I've been using SAI for a month now, and I'm wondering if people would give me any sort of advice on shadows and shade?

From ratte: http://i.cubeupload.com/cVamqQ.png

Photoshop all the way baby!

1. new layer over the base color
2. check the clipping group box
3. set the shadow layer on overlay, multiply or make it a bit more transparent from the opacity slider
4. start painting shadows. dont use black, use something like dark blue or dark red. use lighter colors if you use multiply.

Mutisija said:
4. start painting shadows. dont use black, use something like dark blue or dark red. use lighter colors if you use multiply.

If whatever is being shaded is primarily one color, I prefer to use a dark version of that color for the shading.

Tokaido said:
I've never touched SAI, as my copy of photoshop works just fine. I want to try it out some time though... wonder if it offers free trials...

30-day trial. Not certain that the trial has all tools available though.

Nyteshade said:
If whatever is being shaded is primarily one color, I prefer to use a dark version of that color for the shading.

i advice to not do that because in 90% of the cases shading with darker version of the base color gives flat, boring and lifeless result. shading with something else than what the base color is makes it often instantly a lot more interesting and better looking. this is basic color theory stuff that many artists ignore. ofc there are cases where using darker version of base color looks good but that is quite rare.

Tokaido said:
I've never touched SAI, as my copy of photoshop works just fine. I want to try it out some time though... wonder if it offers free trials...

30 day trial with all tools available, just find the homepage and get the English version from the producer, not the shitty third party translation that is flying around, and possibly malware infected.

Tokaido said:
Photoshop all the way baby!

I've never touched SAI, as my copy of photoshop works just fine. I want to try it out some time though... wonder if it offers free trials...

You may also want to give Manga Studio 5 a look. I'm fairly certain they have a free trial available, too, and the software itself is rather inexpensive.

You don't... I spend a good hour or more just doing one tiny part of a damn pony if I decide to shade stuff. Even then it doesn't turn out well.

See: post #532597

Seriously get photoshop. (Cough cough pirate bay)

Tho I myself don't use it, because I'm stupid. It's better then Sai, at least for everything but vector lines. See the following picture for reference to what (According to comments) Is the quality of Sai vectors.

See: post #432317

Cutedementia said:
You don't... I spend a good hour or more just doing one tiny part of a damn pony if I decide to shade stuff. Even then it doesn't turn out well.

See: post #532597

post #439543

That was completely created in SAI and the shading is glorious.
Just because you don't like a tool doesn't mean it's worthless.

NotMeNotYou said:
post #439543

That was completely created in SAI and the shading is glorious.
Just because you don't like a tool doesn't mean it's worthless.

Except it is 10 times harder to use on Sai then anything you'll find on Photoshop. And most of the time on photoshop you'll still come out with better results.

NotMeNotYou said:
From ratte: http://i.cubeupload.com/cVamqQ.png[/quote]

That is hella useful! Thanks Ratte. *gets inspired*

Cutedementia said:
Except it is 10 times harder to use on Sai then anything you'll find on Photoshop. And most of the time on photoshop you'll still come out with better results.

That...doesn't make any logical sense. Different people get different mileage out of different tools. Acting like photoshop is an all-encompassing tool for the digital artist ignores all the other alternatives in favor of hoping and praying that one specific piece of software will suit your specific needs as an artist.

Not to mention that thinking is ass-backwards due to the sheer number of additional options and tools present in photoshop that have little whatsoever to do with the workflow of most artists, meaning that the software is bloated with additional things that only serve to make figuring out a solid workflow even more frustrating and tedious.

Cutedementia said:
Except it is 10 times harder to use on Sai then anything you'll find on Photoshop. And most of the time on photoshop you'll still come out with better results.

you find sai hard to use because you are not familiar with it. just like i find photoshop absolutely impossible to use because i am not familiar with it. also photoshop doesnt magically make anyones art skills better. i tried to draw couple weeks ago with photoshop and results were complete crap compared to what i can do with sai

Mutisija said:
you find sai hard to use because you are not familiar with it. just like i find photoshop absolutely impossible to use because i am not familiar with it. also photoshop doesnt magically make anyones art skills better. i tried to draw couple weeks ago with photoshop and results were complete crap compared to what i can do with sai

I have always drawn with Sai or by hand and nothing else for more then 6 years. I am very familiar with the program.

This is just me wanting people's experiences on shading tutorials so I can adapt, not a contest to see which art software's better. :P

Ponynstuff320 said:
This is just me wanting people's experiences on shading tutorials so I can adapt, not a contest to see which art software's better. :P

Erm, if you use the all technologic and ultra-modern pencil you can try using your finger to smudge softly around corners and do soft shades (works for colored pencils too!) :I

Ponynstuff320 said:
This is just me wanting people's experiences on shading tutorials so I can adapt, not a contest to see which art software's better. :P

Sorry for the derailment. In reference to your question, most shading tutorials you'll find are fairly generalized, meaning that the lessons contained will more than likely be applicable to whatever software you happen to use. A good rule of thumb is to use a softer brush for shadows and highlights, and a harder-edged brush for other elements. Shadows, as you'd assume, are going to be dictated by the topography and surface quality of the object as well as the direction and source of the light. DrawWithJazza on youtube has some fairly good tutorials on that subject--and many other aspects of art--so I'd highly suggest checking his channel out.

Xch3l said:
Erm, if you use the all technologic and ultra-modern pencil you can try using your finger to smudge softly around corners and do soft shades (works for colored pencils too!) :I

You can also use a bit of toilet paper/a tissue to get a different variation of the same effect. The tissue trick can lift a little more color from the area than a finger usually does, which can be useful sometimes if you want to lighten an area a little bit. Or alternately, filling a spot on the tissue with grafite before rubbing can rub a bit more color into the paper while simultaneously softening lines. All can be helpful tricks to use, depending on what effect you want.

But I kinda assumed the OP is looking for digital art shading techniques. And I know a lot less about those.

Ponynstuff320 said:
This is just me wanting people's experiences on shading tutorials so I can adapt, not a contest to see which art software's better. :P

My recommended shading tutorial is Blender. Add a sphere, modify its material -- mess with the colors and parameters, maybe add a second light that's colored differently, add some other primitives like cylinders/cones/boxes to interact with/cast shadows. Try to paint it.
As you adjust the parameters you can see their impact, which makes it much easier to deconstruct them.

If this seems flippant, well, so do you. But it is nonetheless true.

furrypickle said:
You can also use a bit of toilet paper/a tissue to get a different variation of the same effect. The tissue trick can lift a little more color from the area than a finger usually does, which can be useful sometimes if you want to lighten an area a little bit. Or alternately, filling a spot on the tissue with grafite before rubbing can rub a bit more color into the paper while simultaneously softening lines. All can be helpful tricks to use, depending on what effect you want.

But I kinda assumed the OP is looking for digital art shading techniques. And I know a lot less about those.

I don't know much about digital coloring and a bit of traditional... but yeh, was trying to say something art related, y'know, for future reference...

savageorange said:
...If this seems flippant, well, so do you.

Well that came out of nowhere. Except for the photoshop vs sai debate about which is "better", nothing about this thread has seemed flippant to me. OP's been nothing but polite and curious. There's also nothing out of line with dragging a thread back on topic, especially when the tangent was starting to take over the thread entirely. So this accusation seems uncalled for. The weirdest thing is that normally you seem more even-keeled than that. Bad day?

furrypickle said:
Well that came out of nowhere. Except for the photoshop vs sai debate about which is "better", nothing about this thread has seemed flippant to me. OP's been nothing but polite and curious. There's also nothing out of line with dragging a thread back on topic, especially when the tangent was starting to take over the thread entirely. So this accusation seems uncalled for. The weirdest thing is that normally you seem more even-keeled than that. Bad day?

My impression was that the thread wasn't ever on topic because OP's question was far too broad for anyone to usefully answer(it actually became MORE broad after they clarified!).

Maybe it was an incorrect inference, but I have seen many many people ask such broad questions, especially about tutorials, and extremely few come back with anything (I don't mean anything good, I mean anything at *all*), that I have learned to interpret this type of question with extreme doubt, and insist to describe a work-area rather than an actual tutorial.

It would be fair to critique me in terms of right intent.. that comment did not have it. Nonetheless, I didn't write that comment solely to insult, but because it seemed accurate. It is of course possible that my judgement is impaired by the cold I've got currently. I appreciate your concern, but I don't believe I've had a bad day.

Now, if I am to assume that whatever question was actually intended was asked in good faith, then:

If I thought the question was 'how does shading WORK?' I would link Arne's tutorial -- and reiterate my comment about experimenting with blender materials.

If I thought the question was 'I know how shading works, how do I create it efficiently' I would link wikipedia Painter's Algorithm , which can be viewed as a close relative of the z-buffering that any 3d game does. You just use that algorithm and do loads of value speedpainting until you can shade stuff in your sleep.

But for shading most things *cleanly* you also need a good set of flats, for which something like GMIC's Interactive Colorize Filter is indispensible (the end product being in any case a kind of 'color map' with sharp edges that you can use to select different color regions so you can cleanly shade them. A number of ways of using such a color map, but for anything that isn't monochrome, it's a great help to clean shading (ie. shading that doesn't bleed paint over another region accidentally).

My experience is that workflows that require you to stay strictly in one program tend to be inferior. There is a limit to how much any one program can do well.

Ponynstuff320 said:
This is just me wanting people's experiences on shading tutorials so I can adapt, not a contest to see which art software's better. :P

I found this little SAI tutorial useful for at least grabbing the basics when I picked up SAI.

Doesn't really go into detail on anything, but at least it provides a framework to start with. From there I could then mess around with things to find what works best for me (which is how I prefer to learn).

one thing many sai users do not notice is the stabilizer (its in the top tool bar). it makes the cursor 'lag' a little which makes drawing smooth lines easier. for general drawing i use s-4 stabilizer setting and for long smooth lines i use s-7.

Mutisija said:
one thing many sai users do not notice is the stabilizer (its in the top tool bar). it makes the cursor 'lag' a little which makes drawing smooth lines easier. for general drawing i use s-4 stabilizer setting and for long smooth lines i use s-7.

Ah good old lazy mouse. That's probably my number one reason to try using SAI, and my number one grow with Photoshop as a digital painter.

Mutisija said:
one thing many sai users do not notice is the stabilizer (its in the top tool bar). it makes the cursor 'lag' a little which makes drawing smooth lines easier. for general drawing i use s-4 stabilizer setting and for long smooth lines i use s-7.

Forgotten to mention on how to cell shade. How to do it?

Ponynstuff320 said:
Forgotten to mention on how to cell shade. How to do it?

Forgot to think about how it's a 6 month old post.