Value (shading), part 1:

So someone asked about how to shade, and to be frank, there are a lot of ways to approach this.

At it’s core, the idea is about showing form through value. Form being a 3 dimensional object and value being our ability to discern different levels of light entering our eye. It’s a bit difficult to shade if you don’t know why or how something becomes shaded.

How I usually think about it is through explosions! When light radiates from something, it smashes into objects. That smashed light then disperses like an explosion in all directions. The light flying from this explosion is weaker though, because some of the energy from the initial impact was absorbed as well as it’s need to radiate from that point in all directions, spreading its energy out between more points. It continues to weaken as it smashes off of more things, throwing light in more directions, costing more and more energy as it tries to spread. If we have color, it’s color is determined by what wavelengths the object can not absorb (i.e. the color that is bounced into our eye) This is why white is the most reflective, because every single color is thrown off, only a portion of heat energy is absorbed. This also means that these little explosions carry color with them.

Though, non of this means anything if you can’t create a gradient, or value scale, and know how much pressure you need in order to get a particular value.

I just did a quick gradient and illustrated how I approach getting light and dark values with a pencil. Sorry if its hard to see, I’m partial towards the lighting side of the scale in most cases.