Gunpla Corner 04 - Cel Shading Retro Style
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Forewarning: This is an accounting of how I have figured out how to achieve a certain look with a certain process, you may have better success with different inks or coatings. You will absolutely have different results on different eras of models. I encourage you to review your pigmented mediums and solvents before you make one black ink run with the other.
^materials used
1. The first pass is always regular panel lining. I get the kit "done" as it normally would be. I use the bog standard black GM01 panel lining marker for everything that isn't an edge.
2. Then I spray with Krylon UV Ultra Clear Acrylic nice and evenly. We need to protect everything we just did so we can use this as a reset point.
3. Then I start hitting every single hard edge with a Copic 100 black marker. This is the point I start regretting not putting gloves on. Isopropyl alcohol is your friend from now until the end of the process, as are cotton swabs and paper towels.
The goal here is to hit every single edge that, were it on an animation cel, would be represented with a black line. This is where reference material comes in, and why I have several screenshots of the OG series for inspo handy. You want to make sure that any possible line that could touch the rest of 'reality' in your photo has a black line dividing it. This will help ensure it pops out from the photos background and sell the effect.
4 After I get the edges done, I spray generously with Mr Super Clear Matte. The Copic black ink is super shiny and will pick up highlights in every single photo you try to take, so you need something to crush the highlights down and change the specular highlights. That's what the matte top coat is for.
5 At this point I take a picture and see how it looks. I will usually notice giant unfinished spots, so I'll add more ink and then hit with another coat of Mr Super Clear Matte.
6 Now I take everywhere that I want to represent as a shadow based on the lighting reference photo I took earlier, and draw horizontal or diagonal lines of even widths in those places. This is where the artists eye comes in, and where I cannot truly provide guidance, but I can help you not mess it up. Do everything in units of a 1 lines width. Leave a space 1 line wide between the hatch lines, and do not make too great a leap with a change in the length
I am at all times thinking of how it will look in photos, which means I tend to make line weights darker and more frequent over lower extremities. Think about how you are going to lead the viewers eyes through the photo.
This is what the legs actually look like from the side vs from the front
You can see how much side surface I had to cover to make it so that it looked like one even line when viewed from the front. But I only did that for the right leg! The left leg has thinner lines over fewer surfaces, because it was going to be viewed from 3/4s angle.
At any point in time you can use isopropyl to undo a mistake, but the more layers of protective coatings you have on there the harder it is to fully remove. Most of the ink gets sucked up into the coatings instead of down onto the plastic, so you can actually remove some mistakes just with light sanding.
7 At this point the model is usually sitting in front of me all day so I can consider it, and I'm done when I've been staring at it for days and can't find any more lines to add.
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