Display Options: Base Colour Shading Lvl 1 Shading Lvl 2 Outline Colour

Download the file containing the sketch for Gent. Use a graphic package of your own choice. Create 4 different layers, each for the Base Colour, Shading Level 1, Shading Level 2, and Outline Colour respectively. For even further efficiency, you may create layers for each of the elements such as colour fills and shadings for skin, clothes, ornaments, etc.

1. BASE COLOUR
   1. Skin Colour
      • Choose light pink colour to start with colouring the skin. You can try using magic wand or lasso tools to select big areas to fill in the colour. Use brush or similar tools for patching any visible gaps or cracks. Use eraser to remove any excess colour area.
      • Be careful not to draw over the outline. A good trick is to make the outline transparent and have it sit on top of the other layers, so that you wouldn't have to worry about drawing over it.
   2. Clothing
      • Similar to filling the skin colour, choose subtle colour for drawing the clothes, but they should make the clothes to be distinctive enough from the skin.
      • Don't bother drawing shades for wrinkles yet. This will be done after all the base colours are finished.
   3. Ornaments/Equipments
      • Pay attention to detail when drawing the crystal ball at the centre of the belt. Draw specular highlight with yellowish-white colour.
      • You can apply textures by painting them manually or by having your graphics package automatically do it for you. The sword shown in the example has no texture applied for the purpose of simplicity. All textures should be done on the base colour.
2. SHADING LEVEL 1 (SOFT SHADING)
   1. Flat Shading
      • Flat shading is easy to do once you have determined a light source. It's a common practice for a simple character showcase, like the one used in this example, to have only one light source at far left side of and behind the camera, hence the direction of shading is the opposite: to the character's right side.
      • Skin and clothing may have flat shading cast upon them. Skin shading in particular has more regular shapes than clothes shading. The easiest method is to trace-follow the outline, just like beveling the outline inwards.
   2. Hair Shading
      • Hair shading can be tricky. For spiky hair style such as the one used in this example, the shading also forms spiky shapes to show the same characteristic as the hair outline.
      • For some other hair styles (curly, straight, etc.) it is sometimes better to do the highlights in smaller shapes resembling individual highlight on each single strand of the hair.
   3. Wrinkles
      • Areas of clothes with wrinkles are the most difficult to draw. Shading should be added with high attention to where the light source originates from.
      • Notice in this example that the illusion of wrinkles does not come from the outline but directly from the shading itself.
3. SHADING LEVEL 2 (HARD SHADING)
   1. Flat Shading
      • Shading level 2 is used to enhance further the depth illusion of the character. Flat shading is very much a straightforward process in that it just takes Shading Level 1 but with darker colour and beveled shape.
      • Notice that not all of the areas with soft shading have hard ones on top of them, particularly those body parts that are close to each other. Those body parts don't have hard shading because they reflect light from each other. The body parts that are facing away from the light source should have hard shadings.
   2. Hair Shading
      • Hair shading level 2 for spiky hair like the one used in this example is very much similar to level 1 with beveled shape and darker colour.
      • Other hair styles may not have hard shadings but highlights instead.
   3. Wrinkles
      • As opposed to wrinkle shading level 1, it is fairly easy to draw wrinkle shading level 2. Here, hard shading should enhance the impression of the wrinkles further than those conveyed by the soft ones.
      • Some serious manga styles have more than 2 levels of shading, increasingly adding depth and complexity to the characteristic of the drawing.
4. OUTLINE COLOUR
   1. Outer Outline
      • Black outline is used in some manga drawing style. Other styles, for example manga characters for games, look more subtle and interesting with coloured outlines.
      • The outer outline colour should reflect the material of the clothes, skin, or ornaments that it represents. Lighter or darker tone of the same colour is used to make distinct the outline from the materials.
   2. Inner Outline
      • When colouring outline that sits between two different materials, it truly depends on which material colour looks better when applied to the outline.
      • A good rule of thumb is to use colour of the material that 'stands' closer to the camera. Take for instance, the belt outline used darker tone of brown colour (used on the belt itself) because it draws further than the clothes.
   3. Cross-Sections
      • Cross-sections can have subtractive colour, meaning if two or more material with different colour are attached to the outline, it may have the colour element of each of the materials.
      • Be aware that subtractive colours may become pure black if the materials have extreme colour (i.e. red, green, blue). In this case, stick to the darker tone of material colour that draws closest to the camera.

• Choose one main colour that sets the characteristic of your character
• Dominant red colour for male characters may mean your character is wild, for female characters it conveys femininity
• Bright colour are good application for main characters
• Fade colour are good application for entourage characters
• Supplement colour should be distinctive enough from the main colour
• If the main colour is already chosen, shading of same materials should have darker/ligher tones of the same colour
• Highlights should have lighter tones
• Shadows should have darker tones
• Avoid having too much contrasting colour on a character
• Undershading is better than overshading