So I offered to PeridotCipher to make a guide for shading things, and as I was making it, I realized that A) it was going to need to be a lot longer than the 20 pictures allowed per wattpad story chapter, and B) I was having a lot of fun making it. So, now, I present to you the first of potentially many of A Mouse's Guide to Arting, a guide to basic shading.
Anyway. Best to start simple, with, say, a light source (yellow sun-like circle) and a box (the box).
Now it would seem really simple, shading this: the stuff closer to the light source is lighter, and the stuff that's farther is darker, right?
Well. Yeah. But with more complex things where you've got stuff in front of things and a mess of objects casting shadows, it can get complicated. So we'll just start with this to make sure we know what we're doing- you have to lean arithmetic before you can learn algebra!
(... Ugh. Math. I hate doing math. Why does that have to be such a good metaphor? I don't want to do math.)
Anyway!
So, it helps if you think of your light source as being able to see. So, uh.
Meet Mr. Happy Sunshine Light Source. He's, uh. A light source. And. For the sake of this guide, he'll be looking at this box.
In fact, let's draw an arrow, to show Mr. Sunshine looking at the box.
This arrow represents Mr. Sunshine's line of sight. He can see the box. Now, what does this have to do with shading? Well, everything Mr. Sunshine can see is in the light. The more easily Mr. Sunshine can see it, the more directly it is in the light. So, because Mr. Sunshine is above the box,
the top of the box is most directly in the light. So it's gonna be the lightest side.
What about the other sides, though?
Well, Mr. Sunshine is above the box, but he's also kinda to the side. So that means he can see the side, but maybe not as well as the top. So, it's not going to be quite as bright as the top.
Now what about the front, the side facing us? How do we shade that?
Well, let's look at it from above, to get a good idea of Mr. Sunshine's line of sight. This is Mr. Sunshine, looking at the box.
Now, though, Mr. Sunshine's vision isn't just straight forward. Just like you, Mr. Sunshine's vision is kinda spread out, and he has peripheral vision. So he can see to this side,
And to this side.
So it would seem as though Mr. Sunshine can see to the side of the box, but can't actually see the sides of the box itself. And, here's the one place where the line-of-sight thing gets just a little iffy- light kinda spreads out. It acts like a wave. So even after going around the side of the box, Mr. Sunshine's vision still spreads out to touch the sides of the box. Here's the thing, though, and we can still think of this with the line-of-sight analogy, the sides of the box are a lot harder to see. The light is a lot dimmer. So you can think of it kinda like this, with the darkness of the arrows representing the light strength.
So that means that there's still light hitting the sides of the box, but not as much, because it's not as much in Mr. Sunshine's line of sight.
So that side's going to be a lot darker.
So, now, what about the back? Well, in sticking with the line of sight analogy, it'll be a lot darker than all the rest. But what about where the shadow is cast?
Looking back to our bird's eye view sketch, we can see,
Mr. Sunshine cannot see the back of the box. Here's his line of sight going straight over it.
So, since he can't see the ground directly behind the box, that would be dark, too.
And though it may look like the air behind the box isn't shaded, that's only because we can't see air. Trust me, it's pretty dark back there. In fact, to prove it, let's just put another little box back there, in the air.
So here's the little box. And can Mr. Sunshine see it?
No.
So, it too, has to be shaded.
Now, if you're a clever person, which I'm sure you are, you'll have noticed something. The far left side of the big box is pretty lightly shaded. So why is the left side of the little box so much darker?
Well, here's that moment again about light spreading out, and how Mr. Sunshine's line of sight is... weird, sometimes.
See, after the edge of the big box, the light spreads out, just dimmer.
See how it hits the top, first?
And then it spreads out a bit more...
And it's really dim when it gets to that side of the box. So, that side is darker.
So there you go! A basic guide to shading! Now, mind you, this is some really basic stuff.
And, I had fun making it.
So you can expect more of this to come eventually!
So, then...
I guess I'll see you next time with A Mouse's Guide to Arting!