Step 12: Highlights

OK, now its time to add in some highlights. While shading is areas that are in shadow, highlights are areas that are in direct light, and reflect that light so they appear to shine, but just a little bit. Again, look at your shirt. Notice the areas that appear brighter because the light is hitting them? Congratulations, you've found your highlights. Now let's add them to our Catgirl...

First a note of caution: you have to be careful to keep your highlights subtle, because highlights can make things look wet or rubbery if they are too bright or too sharp, or can make your image simply look ridiculous if you add in too much color...you end up with a big white blob. Be careful and take the time to make it look good.

We need to begin by creating a layer for our highlights, so we will repeat the procedure from Step 11...

1. Click the Layer palette menu button (if you don't remember where that is go back to Step 3)
2. Click New Layer
3. Name the new layer Highlight
4. Select the new Highlight layer

We need to make sure the Highlight layer is above the Shade layer. If is is not...

5. Click the Highlight layer and drag it up in the Layer palette until it is above the Shade Color layer and drop it

We will need the Highlight layer on top for what we are doing next. Make sure your layers read in order from top to bottom: Ink, Highlight, Shade, Soft Color, Color, Sketch, Background.

6. Make only the Highlight and Color layers visible
7. Make the Color layer active - we need to make the Color layer active because with the Highlight layer being empty we will most likely be unable to select anything under it
8. You can now use the Magic Wand just as you did in Step 10 (and just as you will do in Step 12) to select a specific area of your graphic so that when you make changes it does not affect any other part of the image
   THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT AS YOUR HIGHLIGHT LAYER DOES NOT HAVE THE BLACK BORDER ON IT LIKE YOUR INK, SOFT COLOR, AND COLOR LAYERS AND THUS IT WILL BE VERY EASY FOR ANY NEW COLOR YOU ADD TO GO OUTSIDE YOUR DOGMAN AND INTO THE SURROUNDING AREA - USING THE MAGIC WAND AT THIS POINT ASSURES US THAT THE COLOR  STAYS ON DOGMAN
9. Make the Highlight layer active

This is a very important step here because our highlighting can get very precise. For example, we will want to add highlights to specific parts of her ears and arms but not the surrounding areas. Using the Magic Wand can be a big help in getting only the area we want to be highlighted.

We can now begin highlighting him...

10. Select white as your foreground color
11. Be sure the Airbrush tool is selected and that the Brush option settings are as described below:
    Brush: soft round 35 pixels
    Mode: Normal
    Opacity: 25%
    Flow: 25%
    Airbrush capabilities enabled
12. Select an area to add highlight to
13. Remember that the light in your image is coming from the upper-left corner of the graphic, which means that most of the highlights you will be adding in this step will be on the left of the graphic (which is Dogman's right side)
14. Click to add in the highlight color; keep in mind that when you click the color will come in very light at first, so if you want more color just keep clicking over the same area until it is as the color you want
    A WORD OF CAUTION: Do not click and drag to add in your highlights - you will put down too much color and it will not look right; just click once in the spots you want to add color to
15. When you have finished the highlighting step your graphic should look similar to the graphic below...
    

Remember that the key to good highlights is to be very subtle on most surfaces - you are just adding some shine to certain areas. Try to keep in mind which surfaces are shinier than others - any parts that stand out farther than others will have highlights. The graphics below give you an example of how she looks looks before and after adding highlights. Note how subtle the effect is...

Without Highlights:

With Highlights:

Notice the shine on her face, neck, hair, ears, etc. in the graphic on the right? That subtle change is really all we are going for here.

At this point, we have plenty of color and shading and highlights and stuff, but his fur really doesn't look like fur or the hair effect we want. The next step will go over how to turn his dull colored skin into fur.

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