Below is a blood elf priest from WoW, its incomplete, I haven't done the detail on her staff and the background is really just a color that gave me better contrast than white



My question is on the shading. Shading is something I'm not good at and I don't want her to look like a paper doll. I guess what I'm asking is, are there any techniques I can use to help with the shading so she looks more three dimensional? Right now her current shading seems odd (and I haven't done any below the waist, which is why her hand blends in with her thigh.)

If you have other critiques btw, feel free.

In general, the best way to accomplish shading, to achieve depth, contours, shadows, and the appearance of 3d (without actually being 3d), is to use:

• blacks and shades of gray (or even deep shades of other colors)
• blurs
• gradients
• simple transparency
• various combinations of the above

The shading you have already done looks good to me, as far as shape and placement. What you need to do now, is just kind of tinker with those things I listed, until it looks right to you. What you choose to use is entirely up to you, your image, and what you want to accomplish.

I've often used a combination of things. For example, I might duplicate the shape of the shaded area, fill one and blur, and fill the other with a gradient. Or I might use a gradient alone, and then blur the gradient. Or in some cases I might have overlapping areas, where each one has the same or similar color and blur, where the overlapping area become darker. There are just so many different possibilities, it would be a challenge to list them all!

One other thing you might need to do, or will probably need to do, is use Clip. Using the side of the figure you've drawn, where the shadow is, as an example -- if you blur the shadow you already have there, some parts of the blur will fall outside the figure's outline, and especially if the background is to be transparent, that part of the blur will be obvious. So you'll need to clip that part away. Please see Help menu > Inkscape manual (requires internet connection) for more info about clipping.

Edit -- just happened to come across this tut -- covers some shading -- http://www.libregraphicsworld.org/artic ... icle_id=12