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3. Basic Cel Shading

As the title already suggests, basic cel shading is quite easy to do. You just have to decide where your light source will be and then you can put some shadows onto your flat colors.
I’ve decided that my light will go down from the top right corner.

OK, insert a new layer as usual and put it on top of your flat colors layer. If you use a graphic tablet, the brush tool is the best pick to draw the shadows as usual. If you don’t have one, you have two options. You can either pick up the line tool and outline the shadows or you grab the rectangle tool and place a rectangle somewhere where the shadow would be. Make sure that there is no stroke color for this rectangle. You only want to have the fill color for easy modifying.

But why a rectangle? Well, when you start with a rectangle, defining the final shape of the shadow is pretty much like modelling. You pick the selection tool and just start deforming the shape. If you hover over one of the corners of the rectangle, there’ll be a corner symbol beneath your cursor. If you now click and drag, you’ll extend the corner. If you hover over the middle of a straight line, there’ll be a curve symbol beneath your cursor. By clicking and dragging, you’ll make a curve of that straight line.

Sometimes, adjusting only the corners and straight lines will not do the job. It can happen that you need ‘a new corner’ to give your former rectangle a more complex shape. To do that, all you need to do is holding down the Ctrl key, hover over a line and then click and either pull in or drag out:

Placing the shadows correctly just takes a bit of practice. You should always think of your drawing as a 3-Dimensional picture, because it’s easier to visualize which parts cast a shadow and which don’t. In addition you can search for some reference pictures on the net and place them next to your drawing on the stage for easier reference.

Anyway, here’s a little walkthrough on how I did the shadow for one sleeve of the shirt. I started with a rectangle, too for this one. (shirt_walkthrough_cap & sleeve_final_cap)

The Sleeve:

As you can see, the shadow is mostly orientated on the vest, since it’s meant to be a little wider than the sweater itself. And the arm is a little pulled back in the middle part, so the shadow needs to be a bit bigger there, too. The rest is really depending on the folding of the cloth.

So, keep this few things in mind and start putting more shadows into your picture. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

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