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Shading 101 (v.2)
Shading. That ever baffling way of making things look 3D through use of light(s) and shadows.
It's not as hard as it may seem, so hold on for a quick crash course in shading.
Note that not everything is covered here, but I will go over a number of areas that people
have asked me about and that I had trouble figuring out myself when I started shading.
 The Light Source
The "Light source" is the place (or places) light is coming from in your picture. These are not only man made light (such as lamps),
but also natural lights (like the sun and moon). Keep in might a picture could have more then one light source such as a candle inside
and the moonlight from outside. In addition some lights might be brighter then others and may even have colors (candlelight and sunlight will
be a lot more yellow, for example, than moonlight).
Before you start any
shading or coloring (and keep in mind that some shading can be done at the time of penciling or inking) you probably want to
have an idea of where your light(s) are. You may even want to mark the light sources lightly in pencil or make a small thumbnail sketch showing
the lighting. If you are shading/coloring someone else's artwork they may have already suggested where they light is coming from (look for highlights in the eyes for example).
 Common Mistake: Shading following the linework
A common mistake (as shown in this image) is to shade following the edge of the linework or character/object.
This looks okay, but it does not really show a true 3D look at the picture - it looks kind of flat.
 Shapes are 3D: Shade following the shapes
To create a 3D feel you should try to see what ever you are drawing as the basic 3D shape it is.
Arms and legs are more like cylinders so in the this example above you can see the shading follows
the SHAPE of the body, arms etc (note green arrows pointing this out). Always try to follow the shapes when you can.
 More then two shades
Remember there is more then just a dark and a light, or a dark-middle-light!
The more levels of shadows and highlights you use the more realistic something with look.
Most artists work from 5 to 10 levels of value (Value is how dark or light something is regardless of it's color). It takes practice but you can learn to spot the values
in real life and draw from them. Tip: If you have trouble seeing the values of something try squinting your
eyes so that the details are blurred - it will be easier to see just the values and ignore the details.
 Shapes & Values: Make things look like what they are!
Another common mistake is to shade all parts of a picture the same way. Many pictures (especially those of characters) have different textures in them. Skin won't look the same as cloth or metal or glass. Keep this in mind when drawing the shapes of your shadows/highlights and when figuring out how much contrast to use. Skin, for example, has very little contrast so you will never see your darkest value right next to your lightest value on the skin. While on a glass or metal object you might have a lot of contrast so you might have a very dark value right next to a very light value. If you can't figure out what shapes and values to use try looking at something made of that material. In this example you can see how her clothing has been shaded using very different shapes from those on her face. Tip: Something made of glass or a jewel will have a much brighter highlight and more contrast (they sparkle) then an object made of cloth or rubber. Plastic objects will probably fall somewhere in the middle of the two and metal will depend on how much "shine" it has.
Making it look 3D
If you take an egg (or a plain smooth ball) and look at sitting on a light surface under a good light you might be surprised to see that it doesn't just go from dark to light as shown in the "BAD 3D" example above. Instead some of the light is actually reflected by the surface the object is on (the ground or whatever). This makes the darkest shadow in the MIDDLE of the object and the side that is closer to the light will be the lightest while the side that is away from the light will have some reflected light. This is easy to see on the "GOOD 3D" example of the sphere below. Depending on the shape (and material) of the object this will vary but it is important to keep this in mind. As you can see in the example below (we're back to the leg example) adding that middle dark area makes the leg look more real.
Soft or solid shading?
In the examples shown here are soft and solid shading - and of course there are all levels of this from really soft airbrushing to the popular "cell" style animation shading. Nothing says you can't mix soft and hard shading, but I would suggest doing so with care. For example I think putting soft shading under a black outline can be a little harsh (unless some of the shading is HARD black shading like in many comic book coloring/inking styles). If I'm using linework and am shading soft I will probably colorize the linework and maybe even soften it a little as shown in the soft example here.
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