference photo: 1 black and white, and the other blurred. I still struggle with seeing value and applying it to the drawing. I might need to do some practice from the beginner course.
Rachel Dawn Owens
I think you’re on the right track. It’s really nice how you simplified and contained the shapes of value. The proportions look great too. Below is a demo on how I might break down the shading from this reference- If I was using graphite or charcoal, my final drawing would have maybe came out more organic looking. Processing the drawing this way made it come out rather stiff, but I wanted to make the ideas clear. Learning to draw means learning about how light works. It can seem complicated at first, but it all makes sense if you think about it. Light shines down on the subject and then bounces all over the forms and then back towards the viewer. Drawing is all about creating the illusion of 3d forms on a 2d surface. Understanding value is a big part of that and it looks like you’re getting it. Great study! Keep it up 👍
Joseph Cicero
Hey Guys, me again ;). I've been focusing heavily on mannequins lately, trying to incorporate gesture and mannequins more succinctly. But I thought I'd keep practicing my rendering as well. This was another long one. I took a chance with the composition (as I haven't started studying that) and I'm happy with it overall. This one was a challenge because of the multiple light sources and the subject being very muscular so lots of shading ball type forms. As always critiques are welcome!
Joseph Cicero
I posted this on the Digital Painting Fundamentals class but I wanted to post it here as well. This is another study trying to improve my blending, edge control, and add more details. As always critiques are welcome!
Rachel Dawn Owens
This is great! You got the proportions perfect and the anatomy looks nice. If you want to take this to the next level and emphasize the top of the figure, you could darken the lower torso and legs. I added a soft gradient across the figure to create a focal area around the head and chest. I like your painting. I hope this helps. Keep it up!
Joseph Cicero
A couple more studies, I'm trying to get better with blending values and edge control to show structure or soft areas. If anyone has brush recommendations for Clip Studio for shading, I'm all ears! I also attempted drawing a figure completely from imagination. I'm happy enough with it but that's certainly where knowing some more anatomy will help. Any critiques welcome!
John James
1yr
I think your observation is false in the picture 2. The light by far is not as bride on the belly and leg than on the booba and face. head and upper chest is clearly like spotlide so you have to tone everything else down. if you have more question follow my youtube channel bendergpt i do mostly inking and or drawings. Dont forget spotlights cast hard shadows so you can really clear edge then and everything outside it you can make it soft it will make a great composition if you even like exaggorate it.
Melanie Scearce
I think your shading is looking good. I can't speak on Clip Studio, but I did want to point out that the extended leg on your figure from imagination looks like it's backwards. The shape you used for the knee looks like shorthand for the back of the knee (popliteal fossa), and the bulge of the calf is higher on the left side of her leg opposed to the right. Nice work overall, it's so difficult to draw a figure from imagination!
Michael
1yr
After a very long time, here are my shaded figures - both in charcoal on newsprint. I followed along with Stan drawing Yoni, and definitely understood the process by the time I was doing my own attempt. However I often jumped from shadow mapping to details and vice versa. I would say that my own attempt took me 10+ hours to finish with much of that spent measuring (my arm was sore for days from holding up the pencil...). One thing I found was that the charcoal powder I used didn't seem to go very dark at all, darkest being the lower half of the figure. My linework and pencil holding technique need work - lines often didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. When doing my own attempt I realised (perhaps too late) that you really don't need much to indicate something, Stan does mention this in one of the lessons but I think it can go much further. I looked into Lane Brown's work with much softer edges and tone, and I think that gave me the will to finish the drawing. I'll go into Stan's portrait course next before the anatomy course, but I want to pump out as many figures as I can! I'm not sure I'll do another fully rendered figure for a long time though (quantity over quality)... Thanks to all the instructors including @Rachel Dawn Owens, @Jesper Axelsson and @Melanie Scearce for your feedback!
Rachel Dawn Owens
This. Is. Incredible. These are awesome drawings! Moving too quickly into detail is perfectly ok. All you need is more mileage. You’re right that you should strive for quantity of drawings to get better. You learn the most in the first hour of a drawing. Learning to sit on a drawing for 10+ hours is also a valuable skill. Think of it like your max lift if you were a weightlifter. Its good to know how far you can go with a drawing and it looks like you can go very far. This is great, I love how you rendered these. Heres a demo of about how I go about it. It’s like I’m bringing the drawing into focus. I start light and fuzzy and sharpen the focus as I go, waiting for the end to add the darkest marks. Good luck and keep going 👍
Joseph Cicero
First attempt at a 5 value shading. Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out but those dark and light halftones were very difficult to separate at times. Critiques are always welcome.
Giorgi Karkuzashvili
The key is to repeat it weekly(daily)
@maximilienle2d
Hi, I tried doing the Yoni drawing. I didn't have any newsprint or smooth paper so I did it on normal 90 gsm and with a stump since I did not have charcoal powder. It was a good experience and I want to try again to do something in charcoal with my own style but I will wait to buy better materials for that (to get those smooth details, the clean background and the archival properties).
Joseph Cicero
A few more shadow studies. Critiques always welcome!
maciek szczech
Unique and I ❤️ these studies.
Joseph Cicero
Hey Everyone, I've been working a little through Dorian's shading course and here are a couple of my attempts at the "notan" version of shading. I'm not quite ready for full rendering so I'm just working on separating lights and darks. I know there some instances of reflected light that I chose to not shade, some of that was because I thought it looked better and some is I wasn't sure where the light source was coming from. Any critique is always welcome!
Emma X
1yr
My second attempt at shading in a figure drawing, I don't think it's as good as my first, feels flatter and the lines aren't as clear, it's kinda "muddy"? Any advice appreciated! I'll include my early line art and the reference photo.
Emma X
1yr
First time trying to shade in a figure drawing with pencil! It's way harder than it looks xD Would love any and all feedback!
@amaka45
1yr
Hey Emma, nice job for being your first time. I would recommend checking out the shading assignments here on Proko of shading an egg and a pear. You do not necessarily have to pay for the full course if you are a starving artist like most of us, lol! Try starting with a simple shape with a singular light source. I would give more advice, but I too am just now learning to add tone to my drawings. Hope this helps!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vapw6n6FyU&list=PLnSiPyMK9PTyRitLtaj6JIbRF5LttP6Mz&index=132   https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/the-perfect-egg/assignments
Sofi
2yr
Shaded figure drawing! Critiques welcome.
Account deleted
Jan 17, 2024 Shading the figure. Separating the light and the dark tones.
Kiyoshi Inoue
I realized my proportions were wrong over half way through my drawing, but any tips about my shading would be appreciated.
Samuel Sanjaya
My full figure drawing, I don't know much about anatomy yet, so I tried my best to look at the forms. Any feedback/ critiques will be greatly appreciated.
Martha Muniz
Hi Samuel! Continue practicing gesture and pushing the motion of the figure, even when doing more rendered work, as it helps you get more accurate or informed drawings. As you start shading while learning anatomy, keep going back to observing what you see: break down the image into light and dark groups at the start. There will be changes of value within the shadows, but they will still be darker than areas in the light. I drew out some notes for you I hope are helpful.
Full course
You will be given unexpiring access to watch the videos online .
View course details
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructor
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!