Shading and Highlights to Improve Your Manga Drawings.

By Rick Feathers

One of the things that bring three dimensional depth and life to a manga drawing is good shading and the placements of highlights. Proper shadows and lighting will also define how realistic a character looks.

Here is a simple exercise to help you control different shading looks. Take a sheet of paper and draw a one by eight inch rectangle then divide it into eight one inch squares. The first square stays white and the last one is solid black. The remaining six squares will become your different shades of grey.

How you begin at this point is up to you because you will go back and forth to correct the various shades. I usually start near the white by putting a light shade and work my way making each one darker.

Now let us apply this shading to something simple. Take a ball for example, however you look at it the ball is a circle when drawn on paper. The circle is just a geometric shape until you begin shading where the dark spots are and highlighting where the light source hits it. The ball even cast an elliptical shadow from the surface it sits on.

A fact of shading is that shadows will always be opposite the light source.

Here is a tip I recommend that will help with observation of shadows and how they show up well. On a bright sunny day go outside with a camera and take pictures of items casting a shadow. Get one of your friends or family member to help by taking pictures of a person face and other body shots from different angle the light shine. Then take the pictures and download them to your computer and print them out in grey scales.

Observation and studying of shadows on people is the key element to good shading for your manga sketches.

Here is another experiment you can do, preferably at night or an isolated room that is away from outside light. Take a bright flashlight and set objects on your bed or table then turn out the lights and shine the flashlight on the objects. Move the flashlight around to different positions and watch as the shadows move and change.

Make mental notes for you to sketch later or draw while you are doing the experiment. You will be amazed at the new ideas and inspiration that will come to your creative mind but most of all knowing how to bring life to your manga drawings by the art of shading.