What is Cell Shading?

Cell Shading is a common style used in Japanese and American cartoons. Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop, just about every Japanese cartoon uses this method. I believe that is is called Cell Shading because they used to hand paint acetate cells to create animation before they all switched over to digital. There is no easy way to hand paint thousands of cells any other way and have it retain it’s clean look. Cell Shading is done by applying a solid color that is darker than the flat color over the flat. This is one method to achieve that look.

A Word About Selecting Colors

If you are just starting out, you may have difficulty picking a good color to shade with. My advice would be to examine art that you like, and see how they made it look that way. If you can’t visualize it in your head, download the image and use the Eyedropper (I) to select the colors. Look at it in the Color Picker. Note the difference in the shade. Slowly you will get an idea of what shows up well and what does not work. Cartoons aren’t real, but there are rules there just like in life drawing.

If you are still stuck, feel free to post in the forums and one of us will be glad to help you.

OK, Let’s Start!

This tutorial assumes you have a drawing with flat colors already applied and have your layers set up similarly to the picture below. Alternatively you could have applied your colors onto a different layer for each color. (I do this for complicated drawings.) If you don’t understand the picture below, please review the previous tutorials.

1. Click on your topmost flat colors layer and create a new layer Ctrl-shift-N (shift command N on the Mac). This new layer will be created above your colors. If it is not above your colors, you can drag it there.

2. Label your new layer “shading”. Now if you color with your flat color on this layer, it will not destroy your colors below.

3. Shading is a pain in the ass if it goes out of the lines. To avoid hours of clean up later on, click on the layer with your flats and select the color you want to shade via the Magic Wand (W). To add to your selection, just hold down the shift key while you click.

You can also Ctrl-click (Command-click on the Mac) on the layer the flats are on and all of the contents of that layer will be selected.

After you select your flats, be sure that you select your shading layer again before you color.

If the “Marching Ants” from the selection bothers you, toggle it on or off with Ctrl-H (Command-H on the Mac).

4. Now that your flats are selected and you are on the multiply layer above, you can start shading and color will only be inside the lines. You can shade by hand with the Paintbrush (B), make selections with the Lasso (L) or with the Pen Tool (P) as shown below.

I can shade by hand with a mouse, but I personally would not prefer to do it without my Wacom Intuos Tablet. If you don’t have a tablet, the dreaded Pen Tool may be an alternative for you. I use this method often even though I have a tablet since it is super clean and I am a neat freak.

Shading with the Pen Tool: AKA How to Shade Without a Tablet

5. Click on the foreground color swatch in the toolbar on your left. The Color Picker will pop up. Select a color slightly darker than your flat as shown.

5. Select the Pen Tool (P). Zoom in and make a closed path around where you want to shade. In this case it is under the hair. Right-click (Ctrl-click on the Mac) and select Fill Path, then Right-click (Ctrl-click) and select “delete path”. If you need more help with the Pen Tool, be sure that you’ve read this tutorial.

Continue to make selections and shade in this manner. If you don’t like the color right now you can always adjust it layer via Image > Adjust > Hue/Saturation or by sliding the opacity slider in the upper right area of the layers pallette.

Below is the basic dark shading. These are the lowlights.

I made a new layer, changed the flat color of the eyes. I then brushed over the bottom of the eye with a lighter color, and the top with a darker one. I used the Paintbrush (B) on 20% opacity. Then on a layer above all of my layers, I used a small hard-edged brush to make on dot of white. I selected a smaller brush diameter, raised the opacity to almost 100% and put a defined white dot in the center of that.

I adjusted the saturation on a few flats via the image > adjust > hue/saturation command Then I went about shading the dress with the Pen Tool. I just redrew the horns on a layer on top of everything because I hated the ones that I drew before. I shaded them with the Pen Tool (P) like before.

I will probably work on her a bit more before I consider her done - perhaps add some white highlights. However for the purposes of this tutorial, thats all there is to it.

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