Practical Guide to Realistic Shading (Advice You Can Actually Use Today)

If you find shading difficult or your forms look flat, it often comes down to clearly understanding the specific parts of light and shadow. In this demo, we'll explore all the key elements, how to handle reflected light, model halftones, place highlights, understand occlusion shadows, and even analyze the penumbra of a cast shadow. We'll cover the practical steps for realistic shading using a basic sphere. But this is the exact same process I use when shading anything, even complex subjects like a portrait. Draw the linear land. Personally, I like to always start with a linear land. Mapping out and designing the shapes, establishing the gesture, perspective, anatomy, anything we can solve linearly, I do linearly first. In this case, it's just a circle. One of the main roles of a linear land is to serve as a bunch of containers and placeholders that inform us where to put our values and colors. They're important though, of course. What's the point of shading all those details in the wrong place or shading a boring shape? So most artists start with a linear land before they shade. Now let's map out the form shadow. The first and most important thing we need to do is separate the light from the shadow, which happens at the Terminator. I'm back. The Terminator is where the light rays from the light source just barely skim the surface and the plane start to face away from the light. Everything on one side of the Terminator is in light and everything beyond it falls into shadow. So, identify where the light source is and then imagine an equator around this ball facing the light direction. In the reference, you don't see the Terminator as a sharp line because there is a transition, a soft edge in both directions from light to shadow, unless it's a box, then it's a sharp edge. Usually, I'll imagine the Terminator and draw the soft edge of the core shadow and that core shadow usually falls right on the Terminator. Okay, now let's map out the cast shadow. Remember, the cast shadow is different from the form shadow. It's not about planes facing away from the light source. It's caused by one form blocking light from reaching another. This table surface is actually facing up toward the light, but it's being blocked by the ball. This cast shadow is a little bit stretched out and foreshortened from my point of view, so it looks like an ellipse. Cast shadows are a great tool to create a relationship between two objects. It connects them together, like the table and the ball, or it separates them apart. The higher I lift the ball, the greater the distance between the ball and the cast shadow, which represents the table. Without a cast shadow, the relationship between the table and the ball is unclear. It looks like it's floating somewhere above the table, but that's about all we can derive from this. Cast shadows are also a great tool to show the form of either the object casting the shadow or the form of the surface the cast shadow is on, or both. I always try to design my cast shadows to follow cross contour lines of the form it's cast onto. Okay, so now, finally, let's separate the light and shadow. Fill in that form shadow with one consistent dark value. Initially, let's aim for a value that's dark enough to clearly show the contrast between the light and shadow, but not pure black. We need to save some darker values for the core shadow and occlusion later. The exact value will depend on the lighting environment and the local value of the objects, but I typically shoot for a value three or four. This value represents the lightest shadow value, the reflected lights. The cast shadow is part of the shadow family, so I'll include it in that same shadow mass. Right now, there's a 20% discount with the Proko Summer Sale and it's not just for drawing basics. Courses like Steve Zapata's Secrets of Shading and Dorian Eaton's Shading course are included too. So, just use the code SUMMERSALE at Proko.com. All right, let's refine the core shadow and reflected light. Light doesn't completely stop when it hits an object. Well, some of it does. It gets absorbed and usually turn into heat. But some of that light bounces off and hits another object. That next object absorbs some of it and bounces the rest again, and again, and again, until all that light has been absorbed. I know you nerds out there are gonna think that's an overly simplified explanation of it, but let's not overcomplicate it. We're drawing a ball. Okay, now also the color or the value of the surface the light bounces from affects how much light bounces. This white surface bounces more light than this black surface. Pretty cool. So, we have all of this light bouncing around our environment. What that means is that the object isn't just hit by the light directly from the light source. The shadows will receive some reflected light. But remember, every time the light bounces, it gets weaker and weaker. So, don't draw the reflected light in the shadow as bright as the direct light. In our ball, for example, light bounces off the table and back up into the shadow. Now, I don't recommend erasing out the reflected light from the shadow. When you're just starting out, it's too easy to erase too much and make it too light. Sometimes we get so excited about that reflected light that we forget that they are shadows. We end up making them brighter than the halftones. So, it's better to darken around the reflected lights to make sure all the shadows stay within that shadow family. In other words, the reflected light should be darker than any halftone. I know I'm repeating that a lot, but it's only because it's really important and it's a very common mistake. So, instead of erasing out those reflected lights, I'm gonna darken the core shadow, usually near the Terminator. It's the darkest part of the form shadow, but don't make it pure black. The occlusion shadow under the ball where it touches is darker. So, by darkening the core shadow, you inadvertently create reflected light. But what is this core shadow? Why is it darker there? Well, it's actually pretty simple. It's the part of the form shadow that's least affected by the reflected light. The surface of this area angles away from both the direct light source and most nearby surfaces that are bouncing light back into it. So, because it's hidden from both direct and reflected light, it appears darker. Now, because the table is down here and it's bouncing light up, the core shadow at the bottom here is receiving more of that bounce light than the core shadow up here. So, the core shadow is gonna get lighter as it goes down and I think I've made it a little bit too dark, a little bit too consistent. And so, I can come back in with an eraser and just lightly bring out a little bit of light. Now, I know I said I don't want to erase, but if you've gone too dark, then you kind of have to pull it back a little bit, just being careful that you don't go lighter than this lightest value that I've already established. If I add a surface into the environment that does bounce the light into the area, the core shadow disappears. Pretty cool. So, you won't always see the core shadow because it depends on the environment and how the reflected lights are hitting the object. But sometimes it's very obvious across the entire Terminator. Sometimes it's partially visible along a portion of the Terminator and sometimes it's very hard to see. All right, let's model the halftones. Before shading the halftones, I like to imagine the position of the center light. Think of it as the spot where the plane of the object points directly toward the light. Once you know where it is, it's easier to correctly place the halftones as they transition toward the shadow. Now, halftones are still receiving direct light but just at an angle and the steeper the angle, the darker the value. Halftones make up most of the lit area, almost the whole thing. And since the lit area is more important than the shadow area, this is where I spend most of my effort when I'm shading. I'm considering the precise value at each point, designing the shape of each tile or like cross contours. This is where you might make the shading too spotty if you don't have much experience. Don't worry, you'll get better with practice. If you choose to blend your halftones, be careful not to over blend. Blending is a tool but you can get a little over dependent on it. For beginners, I recommend practicing hatching and using directional strokes that follow the planes. One very common mistake with halftones is to make the gradation linear, meaning the transition between the center light and the core shadow consistently gets darker. But that's not how it works. There's something called Lambert's Cosine Law and it describes how we see that transition. We made a great video with Dorian Eaton a while back that explains it clearly, so I recommend you watch it. I'll leave a link in the description. But generally, most of that transition happens near the terminator. The change in value gets much more subtle as you get closer to the center light. The common mistake of using a linear gradation results in way too much of the dark halftones creeping into the light halftone area. You end up with something like this. So, move those dark halftones closer to the terminator. All right, let's design the highlight. After getting all the halftones in, you can add that highlight. You can either erase it out, drawing it with your eraser, or you could have shaded around it during the halftone stage. And since I actually have toned paper, I have room to add white charcoal to make that highlight pop even more. Highlights are attention-grabbing and it's tempting to jump in and add them into your drawings early. But it can be a good idea to save them for last. Your form should feel solid and three-dimensional without them. You can focus on shading the subtle gradations toward the center light. Highlights are just that finishing touch, the cherry on top. Also, highlights often get confused with the center light, but they're not the same thing. A highlight is a reflection of the light source itself. Unlike the center light, the highlight's position depends on the position of the viewer. So, if you move, the highlight moves too. Typically, it's going to be closer to the core shadow than the center light. As a rule of thumb, as we get more shadow, the highlight gets farther from the center light. Usually, it's the brightest spot on your form. Different materials interact with light in different ways. Matte surfaces like rubber or cloth are microscopically rough. So, they scatter light in different directions, creating soft, diffused highlights. Shiny, glossy surfaces like metals, a clean apple or even wet skin are microscopically smooth. So, they reflect light more directly like a mirror, creating bright, crisp highlights. Notice how our ball already looks 3D even with no information in the shadows. We have just one flat value there and this really shows how most of that illusion of form comes from that careful rendering within the lights and the clear separation between light and shadow. Some artists choose to leave their shadows very simple. It's a stylistic choice. But we don't have to stop here. So, let's deepen the occlusion shadow. So, this is typically the darkest shadow and it occurs where very little or no direct light or reflected light can reach. Occlusion shadows within the cast shadow ground the object even more to the surface. And it adds to the sense of space. As this cast shadow extends outward, it gradually lightens as that occlusion fades off. This area is exposed to the environment and so, more reflected light reaches it. A common misconception is that the occlusion shadows only appear within the cast shadow, like directly under an object. But really, occlusion shadows occur anywhere that two surfaces are close enough to block out reflected light. You can see occlusion shadows within cast shadows, form shadows or even within areas where there would be direct light if the objects weren't touching. Think of how skin folds are tightly pressed together or a nostril is deep like a cave. A great example is your fingers. When you bring your fingers together, you'll see a dark line between them. The fingers are so close together that they block direct light and reflected light from entering that tiny gap. So, no matter what the lighting conditions are in your room right now, you'll see shadow in that deep crevice between your fingers. Try it. Fade the penumbra. So, this ellipse is the cast shadow. But what the heck is this thing? That's the penumbra. It's technically part of the cast shadow but it's more of a transition out of the cast shadow. Think of it like this, the darkest part of the cast shadow called the umbra is where the ball is completely blocking the light source. If you were an ant standing in the umbra, you wouldn't be able to see the light source at all. But if you back up a little and you're standing in that fuzzy penumbra area, you'd be able to see part of the light source peeking around the edge of the ball. Because some light is reaching this area but not all of it, it creates this transitional zone, a gradient from that light umbra out to that fully lit surface. This happens because most light sources aren't tiny points, they have some size. Even the sun, even though it's really far away, it has a visible size. The different points on the light source can illuminate slightly different parts around the object. So, when you're drawing that cast shadow, don't just give it a hard outline unless the situation calls for it. Pay attention to that soft edge. Let's make the final adjustments. Before I call this done, I like to step back and review everything making sure all the parts are working together correctly. Again, it's really about the relationships between all the values, not any individual spot. I'll adjust things here and there until I'm happy. If you want to participate in the Proko community and get feedback and get access to all the lessons from this course, check out proko.com slash drawing. The premium section has exercises and projects to help you practice and I'll do a bunch of demonstrations and critique videos to guide you along the way.