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Rantage: Okay, so... a long time ago I was asked to do help someone with their shading and I said I'd do a tutorial. XDD;; Like, how many long time after, I did something! XD;;; And a fairly simple, one that I was completely non-anal about. Did in like 2-3 hours? Something like that. With plenty of distractions in between. Uh yeahh~ Most of this most people have probably learned already? Yeah, but incase not~

Oh and the same sort of principle should work on any other art program. Though I'm using Photoshop Elements 2.0, this can be done in psp or whatever too.

[EDIT] Yeah, as I go over and reread, there's gonna be some edits in my notes ;; Or.. a lot of them >>;;

Full image: Here!

01 - pencil lineart. All there is to that o__o;; I still can't draw them very well =__=

02 - Cleaning up lineart. Would've prolly been better if I had done an actual lineart, but that's seriously tediously long and I said I wasn't going to be anal about this. So, just cleaning it up to decency.

03 - Make the background a layer, and change the layer property to multiply. Then you can color under it without messing with the lineart. If this had been the black outline, you could have had it on top too, and change the color of the lineart, or there's a way to erase the white... but you can find that online @__@;;... somewhere.

04 - Make a layer and fill it with a color, leave it at the very bottom. I have a tendency to use this acid green, but it can be any color that constrasts strongly against the other colors really. I also like to use hot pink alot? It's to make sure you're not missing spots. With just white, it's very easy to miss stuff. Then start filling in the spaces with the base color - I like using the midtone. Bottom layers can actually go over the lines more, because you color over them. Or you can leave the spaces and color beneath. It's all on your own perference.

05 - It's best that you make a different layer for each color and then lock the transparency on it, so that you won't go over anything else. And if you mess up severely, you can just go over that one space with the color you started out with. You can always unlock to fix things, of course. Never heisitate to retouch stuff!

But, if you're like me, and lazy and want to avoid so many layers, which can get really, really tedious when you have so many items (Like this nearly killed me. DX), so if you can and want to, you can group together items that aren't the same color if they aren't touching each other. I have a tendency to do eyes all in the same layer. And I grouped together the mouth as well.

06 - And viola~ spaces all filled! XD;

07 - Okay, now for shading. I like starting with skin. Clothing is slightly different, but it's basically the same technique. Right, so get that eye dropper and pick an item. Then go to the color picker. For this, I choose to do Raziel's skin first. So choose a darker shade. Btw, shading isn't limited to the same color o__o You can choose things like blue and purple and other things too... It's a bit harder, but actually more natural?

08 - And shade! Keep in mind your light source and all that ; I totally guess like 98.99% of the time when I do shading? ;; But there's ways to have a reference, I think... Like making another layer and filling it with black then adding the lightning.. and yeah ^^ Tutorials for that are out there!

09 - Pick a darker color that than shade and shade in some more! ; the more away from the light, the darker and whatnot it is! ^^ Especially little nooks and cranies XD;;

10 - Highlights! It's just like shading but the opposite! Pick a lighter shade than your base color. Highlights are good to make things pop out more and whatnot. For skin and not too shiny clothes, it's best not to make highlights so extreme. For hair, you can see, you can have the hightlight as light as white.

11 - SMUDGE TOOL. I cannot stress how much it is your friend! It's a subtle thing, but with the smudge tool, you can soften and shape the shading even more and it's just.. better? XD; :: pimps smudge tool liek whoa 8D ::

12 - And repeat for everything else! XD;

13 - CGing is a constant of retouching. Always, always something more to add and subtract and stuff like that XD;; I really don't know how to stop sometimes. Added a bit of blush, made some shadows darker, etc. ;

14 - annnnd then add crappy quick background, and ta da~ You can end here, or do some more effects. I should make a seperate tutorial for clothes/eyes/hair to show more of difference, mebbe? =__= but I'm so lazzyyy. We'll see. DX As if my tutorials aren't totally lame anywho~ 8DD; :: coughs :: Enough digression.

So yeah, next parts = totally optional! =3 But make for a nicer effect?

15 - So~ you can consider adding more filters above the pic to bring the colors more.. together? Or even give it the effects of night/daylight/morning/sunset/etc So, fill a layer with a gradient, and then overlay (or soft light, vivid light.. anything that looks night really!) And then adjust the opacity as needed.

16 - See the instant change? Colors can be more vibrant and stuff or cooler, depending on what color you use. Exclusion is also a nice filter to mess around with. As seen in step 19,I have that dark blue filter, which is in exclusion and that made the shows darker. Light blue gives it a more overall toned down look. Exprimenting is really fun! 8D;

17 - Why stop with one when you can add more? XD As many as you see fit, of course. XD; One can overdo it sometimes. For a night scene, which would consists of more dark tones like dark blues and purples, you might need to go over the highlights above the filter

18 - Okay! Now! For getting that slight glowy blur but keeping the picture intact! Make sure you've saved the pic first, especially if you can't undo. Which isn't bad, but I like to save copies of the .psd files incase I want to ever go back and change it. Happened couple times to me~, so you never know~ Anyway, flatten all the layers and copy that image. Or simply duplicate if you wish to keep the flattened picture.

19 Use Gaussian Blur at anywhere from 4-8, depending. Bigger it is, probably the higher you want it?

NOTE from ~PromiseBerry:
for the Gaussian Blur step ? You might wanna duplicate the merged layer twice, do one blurred and another on Overlay or something. But the blurred in the middle, so like, it doesn't look TOO blurry? but has the same soft effect. Or something. XDDD; I just use that a lot of icons.. so I know. .XDDDD

20- Lower opacity as you see fit! Honestly, art isn't an exact science, so I can't really ever tell anyone what to really do Just little basics like this and things? ;;

21 And viola! LA FIN. DX Kao's crappy tutorial a fini!