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| Now for the shading. I selected Sonic with the Magic Wand tool. See
the little dotted lines? That's a selection, more commonly known as a "mask".
When you are coloring like this, you always want to work within a mask.
Anyway, set your brush to a reasonably good size and the opacity to 30%,
and start roughing out your shadows. |
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| With your brush set to 30%, it will layer on a darker color each time
you click the mouse. This gives you incredible control over how deep the
shadows go. I used a very dark blue for these shadows, almost black, and
worked it darker and darker until I was satisfied. |
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| Once I was happy with Sonic's head, I moved down to his body and legs,
and shaded those in. This is just general shading, and it's not very hard.
Now, if there were multiple light sources in this image, you'd really see
something. |
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| Time for the highlights! Select a light blue that is not quite white,
and still with your brush set to opacity 30%, shade in his highlights.
This being a dark picture, there weren't many highlights. You ought to
try using yellow or green for highlights and see how they turn out. |
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| Here, I have begun to shade in his eyes, gloves, and other white areas.
This being a darker picture, Sonic won't have any pure white on him. It
will be a more subdued light blue. Experiment with shading down into dark
blue. The darker the shadows, generally, the better it looks. I had already
done his flesh tones, and added a bit of a second highlight to the underside
of his muzzle and arm. The sparks reflecting off his skin, like. |
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| Here is the beginning of metallic shading. It's not very hard once
you know what to do, and looks very, very nice. Look at the loop of metal
in Sonic's soapshoe. I started with a flood-filled yellow area. I selected
a much darker shade of yellow, and painted on these two stripes at 30%
or 40% opacity. (Don't look at the railing. I cheated on that and did it
with a gradient.) |
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| See the difference in the top stripe? I went over it and over it until
it was quite dark. Notice how the darkest area is right up against the
highlight. By cutting off your shadows clean and sharp, it makes the metallic
impression. That circle in the images is the brush I did it with. |
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| Here I darkened the second stripe, making it darkest right up against
the next highlight. I also dimmed the highlight on the far left, so the
highlight in the middle is now the brightest one. Metallic shading! Wasn't
that easy? |
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| More examples of what you can do with metallic shading and multicolored
highlights. This is my idea of a Mecha Shadow, as you can probably tell.
Check out the extreme use of the metallic shading techniques mentioned
above--the brightest parts of of the highlights are right next to the darkest
parts of the shadows. |