Good Little Shading Tut - Blog Posts

Hi! I live your art so much and I was wondering if you have any tips on shading?

Two of the biggest things you want to think about are 1. your light source and 2. form shadows vs cast shadows — which your light-source will dictate.

Form shadows are created by the light source directly hitting the object and are generally softer. Cast shadows are the shadows cast from one object onto another and generally have sharper edges. This contrast between sharp and soft shadows is what’s going to make your drawing really come to life and the shadows read like they’re supposed to

Then, to further define shading, two things to think about are core darks and reflected light. Core darks are the darkest part of the shadow within the form shadow, and reflected light is what it sounds like, light from other objects that has bounced back.

here's a visual representation of that from here

This is all pretty technical and art fundamentals-y but you can easily put it into practice in your own stuff even if what you're making is more cartoony than realistic

see I drew a lovely deku with this technique