Red's Shading Types Tutorial

Back by popular demand! My first tutorial got a lot of great feedback so I decided to make another one ^^

This is for the use of anyone who wants to give these styles a whirl, so use away! Although, I'd love to see what you make with these instructions, so please send me a link to your finished piece so I can favorite them!

BASIC CELL SHADING
To get this effect, first block in all of your base colors under your lineart. Make a new layer above your base coat layer, but under your lineart layer, and set it to "multiply". If you want a shadowy effect, choose a color that is darker than your darkest base coat color, and if you want a glow, choose a color that is lighter. Have fun with it!

SOFT CELL SHADING
Now, there are multiple ways to block in your shading. You can fill the entire shadow layer in with your shadow color and use the lasso tool to cut and drag away your lighter areas, but that will give you a result as seen in the "basic cell shading" picture. For the softer cell shading effect, use the lasso (or quick selection) tool (either work just fine) and rope off the area you want to receive gradients. Next, set your brush to a softer point (you might wanna take the hardness down to at least 50%), and stroke in your shadows.

GRAIDENT SHADING
This technique builds off the "basic cell shading" picture. So building off of that, go select your shadows layer and make a new layer on top of that, then use a clipping mask to clip the new layer to the shadows. Using the gradient tool, drag your gradients from dark to light (depending on the location of your light source) and use the opacity tool to adjust darkness. Now, go into your shadows layer and turn the opacity down by 50% (or whatever you desire). This will lighten some areas, while the gradients keep it dark. Finally, make a new layer above your base colors and use a clipping mask to clip the new layer on. Use the gradient tool using a lighter color to drag your gradients in the opposite direction of the gradients in the clipped shadow layer. Use the opacities to pull the piece together.

Alrighty! I hope that makes sense!

Oh and one more thing! This is my new OC, Red! I adopted him from and I believe she is still selling adopts, so give a click here if you're interested [link]
Heheehe, I took the red one<3 I mean, of course I did XD

Enjoy! And good luck!

For a more extensive tutorial on cell shading, you can try this ----->