monster in a tumblr.

toukon asked:

“thank you for the incredibly awesome event and for releasing the lab gremlins i requested, everything everyone else requested, and the explosion of favourite pets. =] i got so excited by all the pets i think i ran off and forgot the request thread and forgot to say thanks, sorry about that. XD

asking for wiki-destined art if you haven’t already made them: i have a friend obsessed with phoenixes and flarions and i’d like to see lodicas even if they aren’t technically a species, if they were on your list.

also [sorry for the double-ask, tumblr didn’t like the long message for some reason] can you give me some advice on shading? how do you know how far to take it, when to stop, where to shade? is it only practice and getting a feel for it or do you have a set method? i’d like advice regarding logos too. your faction logos look great being amazingly clear, complex in parts, yet simplified and look good large or small, can you give me some tips regarding how you made that work? logo concept, colours, lines, etc? thank you!”

Hey, no problem!
It was a lot of fun — I’d definitely like to do more similar things in the future. :D

I’ll add your requests to the list, thanks! I’ll probably be getting back around to them sometime between the end of this week and the beginning of the next; I’ve got a special project I’m working on for now.

Now! Shading is a fairly complex topic, but there are some basic rules I tend to follow.
Growing up, I always used to just sort of shade wherever I had a mind to, and it served me poorly at best.
The trick is to figure out where your light source (or sources, if you’ve got multiple, which complicates things) is, make a little mental note of it, and look at where it’d fall on your object.
Light always lands most strongly on the side closest to the source while shadows fall on the opposite side, deepening as they move farther away from it.

How much you shade and how detailed you take it depends upon the style you’re using. You’ll want to simplify both your highlight and shadow areas and restrict them to only a few values for more animated styles (cel shading tends to stick to one or two), whereas with more realistic work, you’ll blend more and make use of gradients, adding more fine details.

Generally, the cuter you want something to look, the less detail you’ll add to your shading. On the other side of the scale, more will contribute to realism, until you ultimately have something where you’ve rendered every wrinkle and pore and it’s not so much true-to-life as it is somewhat frightening. But that has its uses!

As a rule of thumb no matter what technique you’re using, though, go easy on the highlights unless your figure is in intense light, wet, or made of a reflective material. The more highlights you emphasize, the shinier something will look.
A single spot of bright highlight can make an entire surface look glossy!

One thing I do want to add: in most average scenes, you’ll actually have two light sources or more, one for your primary light source (the sun, a lamp, etc), and a second one for reflective light that bounces off of nearby objects and onto other things.

Reflective light is usually much more subtle, but it can make things really pop where your primary light source can’t alone. That usually shows up on the opposite side of your shadow, but only a little bit (typically a thin sliver) should be visible. Oftentimes, just pulling your shadow away from the far edge of your object will suffice, but experiment!

Keep the colors of your light sources in mind, too. A lot of people will highlight in white and shade in black, and that sucks all the color and life out of a piece! Try using the color of your light source or other bright, reflective colors found in the scene for highlighting, and its complimentary/opposite color for shadows.

As a rule, I personally tend to keep my highlight and shading cel-style for adoptables, but I enjoy going all out for my personal artwork. Simplified shading can be an utter pain to work out. :B

If you’d like more (and likely far less confusing) information by someone who knows what they’re doing way better than me, check out this tutorial here! It’s a favorite of mine.

As for the logos, that’s something I’m not quite as well equipped(?) to explain. Graphic design is one of my weaker points, artistically, but I’ve always been fond of designing graphical logos.

It’s a whole lot of simplification, along with picking a very small color palette and emphasizing complimentary colors where I can, and drawing them up in a vector-based program (I prefer Flash) if I’m not too lazy to open the thing in lieu of just drawing them really enormous in Photoshop so my hideous inking doesn’t shine through.

When in doubt (and vectorless), working huge and resizing does wonders. This is the entire farce behind people thinking I have any control over my lineart whatsoever. :D

well, that was long-winded and likely confusing.