How to Shade Like Japanese Artists - The 1/2/3 Shadow system【TUTORIAL】

In this video, I will be going through the 1/2/3 shadow system that you’ll often find Japanese artists use and reference often when creating anime style art. Enjoy :)

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WHO AM I:
Hey 👋 I'm Ori, an anime style artist. On this channel I share drawing tips and tutorials.
Clients I've worked with include Hololive, Clip Studio Paint, Coloso, Haoplay, Huion, XPPen, and more.

⌚️Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:08 The 1, 2, 3 Shadow system
01:46 The First Shadow
02:40 Studying from Anime
04:29 The Second Shadow
04:56 The Third Shadow
05:28 The 1.5 Shadow
05:42 How to add in the shadows
06:25 2nd method of adding in shadows
06:52 Adding Lighting Nuances
08:47 How to start practicing shading

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[oridays]

Hey friends 👋 just a note that I've temporarily taken down the "Draw-Reflect-Learn" video I mentioned at the end as I'm planning to make an updated version of it that's going to be more actionable! So make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it when it comes out 💪

(EDIT: I've trimmed out the part I mentioned it in for now to create a better viewing experience.)

[Macalaka]

this is a really interesting topic. especially when you think historically, European art tends to be more about realism, capturing forms through lighting. And in Japan they seemed to be more interested in shapes, like in wood cuts or scrolls. personally i think the 123 shadow method is easier to learn and wrap your head around. But obviously learning about the theory of light and all that is a must, when you see an artist combine the two the result is amazing.

[Sofisasam]

This honestly helps me so much. Recently all my shading has been a big mess and this is a great guideline that i can follow along!! <33

[undeuxtois]

as an artist who avoids rendering.... this just gave me the motivation honestly

i'm doing a fanart of Kafka from Star Rail rn, and i want to do her justice. thank you so much for your help and willingness to share information that's limited to others, your videos really helped and i've subscribed! i hope you know there are people out there like me who appreciate you and a bunch of other artists a lot :)))

[kawaiiPASTA]

I accidentally figured this out myself while working on a fanart a few years ago. I was making fanart of a character from pokemon and while looking at the Ken Sugimori artwork of her, I noticed how he shaded and tried it myself. Basically, instead of doing what I had watched digital artists do for years, which was shading each area individually (skin, hair, clothes, etc), it was clear he was using one or two layers to shade the whole piece cohesively. This was a game changer for me. Since then, I use multiply layers to shade my whole drawings in 2-3 layers (main shadow, darker shadows, deepest shadows) and then finishing the piece with various lighting layers and final touches. I feel as though shading this way makes the most sense when working digitally as it really helps me think of the piece as a whole and keep the colors and shadows feeling cohesive.

[swisdom]

I’m so glad to find smaller creator like you who go through this kinda stuff. I need someone to spoon feed this info to me so this is much appreciated! Hope I a get some value out of this

[Foervraengd]

I'd like to point out that the 1st Shadow is more common in modern anime art, I've noticed that when compared to anime art from 90s and older. We are currently in a trend where rim light and semi-backlight is used to make more dynamic rendering. When I was a young artist it was more common to have the light source in front of the character or to the side, you would see noses have cast shadows instead of a lit up-area like in your artwork.

[yuruki-aesthetic]

I couldn’t even see the little changes you did at the end 😭😭😭😭

[shuryou-obhr]

This is awesome, thanks for breaking the fundamentals of this style down. I've been trying to find out what style is used by Blue Archive and this is the closest I could find.

[CorralSummer]

If you look at anime shading tutorials specifically they'll mention this layering thing even in English. I think they word it differently than the Japanese tho.
Most English guides are focused more on realistic drawing so they pretty much exclusively talk about the physical way light works. Japanese anime styles just kinda seem to be the default so if you look up "how to shade" they'll tell you how to shade like anime which is typically more stylized.

[tt]

123 shadow comes from the animation production process, but other side comes from the drawing method of oil painting. The edges of light and shadow are blurred, and the edges of 123 shadows are also blurred, so no one mentions it

[AmazingRoni]

i've been working on making a vtuber model for a while and just have not been able to get satisfied with my shading! my japanese is very minimal and there aren't nearly enough resources for english-speaking artists out there, thank you so much for making these tutorials. they're amazing!

[okamichamploo]

Working in Japan I often got work that was actually catagorized by how many shadow layers the client expected.
This job is a 2 shadow job so it should be done in 2 days, This one is 3 shadow plus gurade (gradiation) so you can have a work week for this one, etc.

[smerci]

ngl, you should do reviews on japanese artist tutorials and provide information on the tips they give as most of us don't know japanese :( Probably the only reason I would learn Japanese is not for anime, but to study from these masters

[xoiyoub]

I almost feel bad that I can have this incredibly helpful course on shading for free

[staryxz]

Exactly what I needed recently and you posted a tutorial on it much appreciated Ori-sama 🙏🙏

[Yuunarichu]

Aiooou as an anime artist myself I've been looking for a pro artist to go in-depth on anime shading. I learnt most of this myself from observation but having a pro's perspective on how they do it is something I've been looking for since I started drawing. 😄

I might click on every tutorial commenting that I wanted to do similar tutorials by accident though 😂 I'm just too amazed!!! I'm looking forward to see what you might teach in the future. Can you perhaps teach how to do anime face proportions? After all these years mine are always way off, I can never draw eyes and nose in the correct position. 😅

[pitrekg]

This is a very cool tutorial but the essence can be very distracting for people who learn from "english tutorials" :) There is no cast shadows in the shadows, it can lead to very messy values if someone would try to convey it to more realistic style. What is this "1st" shadow is the ambient light. So the "real" shadows are only 2nd and 3rd ones. I think it is worth to mention because someone can think that cast shadows are darker than "form" shadows and they really aren't. Keep up the good work!

[rayray]

you're telling me i've been shading with this technique this whole time? nice

[gh]

Thanks for this really and nice for pointing out that most of western artist just point the light and shadow of a ball it's really nice to know what other thinks especially the language barrier it's really hard to know and most of the great artist nowadays are Japanese, Koreans and Chinese