Preview class

Maria Malandrino introduces herself and her new tutorial on shading and lighting, a drawing stage that can have a huge impact on the viewer’s perception of an artwork!

After reviewing some theories behind shading and lighting, Maria will show you how an artwork can be affected and improved by good lighting. She will also teach you how to use layers and blending settings in Procreate to achieve the results you expect.

In this tutorial Maria will use Procreate app on iPad Pro, but the basic principles of the course hold good for any other tablet and drawing software.

Preview class

Before getting started you first need to set up your canvas in Procreate.

In this lesson Maria will show you how to create the type of canvas that best suits your needs in terms of shape, size and DPI (to ensure your image prints sharp and crisp).

Then, you will be able to import  a flat colour image into your canvas or use the available psd file. You can also sketch something out on the canvas right before getting started.

   1 practice character PSD with sample lighting layers.

Preview class

Before practicing with shading and lighting it’s better to review some basic rules on how a shadow is formed. In this lesson Maria illustrates two main types of shadows, the cast shadows and the form shadows. She also provides some examples of how they appear and differ, depending on the source of light that generates them.

Preview class

Here Maria will pick one of her own artworks as reference image to demonstrate the cast and form shadows.

She will guide you through the steps of duplicating layers, creating a clipping mask and using blending modes in Procreate. She will also show you how a little bit of planning can help you stay on track throughout the entire creative process.

By watching this tutorial you will learn how to draw different types of shadows on a character’s body, to select the best tones and brushes, to modulate the opacity and change the shading settings according to the light source and the time of day.

Preview class

In this lesson you will learn how to make the most out of a character in a scene using a common photographic setup called 2-point lighting. You will get familiar with lighting principles and  concepts such as the key light, the fill light and the rim light (3-point lighting), and will see how they are used in some practical examples.

Preview class

Now it’s time to watch Maria’s demo and practise with the 2-point and 3-point lighting setups.

In this tutorial Maria will show you how to use layers and blending settings (Overlay) in Procreate to draw the light on the areas that are reached and variously affected by it.

You will learn how to use complementary colours, adjust opacity, erase and refine some areas of your artwork to achieve the desired effect.

Preview class

In this tutorial Maria is going to use a close-up of the character she created in her course “How to Draw a Cartoon Character” to practice some examples of dramatic lighting, i.e. a type of lighting that adds to the visual interest of a portrait or an artwork. 

Using layers, blend mode types and adjustment tools in Procreate, Maria will demonstrate special lighting setups that make a character pop out or draw attention to a detail, such as light coming from the side or from below and obstruction.

   7 dramatic light example pictures (JPG) included

Preview class

In this final lesson you can see how Maria creates and uses gradients to alter the perception of the time of day, to set the desired mood and atmosphere of the scene and to add more colour variation to a character.