All language subtitles for 010 Highlights Shadows In Character Design.en

All right.

In this lecture we're going to be talking about highlights and shadows and how they apply to character

design.

So this is just going to be a quick overview of highlights and shadows.

But later in the course we're gonna get more in depth with this.

So don't worry if you don't feel like this is enough information for you.

We're gonna learn a lot more about this.

But for now let's just focus on the basics.

So when it comes to the basics it's basically just adding highlights and shadows to basic geometric

forms so like in the last lecture where we learn about forms and the simple geometric forms that you'll

find in character design we want to learn how to shade those basically.

So let's go ahead and let's learn about the different types of highlights and shadows.

So we're going to draw a simple cube.

So I'm just gonna draw a line straight up like this.

Never do a diagonal line like that.

And another one that follows the same angle.

And then I'll connect those with a straight up and down line.

We'll do two more diagonal lines like this going off at that angle connect those with a vertical line

and then we want to do another diagonal line like this for that back edge and then do another diagonal

angle for this back edge you're going at the other angle.

Just like that just draw a simple cube.

Now let's go ahead and let's start shading this in.

So the first thing we need to do is we need to figure out where light sources.

So we always want to mark our light source or at least know in our head where the light source is coming

from.

In this case we want to see the all the shadows.

So I want to make sure that the light source coming from above and from behind.

So it's going to kind of be coming at this angle now it's a good idea to draw your light sources as

cones rather than just 2D Arrow because when you have a cone this kind of tells you more information

it tells you that it's kind of coming from behind and also from above.

So drawing that as a cone is really important.

So now that we know that then we can imagine that this light source is coming down and it's hitting

this top surface and that top surface is going to stay nice and bright because that's where the light

source is directly hitting it.

Now on the opposite side of the light source which would be this side over here that's where we're gonna

get something that's called the core shadow.

So let's go ahead and shoot this in a nice and dark.

All right great.

So there we go.

This side is the darkest side and it's on the opposite side of our light source.

And this side is gonna be called the core shadow

now like I said you're always going to know which side is the core shadow because it's gonna be on the

opposite side of your light source so if you're drawing a character in the light sources on this side

then that means the core shadow the darkest shadows are going to be on the opposite side of that light

source.

Next we're going to get what's called the Midtown shadow.

So over here on this side I'm going to go ahead and shade this in

slightly

just like that.

And that is the midterm

the Midtown shadow tends to be on the side of the light source of the light sources directly hitting

this top surface.

And if you could see the other side of this cube it'd be hitting this back surface behind as well.

So off to the side of it we get this in Midtown shadow.

Now it's in shadow because it's not directly being hit by the light but there's bounce light all over

the environment on the ground and everywhere that's bouncing back at the shadow and making it a little

bit brighter than our core shadow.

So Midtown shadows tend to be on the side.

So an example of this would be if you're looking straight onto somebodies nose the middle of their nose

might have a highlight and then the sides of their nose might have a midtown shadow in the core shadow

wouldn't really appear except for underneath the nose.

We'll get to this in a little bit.

So let's go ahead and let's label this as well.

This is the highlight

all right.

And then lastly we get what's called the cast shadow.

So a sensor light source coming from this side the cast shadow is gonna be cast on the opposite side.

So just like a core shadow it's gonna be on that opposite side.

Now the cast shadow comes off of the Midtown shadow in the core shadow but the cast shadow never comes

off of the side with the highlight.

So if these sides for example were highlighted because the light source is coming from the other side

we would not put the shadow on this side.

It would get flipped.

So it is going off to that backside where our core shadow and Midtown shadow would be.

So I always remember that your cash shadow comes from the side with all the shadows on the surfaces

and it usually comes off and in a shape that's very similar to the one that's casting a shadow.

So in this example it would be the cubes or just have these straight lines coming off these corner edges

and cast shadows tend to be very dark just like the Corchado Another thing is that as cash shadows start

to get a little bit further away from their object they start to fade out and get soft and fuzzy.

So we can go ahead and kind of shake that out in that way

just like that.

So there we go.

Now we have our cash shadow now the last thing I want to talk about is something called ambient occlusion.

So you're almost always going to have Ambien inclusion and what this is is it's one there is a dark

crevice or crack or something like that where no light can really get into it.

And so it's very very dark.

So an example of this would be right underneath the cube right here.

We get a really dark line because we would get that little crack between the surface that the cube is

sitting on and the cube itself.

Now on a second we're gonna look at some more examples of highlights and shadows and you'll see even

more areas where ambient occlusion happens so that's ambient occlusion right there in that little crack.

All right let's go ahead and move on to another form.

So a cube is a pretty simple form and you will want to know how to highlight and shadow a cube because

a lot of the body forms are made up of cubes or cube like shapes but another shape that we get pretty

often is kind of the raindrop shape or the egg shape.

So heads tend to be shaped kind of like a raindrop and obviously they're much more complicated than

that.

And so what we want to do is you want understand how to shade in that basic form because that from there

we can go ahead and add in more form on top of that and more highlights and shadows to make it look

more like a character.

But for now let's just learn how to shade that.

So all we're gonna do is we're just going to draw a circle like this remember to draw from your shoulder

that way you get that nice around shape and then what we're gonna do is we're gonna have occurred line

come off like this and another curved line come off like that.

So we want to go ahead and apply what we learned over here from the cube.

So we want to start with a highlight in a midtown.

So let's decide where our light source is gonna be coming from.

I'm gonna have my light source coming from basically kind of directly in front of it.

So if that was the center line of our character's face right there this light is going to be hitting

directly on that line.

So we're going to see a little bit of this side of the cone.

That.

So this top surface up here in front area is gonna be getting hit with the most light.

So what we can do is we can lightly start shooting in our core shadow

and shading has a lot to do with layering in.

So make sure that you don't just go in with your dark darkest value and just start shooting and you

can just start layering it and slowly until you get it to the value that you want it to be.

And we want to have a nice blend between our highlight and our midtown shadow

all right.

Perfect.

I'm gonna go ahead and darken the outline of this form really quick just so we can get a better contouring

line around a better profile.

All right great.

Next let's go ahead and add our core shadow.

Now if you've ever shaded in a sphere this is gonna be very similar.

So on a sphere we don't just get a flat surface like we do on a cube for the course shadow we actually

kind of get a rounded shape.

So what that makes is it kind of makes the core shadow come around like this is going to come right

here to the point.

So on a sphere it might curve around up into here but on this H shape it's a raindrop shape.

It's actually gonna come right down here into this point.

Now you might be wondering why I'm leaving this area right here lighter.

And that's because when we get round objects we tend to see what's called bounce light a little bit

more.

So I'll go ahead and label that

slight

so bounce light happens when objects in the environment are reflective and they bounce some light off

and it bounces back onto the surface of our object.

So in this case there might be a surface right here that the head is sitting on or it might be a wall

that's right next to it whatever it is something is bouncing that light back onto here.

And so the core shadow actually doesn't wrap all the way around here.

You could if you wanted to if you wanted to leave out the bounce light but for now let's go ahead and

put that bounce light in there.

So we've gotten dark into my core shadow

and then I want to start blending that in

to my midterm shadows now bounce light shadow areas they tend to be a little bit darker than our midtown.

So we go ahead and darken that in just a slight bit like that.

All right perfect.

So as you can see if this was ahead where the center of the face right here we can mark out the eye

line somewhere right about here and then from there we could start building the head off.

Now let's say that this person had a neck.

So let's go ahead.

Let's just draw a cylinder here like that for the neck coming right off and now we can introduce a cash

out.

Because over here it's just sitting on a flat surface.

But in this case the head isn't sitting on the surface sitting on a neck.

And so since the light source coming from this direction the cash that I was gonna be going off in that

direction.

So what we want to do is we want to just basically take this jaw line and kind of stretch it out across

the neck like that and we're gonna make that our cash shadow so we can go ahead and darken that in just

like so.

And since the.

The jaw line is so close to the neck we're actually gonna get kind of a hard edge on our cash shadow.

So it's not going to soften out like it is right there on our cube.

We want to actually keep that in Nice and hard edge.

We can soften it up just a little bit

go ahead and darken it in my bones like just a little bit.

So I think it's looking a little bit too light

right.

Perfect.

Next.

Let's go ahead and move on to something that's called Rim light.

Now I'm going to introduce you to rim light.

We'll talk about this more later.

But the reason why I want to introduce you to this type of highlight and shadow is because it's a really

good way to dramatic size.

Your character designs so especially if you're doing more realistic characters but even more animation

style or manga styled characters you can still use this but rim light just makes your lighting look

that much more intense.

So let's go ahead and let's do lighting on a comb because we haven't done that yet.

Somebody go ahead and draw comb right here.

Just like that

now with RIM lighting.

What causes room lighting is when there's a really bright light behind your object or subject.

So in this example the cone that we have for our directional light would actually be right behind it.

So it looks kind of like a circle like that.

And that's the middle point of it.

So it's almost like as if we're looking straight down on this cone that I just drew here.

That's where the light is it's right behind it just straight back at it.

And what this is going to cause is going to have cause a little rim of light around the edge of our

object.

Now we're going to assume that our object is sitting on some sort of surface.

I can just go ahead draw surface look like that and now let's go ahead and get started.

So we want to make sure that we have a mid tone shadow in there.

So I want to go ahead and start shooting in my Mentone shadow.

But what I want to do is I want to make sure that these outside edges stay nice and bright and white

I'm gonna go ahead and grab an eraser

and I'm just gonna race out some of these lines that I draw in there just to make sure that we get a

nice bright white area in there.

Continue to shade that in now

now because the rim light we kind of want a hard edge on it.

We don't want it a super hard edge but we want a harder edge than we might get on kind of a softer shadow

so to bring this shadow right up to that edge just leaving kind of a white strip of light around the

edge

like that it's another we have a midtown shadow and there we can go ahead and add in our Corchado.

So I'm going to go ahead and just add it like this.

No because this is a cone.

We want it to start dinner up here at the top.

All of our shadows sort of then are here and get wider out towards the bottom

something like that.

And then we can go ahead and just certain blending that out

I'm going to go ahead and darken the center of this core shadow a little bit more by pushing harder.

All right great.

Let's go ahead and add a dark outline at the very bottom of this.

For ambient occlusion if you remember ambient occlusion is that dark line at the bottom.

Because of that crack between our object and the surface it's sitting on just like that we can go ahead

and outline our cone a little bit more maybe we'll make this edge a little bit harder just like that

and then we can go ahead and add a cash shadow so that a cash flow is coming off like this because the

light source is coming from over there cash it might be a little bit longer than that.

And she that you know let that fade off the further way it gets from the cone.

All right great.

So we have our core shadow her midtown shadow our cash at our inner ambient occlusion our light source

is behind our object and that's what's causing this rim light.

This light right on the edge.

Now this would apply if you're drawing a person head for example you'd have that room light right around

the edge of their head.

So the room like basically just follows the profile of the person or the form that you're drawing to

make room light stand out even more you could go ahead and shade in the background.

So it's not just a white line on a white background that'll make it stand out a lot more as you can

see because it's creating contrast

but yeah.

So we'll talk more about this later in the course make sure that you're drawing along with me because

I want you to start getting these ideas in your head and remembering them and understanding them so

make sure that you're drawing all of these along with me if you're not.

All right.

Lastly let's go ahead and let's look at something a little bit more organic and talk about how the highlights

and shadows apply to it.

So let's say we're drawing a nose for a character.

So even though this is more of an animation style the character's nose is going to drawn over like that

and then I'll draw the edge of an obstacle like that nostril hole like this.

Middle part of nose

just kind of draw a little button nose like that and then I can draw the other nostril hole over here.

Right.

Perfect.

So let's go ahead and figure out where our highlight is coming from.

So let's say that are our lights or something.

So let's say the light source coming from above and kind of firm in front of it just a little bit just

kind of hitting this area as the main part.

So next what we're gonna do is we want to add our midtown shadows so the laser is coming from the front

like that.

So we're gonna get a little bit of Midtown shadow on the side of the nose and we're gonna get it a little

bit of a midtown shadow on this underside of the nose like that.

Great.

Next let's go ahead.

Let's add in our core shadows or core shadow is gonna be coming down underneath here.

Can you get a little bit of a bounce light so we're gonna kind of leave those edges alone a little bit.

We're gonna get ambient occlusion going on in the nostril hole

we're also gonna get a little bit of ambient occlusion right there in the crease of the side of the

nostril

and then lastly let's go ahead Anatomy cast shadows since the light source coming from the front and

above the cash I was gonna be on the underside of the nose so moving in that direction is basically

going to kind of mimic the shape of the nose just like that.

I mean a reset air.

So let's go ahead and add in that cache shadow

kind of let that fade off the further down and gets

all right.

Great.

So there we go.

There's a character's nose that we might draw on a character design.

And as you can see we applied to everything that applies to a cube just like it applies on this nose

form.

We have our midtown.

So the sight of the nose right here and some of this area right here which then blends into our core

shadow which is kind of right in this area but we've got a little bit of bounce light on here and so

you can see that there's kind of a little bit of a lighter area around this bottom part of the nose.

And then we get some ambient occlusion going on in the nostril holes as well as right here on the edge

crease of the nostril and then we also get a cast shadow right down here.

So really quick let's just do a quick review of everything you need when you're doing highlights and

shadows.

So first you need a light source.

Once you know where your light source is you can tell where your core shadow is gonna be which is on

the opposite side of the light source you know where you're Midtown shadow is gonna be which is on the

sides of your light source.

You know your highlight is going to be which is directly on the side that your light source is hitting

and you know your your cache shadow is gonna be which is on the opposite side of your light source.

We also get ambient occlusion in any dark creases or crevices because no light can reach in there so

it's going to be the darkest part of your image.

Thanks for watching this lecture and I'll see you guys in the next one.