[1] Blending Modes Overview

    When you’re new to digital art, blending modes can be quite overwhelming. I remember looking at these as a kind of Boogeyman when I first stumbled upon them. As I grew more confident and experienced I began experimenting with them, but the question always lingered: what are their specific uses? Which color range works best with each one? This tutorial lesson aims to provide you with concise explanations of the working of such tools, as I’ve always believed proper systematical knowledge allied with practice can give people the means to know exactly the when’s and why’s to go beyond.

First and foremost, we have to keep in mind any Blending Mode requires at least two layers so it can work. Usually, the UPPER LAYERS are the ones where the option is changed, and the LOWER LAYERS are the ones affected by it. Below we can see some of the options we’ll use throughout the lesson.

 

 

 

・[1] Blending Mode Tab: This is where we select what kind of blending mode we want for that specific layer, keeping in mind it’ll affect the one beneath it or the one it is clipped to.

 

・[2] Opacity Slider: Also known as Transparency, Opacity means how much opaque the layer is. However close to 100%, the more opaque; however close to 0%, the more transparent.

 

・[3] Layer Clipping: By clicking it, you clip the layer to the one directly below it and now you can only affect the areas correspondent to such layer – that means you can, for instance, use a Multiply Clipped Layer to add shadows to your drawing without having to worry painting outside the boundaries of the base colors.

 

That said, let’s go over the properties of each layer mode we’ll be using. For that, we’ll use the same drawing for the base layer and the same layer for the blending mode.

 

[NORMAL]

As the name implies, it’s the default mode for layers. It’s completely opaque with no effects whatsoever. Whatever you paint or draw in it won’t blend with the lower layers unless you turn down the opacity or use low opacity brushes.

 

[MULTIPLY]

The overall most used darkening layer. As the name implies, it multiplies the colors of both layers, blending them. The color outcome will always be darker, except if you use white on the blending layer. Despite being very similar to [Darken], the advantage of using [Multiply] lies in the fact that you can use light colors to have greater control on the shadows value. Refer to [2] for additional info on colors and [Multiply].

 

[GLOW DODGE]

Alongside [Color Dodge], this may be one of the most famous and most used blending modes throughout software. [Glow Dodge] actually has a stronger effect than [Color Dodge], brightening the color but retaining strong saturation. One can easily go overboard with [Glow Dodge] when painting, but if used wisely it can provide you with a very wide and reliable range of colors and possible outcomes with little effort. Refer to [2] for additional info on colors and [Glow Dodge].

 

[ADD (GLOW)]

Primarily used as a lightening layer, [Add (Glow)], as the name implies, adds both of the colors and make them lighter without looking as neon or as full-blown as [Glow Dodge]. You also have more control over its results, since depending on the color range usage you can get several different lighting profiles. Refer to [2] for additional info on colors and [Add (Glow)].

 

[OVERLAY]

[Overlay] can be used both as a darkening blending mode and a lightening blending mode, as it has a similar effect to [Screen] or [Lighten] in the lighter range and similar effect to [Darken] or [Multiply] in the darker range. It’s quite effective when you want to reinforce the original colors of your drawing or give it a different tint. Refer to [2] for examples.

 

[HARD LIGHT]

[Hard Light] can be similar to [Overlay] in the sense it can be used to darken and lighten. Some artists use it as a standalone substitute to [Glow Dodge] and [Multiply]. It can be especially useful when painting outer glow effects because it maintains both the density and the saturation of the colors.

 

[COLOR]

This blending mode uses the color you’ve chosen and applies it over the overall colors of your drawing while keeping the values intact. Can be used for any number of reasons, but one of the most frequent uses is to value check your palette.

 

[2] Practical Usage

I’ll go over the practical usage of such Blending Modes while you accompany me during the painting of the piece I’ve used as an example earlier. Shall we?

The first thing I usually do after I’ve laid out the local colors of the drawing is defining the shadows. Shading is the core of my painting style so I take my time during this step so everything’s a hundred percent. I create and clip a new layer over the top of the base colors layer, setting it to multiply afterwards. This will be our main shadow layer. I fill it completely with a light desaturated color, usually a similar hue to the background. Clipping it to the layer below allows us freedom to paint here without having to worry if we’ve trespassed the area of the drawing, saving us a lot of time.

 

As I’ve said before, [Multiply] combines your selected color with the one on the layer below, darkening it, so I suggest not going for colors too dark or too saturated. I find this to be the optimal area where to pick your colors from, as they tend to be very controlled. You don’t need to select the exact same spot I’ve picked here, since colors hue work differently. What looks good as a pink shadow to this piece might not look as nice as a green shadow. Take your time experimenting.

It’s also good to point out that when searching for darker tones in a multiply layer it’s generally best to do so keeping in mind the color theory principles. Darkening the value of a color is not always the best answer, because it tends to make it somewhat muddier; sometimes you can do better just by increasing its saturation and slightly dropping the value, since an increase in saturation ALWAYS implies a darkening in value even if you stay on the same value range vertically while keeping the color richer. I encourage you to set an experiment and try playing with several different saturation and values way beyond my “suggest area” so you can see for yourself their effects and get a grasp of how this blending mode works.

That said, next I begin “sculpting” the shadows. Some illustrators tend to go the other way around, painting the shadows, but I actually prefer erasing away the lighter areas on the [Multiply Layer], that way I can get a really good grasp of my lighting and deliver cleaner shapes. You, however, can work either way: choose the one that suits you best.

Just for the sake of comparison, let’s set the blending mode to [Normal]. See how all the shadows on the multiply layer are now light pink shapes on the normal layer?

 

One of the reasons I go for [Multiply] during the earlier steps of my painting is because I can easily set the ground for later changes while still keeping control over how I want it to be. For instance, remember when I said earlier this mode combines the properties of both colors, creating a new, darker one? See, most of this piece’s palette revolves around shades of reddish colors. Even if you can’t perceive it because of the color relationships, her pants are painted with a very desaturated reddish color, not grey, even though it might look cold in comparison with her red kimono. Using pink as my shadow color is not looking very appealing to me, as the resulting shadow colors is closer to most of the local colors than I’d originally wanted. It’s not a question of right or wrong, though, just my personal preference on having a wider range of hues.

Let’s make it more interesting. Now I open up the [Hue/Saturation/Luminosity] tab (By default, Ctrl + U, or Edit > Tonal Correction > Hue/Saturation/Luminosity) and change the Hue and the Saturation sliders just a bit, making my shadow a tad more purple.

 

But let’s check the layer without the multiply mode once again. Is it actually purple?

 

See what I mean? This is actually closer to blue than purple. Let’s also check the color wheel.

 

You can see how the color is actually lighter in vertical value than the previous one, but provides a darker shadow result. Why is that? Simple: Both saturation and different hues are at play here. Each color has its own value range, making some darker or lighter than the others (e.g. pure blue is darker than pure read which is darker than pure yellow), and besides, increasing saturation always darkens the value.

 

After this, we’ll set another clipped multiply layer. We’re gonna add a little more interest to the piece with a gradient. You can do this process on the same layer though, but be mindful that you’ll have to pay more attention when choosing the gradient color so it goes along with the base shadow.

First, I use the [Auto Select] tool to select all the lighter areas of the painting in the multiply layer and then click [Invert Selected Area], as you can see below.

 

You can choose not to select the lighter areas, but when you add the gradient it might overlap those. Since I want my gradient affecting only the shadows, I prefer making selections.

Since I’m using another multiply layer for this I don’t need to stress over not choosing the right color for the gradient to show properly. I merely use the same color as the main shadow layer and then add the gradient coming opposite from the light source direction. See how it looks now.

Next is the rim light. Some might consider it a thing for later, but I’d rather deal with the quicker and smaller steps because sometimes they give you a clearer vision for the drawing. For example, in some compositions rim light could be key for highlighting parts of the drawing that otherwise would be less discernible and can give you a more 3d depth. Before we get into the blending mode I use for this, let’s just establish that rim light shows mainly and more strongly on dark areas and isn’t something you should go too crazy with. To use it properly you should have a good grasp of the planes on your drawing. I suggest watching movies attentively, as they can give you better insight on the tridimensional nature of light.

 

For the rim light I use an Add (Glow) layer clipped, and I used a mid-range pink for it in this piece. Add (Glow) is a very versatile blending mode because it works really well with most of the colors, surprisingly, even the darker ones. Below is my suggested area of usage: the lighter range for main, direct light sources; the mid-range works best for secondary light sources, such as rim light; as for the darker ranges, they work fairly well when dealing with bounce/reflected light, since they give you a nice, subdued glow. I also should advise about not getting too carried away with any light blending mode effect; you can achieve much more subtle and realistic shading using soft brushes with low opacity.

 

All set! Now I’ll briefly jump a step, since it doesn’t exactly pertain to the blending modes subject. In summary, I’ve refined the shadows’ shape, blurred some, added additional shadows manually and added a bit of red on the border of skin shadows to suggest subsurface scattering.

Now we’re about to get into my favorite part: adding the actual lights. For that, we’re gonna be using mostly [Glow Dodge].

Before I begin actually painting it, let’s go over how it works in terms of color. One of the main issues I see with many applications of this layer mode is not actually exploring its full range or taking into account how one color will affect the others. It’s not rare to see people using the same color with [Glow Dodge] for the whole drawing, something I did myself. So, before anything else, let’s make an experiment. Let’s paint the light hitting her kimono in three different ways.

 

I’m sure that each person reading this will probably have their own preference, and that’s okay, but let’s point out that every color above has its own advantages and disadvantages. The first one, the darker desaturated red, increased the saturation of the original red and kept it closer to the original hue, but it was not enough for highlights or focal points; the second one, the light desaturated orange, instantly made the red glossier and pinkier, but dropped the saturation; the third one, the light and more saturated orange, provided a good balance of both but made it look somewhat metal-like. So let me propose you something: why not use all of them and have a broader and richer result? With that in mind, I repainted the kimono applying the same dark red over all of its lighter areas, then kept painting over the parts where it would be even lighter with other two colors. I should point out that both the previous results and the next result were painted using soft brushes with very low opacity.

As for painting the rest of the drawing, one should be mindful that they ought to adapt to other colors and materials shown. Painting her dark desaturated blue hair with the same colors as the kimono will not provide good results, as blue and red are too much of an opposite and will mutually turn each other neutral. The same insight applies to the pants: despite being reddish in hue I don’t want it to appear so and using the same colors as the kimono will do exactly that. Widening your color range with Glow Dodge will easily solve this issue. I’ve reached the outcome below using different shades of yellow, orange, red, purple, pink and blue, one for each situation, always adapting to my needs. I suggest venturing into these areas yourself anyway so you can push your boundaries and get to see the results firsthand, be they good or bad. Besides, having some basic knowledge on color theory will give you much better insight.

As we approach more and more the end of the drawing, by now we can have an idea of the finished product and so we need to assess if there are tweaks to be made. For instance, I think that, by mutual contrast, the colors lost a bit of their edge and vibrancy and I want to make them pop a little more without getting necessarily too much darker or changing their hue.

 

So, what we’re gonna do is select all layers beside background and lineart while holding shift, then we right click any one of them to pop up a tab where we’ll select [Merge Selected Layers]. All of the layers will then be fused into one, but don’t fret: it won’t stay that way for long. We just want to copy the merged result, undo the merging and then paste it on top of it all, that way you can make quick changes later on without so much as a headache as you would have with a merged layer drawing. From now on I’ll avoid copying anything else for a while, since I want this merged result on my clipboard for several steps to come.

 

Next step is changing the layer mode to [Overlay]. You’ll probably notice right away that things have gone overboard, so what we’ll do is reduce the opacity to get to a less crazy color range and start erasing with a soft brush the areas where the light hits, since my main objective here is to enhance my shadows. I’ve set the opacity to 48%, but you can and should adapt it to your needs. It’s also important to point out that NONE of the layers I’ll be setting from now on, including this one, is clipped to any other layer.

 

It looks nice, but I want to improve my background somehow, it looks too dull. Let’s paste our merged drawing once again, this time just above the background layer and below everything else. I’m gonna create and clip a new layer to it with [Color] blending mode and start creating a gradient. I’ve just painted some colors while following the color wheel and blended their edges. When everything’s finished, I merge only these two layers by clicking [Combine to layer below] and press [Ctrl+T] to pop up the [Scale/Rotate] tab where I’ll make it bigger. I don’t want it to steal too much of the focus off of the piece, so I go to [Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur] and set it to somewhere around 20~30.

Remember our old friend, the merged layers copy? Well, we’re gonna make another one, this time merging the lineart layer. Pay attention and follow the steps of selecting all the layers except the background, copying the result, undoing the merging and then pasting it to avoid accidents. After the process is done, set it as another [Glow Dodge] layer on top of all the layers, including the lineart. It’s extremely important NOT to use the same Glow Dodge layer as before, otherwise things will DEFINITELY go south. What we’ll do now is tap [Ctrl+U] to pop up the [Hue/Saturation/Luminosity] tab and push the Luminosity tab further. I’ve set it to 25, but you can change it to whatever suits your needs. Afterwards I’ll use Gaussian Blur somewhere around ~40.

 

You’ll notice that the result is very far from anything desirable, but don’t worry, we’ll get there. I’ll slide the opacity down to something between 20~40, and you’ll instantly see how it already looks better. Next, I’ll use a soft round brush and erase away the shadows area. My suggestion is not trying to achieve a perfect erasure of the shadows, instead, doing it very roughly to create a more natural feel. You can also exploit the pen sensitivity to tone down the areas where you think the lighting is too much overblown.

 

Now, the final touches: I’ll create a [Hard Light] layer on top of all of the previous ones and use a soft brush to lightly paint over the lineart, especially on the areas where light hits the hardest. I suggest generally using light but very saturated colors for this, because colors too close to white tend to look washed up. Also, as I’ve pointed out on section [1] you can use darker colors with Hard Light to create shadows, but I’ll be focusing only on the lights since my shadows are already set.

 

After you paint these outer lights you can use Gaussian Blur again just to enhance their diffuseness, as I did here.

 

[3] Conclusion

 

So that’s pretty much it. I hope my tutorial was helpful to you and it provided you better insight on the several applications of the blending modes. As you could see, it’s a very broad subject and I’m sure you’ll discover and learn more and more should you pursuit this path. I’m always at disposal to help, and you can message me on instagram @fullmetalorpheus should you have any questions. See you guys!