PART 4! SHADOWS! (Patreon)

1 not just one color

2 blending

3. skin tone

4. shadows

5. highlights

4. SHADOWS:

As I've said time and time again, shadows and highlights are very important to give dimensions to your painting. Adding these elements will give  your flat painting definition.

FORM AND CAST SHADOWS:

Form shadow defines the form of the subject while cast shadows shows that the subject blocks the light source, therefore creating the shadow... if that makes sense....... this explains it better:

The form shadow gives the illusion that the ball is curvy! It gives it dimension! While the cast shadow shows that there is a light source and the ball is blocking that light, which creates the dark area which is where you'll put the shadow!

COLORS TO USE FOR SHADOWS:

• A good guide on how to pick the shadow color is choosing the complementary color of the color you're using! There's a feature on procreate colors where you can automatically get the complimentary color of a color. 

The complementary color of the base color is this blue! So I use that and some darker shades of it for the shadow.

• Don't just use black for shadows. I like experimenting with shadows, and I found out that blue is my favorite go-to shadow color, even if that's not the complementary color of the base i'm using! 
• Some colors I use for the shadow depends on the background or the whole color palette of the painting. For example on this one, the main theme for this (like most of my paintings) is the primary colors, the background's already red, there's already like yellows on the circle and her top, so i incorporated the blues on the other stuff like the shadows.



• Orrr! If you're not into too much colors! and don't want to use the complementary! You can just use the dark values of your base skin color.

WHERE TO PUT SHADOWS:

• The placement of shadows depends on the light source! Ex: if your light source is coming from your right, cast the shadow to the left.

This is kinda chaotic lol but these are the areas where i usually put the shadows (if there's no apparent shadows on the reference pictures!)

Lighting source is from above, so the shadows are casted down or on the surfaces where the light weren't reflected!

• Light source is the same on this picture below so the cast shadows' direction are downwards and you can see the areas that weren't touched by the light!!!!!! 

BLENDING SHADOWS:

• I always make the edges or the outlines of the shadows blended!! But that also depends on how near the light source is! If the face is near the light source, the shadows are sharper, but if it's further away, the shadows are softer!!! 

Soooo that's all for shadows!!! Next will be highlights!