Shading the body

Introduction:

Before you can start on this part of the tutorial, you'll need a finished base outline. Also, you need to know something about how light works. So if you haven't already, please read the chapter on Lighting Theory. There will be no skipping the boring parts! ^_~

Step 1:

I'm going to use an eight color palette to shade the base. The first color on the palette is the outline color, and the fifth color is the fill color.

You can use my palette if you want, or you can pick your own eight colors.

Step 2:

First off, decide where your light source will be. After that, pick the third color from the palette to start putting in the shadows.

For now, we're going to pretend that this is the ONLY color we are going to use to shade the base. We'll try to make the shading look as good as possible with only this color. To make it work, we'll have to do more than a one pixel thick line of shading. Also, we'll need to make the blocks of shading as flowy and nicely shaped as possible.

Step 3:

This is what my base looks like after putting in all the shadows. I haven't touched the head yet, though. How to shade the head will be discussed in the next chapter, Making Faces.

Step 4:

Now pick the seventh color from the palette to put in the highlights, much in the same way as we did the shadows. Again, make the blocks of shading flowy and nicely shaped. This, more so than the amount of colors, is the key to smooth looking shading.

Step 5:

We've got all the important shading down. If your doll base is rather small, this maye be all you need, even. This base is a bit larger, so we'll have to smooth it more. Choose the fourth color from the palette to blend in the shadows.

Step 6:

We'll do the same for the highlights as we did for the shadows. Choose the sixth color from the palette and blend in all the highlights. If needed, make small corrections to the other shading colors as you go.

Step 7:

With the second color from the palette, add in some really dark shading. Then, blend in all the harsh outlines from the breasts, the collarbones etc.

Step 8:

Optionally, you can use the brightest color from the palette to add some extra shine. Use it sparingly, only on the parts that catch the most light. Here, I used it mostly on the top of the breasts, thighs and lower abdomen.

Step 9:

You can make some final tweaks if you want now... and you're all done! Time to move over to the next chapter to make the face!