Contrary to popular belief, i dont draw shadows, i draw lights

it just makes more sense to me to do it this way because it is kinda how real life works

thought i would share this process cuz its fun i guess

these are the base colors actually

and heres the light layers, i use color dodge mode

lights are too intense so i put a clone layer of the base colors (or just a copy of the base colors if you dont use krita) and clip it to the lights and lower the opacity (if you use krita i use this clipped layer in parallel mode cuz the color blending is more similar to real life and it looks nicer)

i do this for every layer

these are just the lights of the little star things

this is what it looks like without the main lighting

bounce lights

highlights

color corrections, fiilters and all that finishing stuff (mainly krita's color adjustment and mean removal filter layers + horizontal dithering fill layer... krita stuff, not sure how this could be done in other programs sorry)