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Basic Cell Shade Tutorial

Cell sha­ding is the pro­cess of making computer-drawn ima­ges appear hand-drawn. The tech­ni­que, also known as toon sha­ding, is widely used in modern ani­ma­tions. This tuto­rial will use basic con­cepts  found in Adobe Pho­toshop 7.  This will give you the basic steps to color an exis­ting lineart  with skin tone, skin sha­dow and hair color.

Pre­pare Layers

Create a layer for your lineart dra­wing.  This will then become the back­ground layer. Dupli­cate this back­ground layer.  Rename the layer in the layer pro­per­ties.  Rename dupli­cate as lineart.  Then delete the ori­gi­nal back­ground layer. Now add 4 new layers.  Now drag the lineart layer to the top of the added layers. Now with the “Layers” tab selec­ted, change the mode of the lineart layer to “Multiply.”

Name Layers

Rename the new layer (Layer 1) to back­ground. Then fill the back­ground layer with white. Rename the next layer to skin. This layer is above the pre­vious back­ground layer.  Select another new layer and rename it to hair.    Now rename the next layer to “skin sha­dow.”  Now you have five layers as follows: Back­gound, skin, hair, skin sha­dow and lineart.

Layer Style

Inside of “Layer Style” there are “Blen­ding Options.” We will only address the “Gene­ral Blen­ding” option. Use the drop down to select the Blend Mode  “Mul­tiply.” You’ve already done this in the lineart layer. There is more than one way to access the “Blend Mode” option. You will use “Mul­tiply” on the lineart and skin sha­dow layers. The other layers will use the mode of “Normal.”

Colo­ring

Now start colo­ring by selec­ting one of the Lasso tools to out­line your skin sec­tions. Once it is out­li­ned, then fill with your choice of color for the skin.  Use the paint buc­ket to fill in the color. Use the era­ser to touch up the over­lap­ping areas. Repeat the same pro­cess for the skin layer.

Sha­dows

Select the “skin sha­dow” layer and then select a color from the palette. To get a good color for sha­dows start by selec­ting a color ligh­ter than your base color.  Now choose a brush size for the sha­dow area and color it. The resul­ting sha­dow effect wll be a dar­ker color than your base.  Another way to get a sha­dow effect is by adding a second skin layer.  This second layer would be a little dar­ker and pla­ced above the ori­gi­nal skin layer. Con­trasts  will result from slight adjust­ments to the opa­city slider.

Sum­ma­rize

Star­ting with lineart, you added back­ground, skin, hair and skin sha­dow layers. These added layers are under­neath the lineart layer. You optio­ned  the skin sha­dow and lineart layers with the Blend Mode of “Mul­tiply.” You mar­ked off your skin and hair sec­tions with a Lasso tool and then colo­red it with the paint buc­ket. You then made sha­dows on the skin sha­dow layer. Your lineart now has colo­red hair and skin with sha­dows. This is only a star­ting point for cell sha­ding and there is still more to learn.