Hi, I was wondering if anyone would mind giving some advice and tips on how to improve as a digital artist?

I would love to learn more about soft-shading/full-shading. If anyone knows and have used some good tutorials online, I would appreciate any links!

Here's my first attempt at soft-shading

Not sure, maybe this should be in the recruitment or something..

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uuh... get an account on Deviant art and study all the various kinds arts on their digital art section...
1. you will learn a lot just by studying various works by a variety of amateur to pro artists
2. You will find inspiration
3. You will actually find a loooot of detailed tutorials on their "resource" section submitted by the users..

And in case you are already part of Dev-art... i must let you know that i am thoroughly embarrassed :3
But still... go look through more artworks...

The only soft shading I'm seeing is the hair... which should probably be in overlay or another similar mode. The rest cannot be called soft shading. Cell shading I believe, and a bit of gradient. Then again, that's not my specialty, so I can't give much advice for it. Look on dA and other art sites, forums, or even Google will work just fine. Other than that, practice, practice, and better tablet/program. Nope, not three practices, the last one is just you need better equipment. Sure, one can draw with a mouse or even a damn trackpad for that sake, I've done it, but it's just not good enough. No miracle can make a good artist with a trackpad and MS Paint compare to a good artist with a Cintiq and SAI + Photoshop.

I'll suggest SAI, I personally haven't had much a chance to use it yet (being on a Mac most the times), but it has some useful tools. Watercolor blending and all that, IDK really, but it should be easier than Photoshop's blur tool.

Other than that, I can only say for colouring that it seriously needs some cleaning up. Masking helps a lot. Better lineart will probably help too, cleaner lines I mean.

Also, work on your anatomy. Chibi art still needs anatomy, your left and right arm don't match up in length. Face is way too squared, but if that's your style, I'll stay out of it. Eyes' too high, ears' too far apart, body slightly twisted, and I can't see how she's balancing. It shouldn't be physically possible to stand on the edge of your feet, with the other one lifted, and waving your hands, looking as if nothing happened.

Well, it's not bad, just a lot more work needs to be done. =)

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Since I'm not asking to join a group, I don't think it should.



Yes thanks, I've already tried Deviantart. But I'm overwhelmed by the mass amount of tutorials, which is why I'm asking if anyone here knows some good ones they have used they could recommend first.



To be honest, I only know what cell shading is. So I've always assumed everything that isn't cell-shading to be soft-shading haha OTL Yes, I have a tablet and am currently using a mix of Vector Magic + Photoshop. I'm still new to masking so I don't quite understand it yet. But thank you for the kind critique, I will do my best to keep it in mind next time (but the face shape is intentional )!

reanmeih's critique is pretty good, I suggest to follow what's been suggested to help improve.

As for shading, I would suggest you to try watercolor. WInsor&Newton is a good brand paint to work with because you won't end up fighting against it. If watercolor is very hard, try using color pencils instead. Read up deviantart (there's TONS of tutorial). The reason why I'm pulling you toward traditional is because it serves as a foundation and then from there, you can apply it when using different medium (photoshop, acrylic panting, etc). Even with color pencils, you'll learn how to shade in complimentary colors (which IMO looks more appealing).

But if you know how to shade already and just want to improve your digital skills, learn how to use opacity with the brushes. Maybe this link will help you? There's a lot more out there, but here's these 2 links to get started.

How to Blend Part I: http://hanatenshihimeko.deviantart.com/art/HowToBlend-PartI-16 7147187
How to Blend Part II: http://hanatenshihimeko.deviantart.com/art/HowToBlend-PartI-16 7147187

THAT, I can help with. Well, at least for Photoshop. First off, there's the clip masking, simply right-click on a layer, and toggle on the "Create Clipping Mask". It will clip the layer to the one below, basically making the bottom one a mask. Well, simply said, the clipped layer won't show in any parts where the mask is not showing. It's quite useful when colouring.

There's also the pain old layer masks. It's the rectangle button with a circle in it, right at the bottom where you create new layers. If you hover long enough, it should say "Add layer mask". What it does is, you paint a black & white layer, and anything that's painted black on the masking layer will not show. If you go to the Channels tab, you will see an "alpha 1" layer, that's the mask. Making it visible will show you your actual masking layer.

Also, a neat trick is that, while the alpha 1 layer is visible and selected, you can copy & paste, and do all the stuff you can with normal layers. It's nice because you can copy a normal layer, and paste it making it a mask. Just keep it mind that, only the black, #000, rgb(0, 0, 0), will be completely invisible, while white is completely visible. Anything in between will show as translucent depending on the shade of grey.

There's also all the RGB channel layers and all that... but that's for photo editing, and if you're making a mask out of a photo. I don't do it often and again that's not my specialty, so can't help with that area.

One thing you should note is that groups cannot be clipped to. You can however, make a group into a "Smart Object", by right clicking on it. What this does is link that group, to a new PSD. The contents are all the same, but you just need a new file window to edit it. Groups themselves, can be masked however. It's an useful alternative to clip layering, and it works when you need to clip a layer to another clip layered layer. Like clipping the highlights to the shadow, but you need both of them clipped to the flat colour right? Make that flat colour into the group mask, and clip the highlight to the shadow.

Hope I'm not too confusing, I'm not really sure with the actual terms.

As a side note, cell shading, or cel shading according to Wikipedia, is those anime-like shading with hard edges. Soft shading I believe is when one side is hard and the other is blended. Basically, taking cell shaded pic and splat water on it so it blends. Makes sense? XD As for painting, um... it's when, you make thing look like, they should be. Correct lighting, no stiff, visible lineart, and what you would see in a real-life oil painting. Again, don't trust my explanation, I'm probably not too accurate.

I'll come back with a few tutorials later. But generally, go search in the tuts section for "soft-shading", "hair-coloring", or similar terms. The first page is what you should be looking at. There's also a lot of good anatomy references on there, not to mention stock photos. I also forgot to mention that YouTube is a good place to learn as well. There's a lot of vids with ppl speed-painting, and just watching those in your spare time, you get a good image or what ppl usually do. Granted, those vids are usually sped up at about 10x... If you want critique though, you should try forums. I haven't been active on any for a long time, so I can't suggest anything other than Gaia, but well, they are there. You just need some recommendation from someone who knows their way around.

And thanks HanaTenshiHimeko XD. I'm not really confident but I do my best.

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Thank you for the suggestion, but I've been using pencil crayons as traditional mediums almost my entire life. I think if it isn't too much for me to say, have a pretty good grasp when looking at an object while drawing, compared to just drawing out of my imagination lol. I think I'm ready to try a new medium now; which is digital art.

But I really liked the blending guide, it was very easy and clear to follow. Thanks! I have a really bad habit of always colouring at 100% hardness, so I haven't really tried different opacity yet.



I see! Thank you for the in-depth explanation on masks! I think I have a pretty good idea how it works now in general (though I got a little confused in the 5th paragraph in regards to clipping).
And thanks, I think I understand a little better now in regards to soft-shading.
Personally, I don't often watch video tutorials often (they always make me think digital drawing can be done faster in contrast to reality ;; ). I don't play Gaia nor do have a account there, so I never considered asking there, but I'll take a look anyway.

The smart objects and groups? Well, it's basically, since you can't clip a layer to an already clipped layer, you need an alternative method to go about doing the exact same thing. My way, is to turn one clipped layer into a group and mask that group. That frees the slot and allows me to clip another layer to it. For example, you have an outfit with multiple layers, and you don't want the top layer to go out of bounds from the bottom layer. Problem is, those are both flat colours, and you need ANOTHER layer clipped to the top layer, and yet ANOTHER layer to clip to that shading, thus shading the shading. Well, it's just an alternative method you should keep in your mind in case you need it. You'll know when you need it. There's also the transparency lock... but that's not my preferred way of going about things, seeing as you're changing the original layer you can't go about changing that half-way if you change your mind.

In regards to the brush hardness you mentioned, I use 100% too. And I tend to over smudge it afterwards... Well, it's basically saying I'm better suited for painting than cell/soft shading. SAI is easier, but for Photoshop, use many, many layers. Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Luminosity, etc., those are your friends. There's also the layer styles, like for hair I like to draw a few strands and put a 1px drop shadow on them. Then I put on another layer, overlay or another, for the lighting. There's one thing I'd suggest though, NEVER use brush opacity, use layer opacity when you need to change things.

Gaia... well, they have a pretty good art community, and if you seek suggestions and critiques, they are quick in their replies. A more specialized forum may be better, it's just the ones I used years ago aren't active anymore, and they don't lean towards humans anyways. Games, they tend to have a larger user-base. And convenient to ppl already on it, like what you're doing now on Baka. This IS a manga site after all, not art lol. The difference between Gaia and dA is that you don't need to be well known to gather critiques and attention. It's the same for all forums really, if you're on the top you'll get noticed.

As for vids, well, I use them as entertainment lol. I'm bored, so what! Well, what they say? The more you see, the more you learn. Nothing beats seeing it firsthand.

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Ah, I understand now. Thank you!
Personally, I usually only use SAI for inking/vectoring and Photoshop for colouring.
I know, but since I'm always on MU, I couldn't resist asking here since there seems to be a number of artists here too. Yes, I know what you mean. Thank you for your reply again!

Never stop practicing.

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What Scyfon said. Practice and try different things that work for you. Experiment!

You also have to be willing to correct things that people say are wrong! I've done tons of drawings and when someone comments that something looks off or wrong I will erase and try to fix it regardless of how much I love how it looks already. Research! A lot of artists are afraid to erase something they're proud of, but that's not going to make you better in drawing if you're not willing to take risks or make changes that need to be changed.

Something I made in photoshop. It was originally an inked drawing I scanned in then I played around with it until I got something decent and nice looking. Animation was also done in photoshop

Drako Animation

Haha if anyone knows of a way to save the animation in a format that doesn't make it all pixelated I'm all ears. XD Especially the edges. There is no background to her.

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Tried APNG? GIF sucks, they make it all pixelly. APNG isn't really widely used, but they work the same way as PNGs, with support for opacity and all that.

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Thanks, I'll always keep that in mind.



Thank you, I'll remember that.

Oh thanks! Though it seems that it's only supported to certain browsers/ need to get the plugin. Hmmm pity. T_______T

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Owner of Antisense Scanslation.