shading tutorial guide thing idk

this isn't really a tutorial someone just wanted to know how I do things so here it is

here's how I do shading. it's super simple

look a thing to shade

then I picked a color slightly bluer and darker and put a new layer on multiply, blocking in the shading. obv it's more complex with other things but basic idea. if you don't know where to put shadows look it up there are a billion tutorials. or just look at something with light shining on it

then I do one of two things, depending on what I feel like doing
a) I blur it
this is easiest but it can look weird and textureless

b) I erase it.
I lightly erase at the edges, which isn't as blended and thus looks rougher, which can be good. that's what I used for my pose sets. I don't really know how to show this properly so no image. just try fiddling around, which is something I suggest in general

then highlights, which is basically light color + blur like the shading
but THEN is the most important thing I want to say, which is bounce lighting. it's not something I see mentioned in a ton of tutorials but it really helped me
basically light reflects off other things and onto the side with shadows. go do some googling and pay attention to the pictures or just mess around in real life. light will bounce off tables and things and onto the bottoms of what's on the table. this'll vary depending on the thing it's reflected off of/on to, the type of light, the closeness of the light, etc. but for basic stuff I just add some light to the shadowy side and blur. don't put light all around the edges though unless it's back lighting, it just looks weird.


sometimes I don't even blend I just draw or erase with marker, but experiment to see what's best. anyway definitely try reflective light everything just seems like it has so much more depth


for fur I always have the basic thing lined and colored already 
so get your thing you want furry on the screen


then draw some general fur shapes on a new layer on multiply. I use the marker tool. it's a good idea to look up references to see which directions the fur goes. like on dog faces they're all over the place. try to vary the fur shapes so each layer doesn't look the same

I then make another multiply layer and make the marker larger and paint in the top and bottom of each shape. it's okay if it's a bit rough it adds texture or something maybe.

feel free to fiddle with what colors you use. it's more dynamic to use different ones. that's why it's good to keep them on seperate layers in case you to need to change opacity/lightness/color
anyway I make another layer but this time it's on overlay! and then I do the same thing I did in the last step but in the middle with white. again using other light colors makes it more dynamic

now I make the marker smaller again and do some tiny lines. these can be darker or lighter or both. w/e
this time I did both. it's also a good idea to consider messing with the darkness of the original blocking of the fur because it's often pretty dark and doesn't look very realistic

then I do the actual shading like above

then I invert the marker and erase lighter bits to make it look more coherent. ymmv with this

hightlights and bounce lighting

blob some random black and white on an overlay layer and blend

kablam. then add textures/gradients/whatever
you can also do the shading before you do the fur bit. I actually suggest doing that haha

anyway that's that. also props if you noticed I did these opposite of the order I put them here

EDIT: ALSO I reccomend puting white dots plain or on luminosity on animal noses, since they're usually wet. I just personally think it looks a lot nicer