Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

In this article we will cover the following topics:

What is Cel Shading? 

Applying Cel Shading to an Anime Face

Let’s get shading!

What is Cel Shading?

“Cel Shading” refers to a certain style of shading where there is a hard line between the areas of color change between highlight, midtone, and shadow instead of a soft transition between the colors. This term comes from when animation was painted on sheets of plastic called “cels”. Because of the way the cels were painted, gradient shading on the plastic wasn’t possible, and so a hard line was used instead. 

You can see examples of real cels used for creating anime at https://japanesegallery.com/anime_and_manga/japanese-art-anime/cel-ga 

Being able to do convincing cel shading means having to think a little differently about the surfaces that are being lit. Because the transition between shadow, midtones, and highlights are distinct lines, it can be difficult to know where to place those lines! I find it easiest to think about the object being shaded as though it is a wireframe object (a common type of object in 3D modeling where the 3D object is shown as lines that make up the edges of each face that make the object). 

For instance, let’s take the common shading exercise of a sphere. Normally you would do a soft shading on the sphere and a cast shadow. To do the same exercise with cel shading, we can break the sphere up into segments with lines going vertically and horizontally. Each of these faces of the sphere show a change in direction of the surface of the object. 

By choosing to break the sphere into these sections, we can then place the highlight and shading based on the segment lines depending on the light source, as shown below. 

So, how do we apply this to a more complex object, such as a face? Luckily, the planes of the human face are something that artists have been studying for centuries! You can do a search for “planes of the face” for an example, but I have also drawn one of the front views below. The line between each section in the drawing below represents a point where the surface of the face changes direction from the surrounding areas. 

When shading a face, there are some areas that are almost always in shadow unless there are special lighting circumstances (i.e. a light from below). These areas are above the eyes, below the nose, the top lip, and right under the chin.

Now we can continue using this map of the face to add some more dimension. Planes closest to the light source and facing the light source are the lightest. The further away the plane is from the light, the darker it will appear. This is also true of planes facing away from the light source, such as the far side of the nose (the right side as we are looking at the image). 

Applying Cel Shading to an Anime Face

Now let’s take these principles and apply them to an anime style face in ¾ view. If you are still getting used to shading faces in general and need some help with them, remember that you can always use the included 3D heads from the Clip Studio Paint Material Library to get a reference for your lighting!

It may be helpful when you’re first starting out with Cel style shading to try drawing out the planes of the face on your drawing. I used a combination of the planes of the face drawing from the previous section and the 3D model reference to draw out a guide in blue pencil below. 

There are as many different ways to actually put in the shading on your drawing as there are artists! So it may take you a while to find what works best for you. I like to create a new layer above my base flat colors. Set this new shading layer to the Multiply blending mode and then drop the opacity to about 50%. Then I pick a shading color, usually a dark desaturated blue or purple depending on the mood I want, and use that to shade all the areas of my image. 

I use the Lasso tool to draw out the area I want to fill with the shadow color. Using my template for the planes of the face, I know that above the eyes is almost always in shadow, so I’ll start there by selecting that area with the Lasso tool, then using the Fill tool to add the shading color.

Because the layer is on Multiply and 50% opacity, the shading color takes on the undertone of the base colors, making everything look like it’s in the same light source.

Remember that some areas are almost always in shadow, unless the light source is coming from below. Also in most anime styles it looks better to skip shading the upper lip area and instead put a small triangular shadow slightly below the mouth to imply a bottom lip. This will totally depend on your style, of course!

To add highlights, make another new layer and set it to Screen. The example below has the opacity set to about 75%, but you can make this higher or lower depending on the intensity of the light source.

Since I chose a cool shadow color, I’m going to pick a warm highlight color. I used pale yellow. Then go through the same process of choosing planes of the face and drawing around them with the Lasso tool, then filling those areas in. 

By thinking in planes, you can apply this method to all other parts of the body, clothing, and other objects as well!

Conclusion

Getting your head around Cel Shading can be tricky at first, but with a little change in thinking and some simple techniques, you can master this style!

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en or https://graphixly.com