Masterclass+ Clean Cel-shading & Two-tone Coloring by Dini

If your two-tone always looks patchy or unfinished, this class fixes that. Illustrator Dini walks you through clean lineart, cel-shading basics, and how to place and soften second shadows so your characters actually look like they belong in an animation still.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Draw clean, cel-ready lineart with varied pen pressure and line weight
• Pick shadow colors based on season, time of day, and background light
• Divide two-tone areas for face, hair, clothes, hands, and props
• Soften two-tone edges with brushwork while keeping sharp areas sharp
• Handle full-body poses, dynamic action, and high / low camera angles
• Use blend modes and color correction for an emotional anime finish
• Complete male, female, and duo character illustrations with backgrounds

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic drawing ability, rough understanding of light and shadow
• Tools: Clip Studio Paint 2.0 (English ver.), drawing tablet with pressure support

📝 Description

This is not just “fill the shadows with lasso and done.” Dini starts with the part most people skip: pen lines and lineart cleanup. You test different pens, learn what line weight suits cel work, and practice drawing lines that make coloring ten times easier. No wobbly lines fighting your shadows later.

Then you get into the core problem – two-tone. You learn to read light direction, divide the first shadow, then place the second shadow where it makes sense for the form. Face, hair strands, folds, hands, props – each gets its own logic. And the big CLASS+ upgrade: how to melt that second tone. You learn which borders to keep crisp and which to brush out softly with Clip Studio brushes, so it stops looking dirty or over-blended.

The second half is all reps. Fifteen hands-on examples cover different head angles, hairstyles, sitting / lying / running / dancing poses, and photo-like compositions. You finish three full pieces – female, male, and duo – with backgrounds, layer blend modes, and that soft emotional grade that makes it feel like a paused anime frame. Practical, repeatable, and built for portfolio work.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Hobby sketchers confused by light logic and where to put the second shadow
• Beginners who can do flat cel-shading but struggle with hard vs. soft tone edges
• Aspiring illustrators who want that emotional, anime-film-still mood in their work

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Dini is a freelance illustrator and webtoon colorist known for super clean cel work with a soft, cinematic feel. She taught entrance drawing at Aniforce from 2018 to 2021, then moved into commercial work as the coloring artist for the webtoon Mobydick.

Her client list includes album art for Punch and Eumyul, graphic lyrics for idol group TO1, plus illustrations for The Spike, Bubble Tap Guide Runner, and multiple book covers. She is the kind of teacher who plans the final image first, then sketches, colors, and finishes without getting stuck – and she shows you exactly how to think that way.

🏁 Final Result

• Three finished anime-style character illustrations – female solo, male solo, and two-character scene – with clean lineart, accurate two-tone lighting, backgrounds, and final color correction, ready for your portfolio.

📢 Guys, this is a Group Buy campaign, check the GBC forum thread to get access

You can find the course preview in the download section below.