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Hey all,

I was looking for some advice/an idiots guide on how to paint models in a cel-shaded style.

At present I'm looking at painting up my Shadespire models and would look to put something slightly different on the table.

Thanks for all the help in advance.

Cel shading makes use of quite bold differences in shading, but it's usually omnidirectional so I'm not sure quite how it would look on the table.

If you look up Cell Shaded characters (XIII is a good example, old PS2 game) then you'll get some idea of the omni directional shading.

By basically just bold colours with no blending really, just a straight Macragge Blue into something like Teclis Blue for exams with no blending between the two, just a straight 50:50 split.

Well, you can probably start with blacklining and edge highlights rather than any gradual shading done with washes/drybrushing/airbrushing. Emphasize contours with strong, dark lines.

Here's my old method of painting Tau (Pathfinder conversions in this case):



The model was painted black, then grey was painted on each panel, effectively giving it a blacklining effect without actually doing blacklining. Edges of plates got highlights, and edges of cloth got highlights - there's only shading going on on the orange of the antennae, but it's not gradual at all, it's bands of colors. This Tyranid by Nard shows a similar technique, as is closest to what I'd call 'cell shaded':