Lightsourcing Tutorial/Tips

Experimenting and trying different techniques (if the techniques are inspired by someone else, make sure to add your own twists and not completely copy everything and give credit ^^) / applying your knowledge to more skins or test skins is always helpful (and, in my opinion, quite fun to do).

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#1) Visualizing/Imagining the Lightsource and Objects

So, when I lightsource, I like to think about how the light would affect things in real life. If there's a certain thing covering or above another thing, then a shadow would be cast by the thing on top. In other words, something would be in shadow if it is being blocked from reaching the light by another thing. The further away something is from the source of light, the darker it is. However, if something is closer to the light source, then it would appear brighter. I talk about this more in the section "LIGHT / SHADOWS".

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#2) References
Another way to figure out how things work is to use a reference.

References can be very helpful in understanding the way that light works. You can use terms like "3/4 lighting portrait" if you wanted to make something that is 3/4 lit. "Studio lighting" might work? Or even just searching "portrait" or "person" or something along those lines might work. (However, some images are a bit questionable, so be careful while searching if you want to avoid those, I guess. ;;;) You can study how the light falls on the clothing and/or person, and you can try to imitate and mimic that effect.

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#3) Analyzing Other People's Styles

Observing other people's styles can also help. However, like I mentioned earlier, if you do decide to take some inspiration from someone else, make sure that you change things up a bit and add your own twists. Don't completely copy their style. Try to make your version original and unique to you! And make sure you give credit, of course. Asking for permission can also be nice. This is helpful because, not only do you end up with your own unique style, but you're also allowing the person you took inspiration from to keep their style as unique!

As you may know, you can utilize colors and shading to achieve your lightsource effect. Play around in the editor and experiment. It doesn't hurt to try. If anything, experimenting is /super/ helpful and important to do!

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Blue/Yellow Highlights

This first bit is about those blue/yellow highlights that I have used in my skins in the past. I usually put them in the highlights I'd suggest only using them in certain places and not to use it TOO much. Yellow is sort of the lightest color in the rainbow, so I'd suggest using the saturated yellow only if you want a really bright highlight. Blue is one of the darker colors in the rainbow so I'd suggest using it for slightly darker highlights. It also depends on the lighting situation. If your lightsource is, say, the sun (or just tinted yellow), you'd use yellow highlights, and vice versa.

I once asked wqtermxlon (if you haven't heard of them already, they're a wonderful skinmaker, go follow them!) to give me honest feedback on my skins a while ago, and Melon told me this: '' I'd use a bright blue on yellow shifts, pink/blueish purple on a bit darker tones, and yellow if it should be shown more. Since yellow is the brightest color of the rainbow, I'd use it in my hue shifting for the regular shifts to give it the lighting effect ''

Although, I'm also not too sure myself on the whole blue and yellow so I use it wherever I think it's needed, haha (lately, I haven't been using it as much as I used to, though.)

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Hueshifting

For hueshifting itself, I stopped doing the whole 'go to one direction' or 'regular' hueshifting, if that makes sense. I don't really follow a certain pattern like going clockwise, counter-clockwise, etc. I usually jump around the color wheel. (I also learned this from wqtermxlon and from KnobleKnives's tutorials, which are linked in the category "HELPFUL LINKS".)
With skintones, I try to avoid green nowadays, otherwise it might end up looking like a zombie. I realized this after DragonsDungeon pointed that out on one of my wall posts. However, if used correctly, it can still look cool.The image below shows the wall post which features an HD skin. I overdid the colors, making everything appear messy overall, and the greenish tones did not help with the skintone. I try to keep skintones in the warmer tones range, but I still keep a variety of colors.

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Shading White
Also, when it comes to shading white, I tend to use a variety of colors. White is basically made up of all the colors, and when you're trying to make a base white color, like for a white shirt, etc. I'd suggest using either (depending on the overall tone you're going for and the lighting of the skin) either a light cream-ish yellow, a very light pinkish-purple, or a very light blue, or other colors (I tend to use light cream-ish yellows, very light pinkish-purples, or very light blue colors, though). You can adjust the saturation so it doesn't look as saturated (otherwise it might end up looking like a blue shirt instead of a white one, haha) and to pull off the white shirt effect properly.

If the lightsource is coming from the left (our left), the right (our right) arm wouldn't have light on the right side. The small hints of light on that arm could be placed in the middle/left section of the arm. If you made it so the torso, face, and hair also had some light coming from the right side, then this would be fine. However, since the light is coming from the left on that skin, the right (our right) arm would have the light placed in the middle/left section, rather than the rightmost column.

Now, when it comes to shading clothes, there's a general guide that is very important to me/that I follow. When you're shading the clothes, just shading like a gradient won't exactly work. Including the shading and the folds in the clothing helps in achieving a more realistic effect. Of course, you can stylize this a bit at times, but it's a general thing that I like to think about and keep in mind. ^^

Basically, taking into account the wrinkles and folds of the clothing helps to achieve a lightsourcing effect because it won't look like a gradient that just has lines of different values and shades.


Now, let's say we have 2 folds in clothing. One at the bottom, another one slightly above. Usually, the one above would get more light than the one below, because the light will be able to directly hit and access the top one rather than the bottom one. This is because the bottom one has one above it which blocks the light from coming in as much, and the top fold would cast a shadow on it. In certain cases, it would be in complete shadow but the part that sticks out more might be a bit lighter. But let's say, for this example, that the bottom fold is in shadow. Some of the parts in between would be lighter, but would still have a bit of shadow from the folds.

(Like I previously mentioned, generally, when I tend to lightsource, I think about how light would hit/affect things in real life. When you're lightsourcing, let's say you have 2 arms and one is in shadow. For example (I'll give a basic example): let's say our lightsource is coming from the right side (our right). The way the light hits it would be different from the way that light hits the arm that's closer to the light. The edge of the arm that's away from the light would be in shadow because the light can't get to it. Although, when you're lightsourcing, you must remember that clothes have folds, so make sure you remember to include those!)


The image below is an example of lightsourcing. Note how the light fell on the arm in shadow. Of course, the shading and colors I used on this skin could use some work (for example, the highlights are a bit too bright and could be a bit more subtle while still achieving the same effect of lightsourcing). Credit to LovelyLuna for the original skin design. I remade it in my own style and shading.