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darthmongoose — Lineart Shading Tutorial
Published: 2011-02-12 15:56:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 1331; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 15
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Description
This tutorial is for Photoshop. It doesn't matter which version.Okay, so I decided I wanted to make a tutorial on CG shading line art. Why? Well because it seems to be something a lot of people struggle with. I remember when I started out, I didn't really know where to start with an awful lot of things. I learned through trial and error before eventually getting tips from friends and tutorials.
This isn't in-depth, but is rather a basic FAQ to get you going. Oh, and another thing. These examples are all in my usual manga influenced style, but you can use them with ANY line art style!
You can actually go back earlier in my gallery and see me make the mistakes I've discussed here. We all start somewhere! Nobody is born a great artist, so just keep trying, ok? You can do it! ^_^
Feel free to ask questions in the comments or via note or whatever.
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Comments: 22
O_O one of the characters in this....looks strangely like a character from a yaoi game
he's even in the same position O___O
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Hahahaha. Weeeird. It's a bit of fanart I did for a friend's comic. I don't even read yaoi!
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OMG XDXD weird~
here - [link]
It's a different position and expression...but you gotta see the similarity X'D
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Oh yeah, huh. Similar character design, I guess, with the hair length and furry collar. It's pretty much inevitable with any character design that somebody somewhere at some point has drawn something at least vaguely similar.
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yeaaahhh....
but the expression you gave him...he does that an awful lot in the game O-o
I just couldn't find the picture lol XDXD
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I hope you're not accusing me of copying images because I have very strong feelings about that and people who do it.
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errm.....I really didn't mean it like that o-o
I don't see how it looks like I was saying you copied it but if I wanted to say that I would have just said it
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It just kind of seemed like it since you kept pressing the similarities in pose and appearance, even when I said it was coincidental. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but be careful what you say to people in future. If you keep talking about how similar something is, it's easy for somebody to start to think you're implying something.
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I'm the kind of person who would have said it was copied if I thought that
I was just saying that the expression was similar to this one (yes I found it eventually) it's a lot easier to see what I was saying on this icon
I'm sorry for the misunderstanding too..but if I wanted to say that I would have just said it straight away...
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Yes, I understand that now, but I don't know you well enough to know that you'd say it straight away. A lot of people wouldn't; that's why you need to mind what the possible implications a person could read from what you say are in future. Communicating in writing is hard because of this -_-;
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okay, I'll watch what I say from now on
I know communicating is hard over the internet....I have had so many fall outs because of it x.x
*fell out with an austrian*
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I didn't...I was just saying it looks like the character
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Thank you. I hope it's useful!
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Yeah, so true! I just fucked my shit up though due to lack of time, where I whacked in grey shadows, intending to change the hue later, and forgot. *sigh* The problem, I think, is that I'm really unused to colour work and forgot how ridiculously long it takes to colour an image.
Nice tute. ^_^
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Thanks!
Aw man, colour does take longer. A page of Fan Dan Go takes typically like 2 hours more than a black and white comic page because of the full colour and shading! It's really easy to make little errors, sometimes just through tiredness!
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Yay! This is a good one. :3
Though I gotta admit, when I got to the bit about "Dark doesn't mean black," I couldn't stop myself from going, "Says you!" XD
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Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, black is not for shading coloured images. Pure black for heavy shadows, okay, fine, if your line art is black, but if you use semi-transparent black it will look flat and dead compared to using a colour. This goes double for shading skin. Look at any cartoon, any professional illustration and you'll see that the shadows are not greyish, but usually are a richer shade of the case colour, or pushed toward a cohesive shadow colour. It's not just me who'll tell you this.
Here, some examples:
Pure black shadows on the line art: A-OK! Semi-transparent shadows: BLUE and PURPLE. Looks: SWEEEET!:
[link]
Paul Duffield (he draws Freakangels) uses a greenish blue for a cold feel contrasting a reddish shade for the cellist who looks warm by comparison:
[link]
Painting: Looks greyish, but actually it's suffused with green and grey tones for a richer and less flat look, making the pure black figures in the foreground really 'pop':
[link]
Cel-ish painting, shadows suffused with warm colours like purple and pink give a luminous feeling:
[link]
Look carefully at professional pieces you like and try it yourself. I think I can make you change your mind ^_-
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(Holy crap, Big O fanart. 
Hmm. Not quite what I was gettin' at (surely you've noticed my penchant for jet-black shading!), but to your credit, I'd never noticed the use of colour in shadows before. Certainly not something I'd ever done, which explains why things always looked a little subpar to me when I've finished them.
If my tablet still works, I'll have to do some studies soon, I think.
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Oh, yeah, well, you can see me doing jet black on my own work, even in the EXAMPLES in the tutorial. I count that as part of the line art because it's at the inking stage though! ^_^;
Yes, you should definitely try throwing in a colour to your shadows. It's surprising the lift it gives!
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Hehe, thanks! It's waaaay of below your level, but maybe it'll help some beginners out! ^_^
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