#cg tutorial

Step 1: Have your almost-finished picture.

Practically finished, eh? It's fully colored and shaded. I'm not covering it in this tutorial, but I have other progress pics that show it.

Why did I include this step? Because the lighting effect this tutorial shows is NOT AT ALL a substitute for conscientious coloring. It's just icing on the cake: cakes are great with icing, you can't have icing without the cake and call it a finished dessert (unless you're pann-yu but her tastebuds are special). 

Step Two: Add the Multiply layer

Create a new layer above everything and FILL it in with the color of your choice. PLAY AROUND. This will change from picture to picture depending on the effect you want. In this situation, I wanted a dark, cool shadow, like the kind you get in an unlit room at night, so I went with a moderately-saturated dark blue. Pay attention to the hue and saturation!

Example: redder, sunset shadow, I used a light lilac shadow. 

Clear, blue light (underwater lighting), I used a light blue. 

Yeah, I think you get the idea. So experiment. 

This step establishes the overall color of the picture, especially its shadows. In this tutorial, it dramatically changes the picture and adds cohesiveness. You can stop here if you want!

Step Three: Erase away the part where the very bright light shows.

That's the gist of it, but here's how I do it. 1. Make a layer mask on the shadow layer and make the mask all white so the entire layer shows.

Use BLACK on the layer mask to draw in where the light shows (ie, you're "erasing" parts of the overall shadow). Remember that it's part of the picture, and work it around the objects and shapes it goes along.

Oops, that's just a very rough guideline. Then, go back and refine it. 

My finished layer mask looks like this:

The black parts are the parts I erased from the visible layer, using the layer mask. 

Or you know, you can just skip the entire layer mask thing and just directly erase the parts of shadow you don't want. That's fine too.

Finished product after refining the shape of the light: Yeah, it curves nicely over their forms. Remember to take into account the shadows the stuff in the picture will cast when you shine a light on it.

Step Three: Add vivid light to the shadow

Shadows aren't just monotone things. One single shadow will have different hues and aspects of it.

So create a new layer above everything and set the blending mode to Vivid Light.

Take a large-ish brush on 0% hardness and, on this layer, set 20% opacity, and fluff in the color along the edge of the shadow, leading inwards onto the body of the shadow itself and out of the light.

What color do you use? It really depends, I generally go with light red or light orange. 

I copy and pasted my vivid light layer onto a white background to show you what I did. 

Here is how it affects the piece:

The shadow has dimension now, it's not just a cut-out of light.