Why shadows aren't gray by ArtByRiana

Oh man my head hurts so bad.

But doing this tutorial makes me realize how little I still now about color and I probably made things wrong and those typos and askdkasd blah. But I hope this makes you think more about how color affects other colors in your works! And maybe not use gray to shade stuff. :U;;;

Ugh I need to lay down.

AND SORRY THE FILE SIZE IS HUUUGGEEE

Edit 8-17-12:::
HOLY MOLY where did you all come from? I just woke up with over 1K feedback messages and I'm used to seeing less than 10! Aaaa thanks so much! ;; I'm so happy so many people found it useful.

So I went in and fixed some typos, reworded some things, etc, so it's all nice. C':

ALSO for traditional artists, especially painters, the book I mentioned in the tutorial talks a lot about this stuff.

As for colored dry media: for colored pencils, I was taught in high school to use dark, cool colors along with the compliment color and dark brown as the base for shading. You'll need to experiment with this, since I haven't used it in a long time and I'm not sure how it'll turn out.

And the journey continues on!

Edit 8-21-12:::
I... got a Daily Deviation for this?! Wow!! I... I don't think I deserve it but I feel so honored! I feel bad because I wish I could've explained things better in this and cleared things up that were misunderstood... but I'm glad this helped people! That made making this tutorial worth while!

Thank you so much Tristaeza for the suggestion and Elandria for the feature!

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-08-22

[Stock & Resources] The suggester states "I've always had trouble figuring out how my shading is supposed to look and every tutorial I look at seems to just say the same thing. This tutorial, however, showed me not only how, but why the shading looks like it does. Why shadows aren't gray by *RianaLD is amazing!" ( Suggested by Tristaeza and Featured by Elandria )

Dusk-Kniade Featured By Owner May 3, 2018 Hobbyist General Artist

Thank you for making this! This explains a lot and I find it really useful ^^

aiiaka Featured By Owner Sep 9, 2017

wow! This is very interesting, thank you for this!^^

bizarreprunier Featured By Owner May 24, 2017 Professional Digital Artist

Wow this is amazing but I still dont get why warm light uses cool shadows and cool colors warm shadows? Nature is weird 😶

LilyFaeTitania Featured By Owner Apr 27, 2017 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Love this! I learned so much!!

Imdraproc Featured By Owner Dec 18, 2016

Interesting, pleasant, and informative! I've been trying to practice a bit in making shading, this is a great intro to it, thank you!

Badgerhead44 Featured By Owner Dec 9, 2016

Fascinating! Thank you for this, from an artist who has been using greys and blacks.

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Dec 11, 2016 Professional Digital Artist

no problem

Nocturnaliss Featured By Owner Sep 25, 2016 Writer

Oh my god such an amazing tutorial! The DD is more than deserved, this tutorial makes shading and the effect of colour and light so clear! Thank you for making this

it is an absolutely excellent tutorial.

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Sep 25, 2016 Professional Digital Artist

thank you!

Diemore Featured By Owner Sep 16, 2016 Student Digital Artist

I accidently read the title as ''Why shadows aren't gay''.

RainstormOfEquestria Featured By Owner Sep 6, 2016 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

nice

Freiha Featured By Owner Jul 7, 2016 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I've been searching for something like this for several months now! I never know what to enter into the search engine and today I stumbled over this accidentaly.
Thank you so so so much.

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Jul 7, 2016 Professional Digital Artist

I'm glad you found it! You're very welcome!

PEASGaming64 Featured By Owner Mar 3, 2016 Hobbyist Artist

So, so helpful.

tinystargazer Featured By Owner Feb 10, 2016 Student General Artist

This changed my perception about shadows. I haven't really thought about reflections and time of day 'cause i usually just choose a darker color for my shadows. The effect of those factors were hugeeeee

Thank you very much for sharing this wonderful piece of info! This will help me a lot in the future!

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Feb 11, 2016 Professional Digital Artist

I'm happy it was helpful!

Happy arting!

NocturnalRascal Featured By Owner Feb 8, 2016 Student Digital Artist

Hey I have a wood guy too! His name is Claude and he has one leg

phyrosite Featured By Owner Feb 8, 2016 Hobbyist

very thorough explanation, great job

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Feb 8, 2016 Professional Digital Artist

thanks!

AliaRohaluss Featured By Owner Feb 8, 2016 Hobbyist

I LOVE IT <3

DragoFielder Featured By Owner Feb 7, 2016 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Thanks for the tutorial!It's very helpful to me :3

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Feb 7, 2016 Professional Digital Artist

no problem

AdieBee Featured By Owner Feb 7, 2016 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you! This is so helpful!

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Feb 7, 2016 Professional Digital Artist

you're welcome!

CombotheBeehen Featured By Owner Feb 3, 2016 Hobbyist General Artist

That's perfect!

Tribersman-FR Featured By Owner Feb 1, 2016

Mind = Blown

HairyFood Featured By Owner Feb 1, 2016

awesome

DeathRoe Featured By Owner Jan 31, 2016 Hobbyist Writer

Great tutorial, but I read the title "why shadows aren't gay" x'D I'm dying rn

BDTite1919 Featured By Owner Jan 30, 2016 Hobbyist

BDTite GET it.

aumym Featured By Owner Jan 14, 2015 Student Digital Artist

nice!

Selkra Featured By Owner Nov 6, 2014

The amazingness of this tutorial is biblical.

arkrilik2000 Featured By Owner Aug 4, 2014 Hobbyist Digital Artist

slapped some sense into me, thanks a lot this is very useful

ApocalypticHunter Featured By Owner Jul 21, 2014 Student Digital Artist

Well this will help me a ton.

LimeGreenBunny Featured By Owner Feb 16, 2014 Hobbyist Digital Artist

This is great! I love how detailed it is.

shiori2525 Featured By Owner Dec 17, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I'm glad I found this tutorial since I have no idea what to do with the shading, shadow, and light relationship at all. Thanks a lot for doing this.

JustToMakeComment Featured By Owner Dec 15, 2013

Thank you for uncommon tips about shadows.That was really hepfull for me.I want to sure to get this things right so can you aswer a couple of questions?

1)Will outdoor shadow in autumn forest look like indor shadow in your example?

1)Will indoor shadow in room ligthed with luminescent lamps look like outdoor shadow in your example?

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Dec 15, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure about the first one. From the colors of this photograph, fav.me/d3gmik3, it would seem that the shadows are almost purple (red+blue sky = purplish shadows) and the highlights still seem orangy. I would go and expirience this on my own but I live in Los Angeles and autumn forests are difficult to find and study. This is something that's definitely on my to-do list!

As for the second question, no, I don't think so, unless the lamp happens to be as blue as the sky.

JustToMakeComment Featured By Owner Dec 16, 2013

Thank you for answer.

ubegovic Featured By Owner Nov 15, 2013 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I suspected that the outside shadows are blue for sometime now, but this makes sense!

Thanks!

seapuppy Featured By Owner Nov 2, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

A very informative piece! I'll have to remember all of this for next time I need to do some shading.

hotIand Featured By Owner Oct 21, 2013 Student Digital Artist

_{This is the most incredibly helpful thing I've seen while on this site. It goes so incredibly in-depth on the case of nothing but shadows, yet its something no one ever thinks about or comments on without this clarification. All of my life I've seen shadows as gray, even when they obviously weren't. I'd think, "Oh, it's bright out, that's why its blue/yellow/any other color" I've seen this, but I haven't SEEN it. This piece has completely changed my perspective on lighting, shadows, and my own art as a whole. I can't thank you enough for bringing this clarity to the population of dA.}

ArtByRiana Featured By Owner Oct 24, 2013 Professional Digital Artist

I'm glad I was able to help.

thegrumpybug Featured By Owner Sep 13, 2013 Student General Artist

this is really helpful, thank you for sharing!

fatinkpoplover Featured By Owner Aug 16, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Wow, I didnt know that. Thnx a buncH for this tutorial. Really2 helpful! ^^

Yevilyn Featured By Owner Aug 15, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Thankyou! *salutes* yes Ma'am, I shall keep my grey shadows to a minimum from now on.

sophatizer Featured By Owner Jul 27, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

I read this about two years ago I think, when I just started drawing and this was like gibberish to me. I managed to find this tutorial again and now everything makes a lot more sense. Thank you so much for sharing this, now I think I now where my impasse in improvement has been coming from. I shall definitely experiment with this immediately. Again, thank you so much for your contribution of this wonderfully enlightening tutorial, I cannot thank you enough.