Quote Originally Posted by Josiah VE View Post
Well the line work is straight forward enough, you need a certain amount of skill and practice, and although I'm nowhere near to your skill level I think I can do the linework for some buildings at least half decent I'm more interested in how you go about with shading and colour.
Okay. That's pretty straight forward too.
Shadows are done with the same basic brush on a separate layer set to multiply.
I use a warm grey - about midway between white and black - maybe just a bit lighter...
I always draw a light ray on a separate layer so I can move it around to get a specific direction for light.
Creating shadows is a complex process, in that you have to have an idea of what the object is like in 3d space to accurately draw a shadow that it would cast.

Color... most of that for a piece like this is pretty basic too.
The colors here are mostly flat till the shadow goes in.
It is amazing how huge the impact of the shadow layer is to make this all pop out like it does.

I also add some highlights.
For highlights, I'll often do those on a separate layer set to softlight.
Colors used vary depending on the color I'm highlighting.
For the roofs, I used a soft pinkish color to give the roofs some texture.
Same goes for the texture brush I used. I pick a color that will blend well for a highlight or a shadow look.
So for green grass here, I just went slightly up or down from the grass color to do highlight or shadow texturing.