Black and White "Ink" like shading

Zinssaw · April 10, 2020, 8:16pm

Hi! Since I’ve seen the Lorn - Anvil music video a few years ago I really want to try to create this style of shading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqaAs_3azSs

I looked into Toon shaders and freestyle a bit but haven’t worked with them before and can’t find a way to get it done, especially the outline changing color…

How would you approach this? Any advice or ideas?
Help is much appreciated!

PyBlend · April 11, 2020, 1:56am

Welcome to BA.
I had a go a this and I think I got pretty close.

This is a frame from 2:49 in the video
This was rendered in Cycles although there are only slight differences if rendered in EEVEE.

One thing to note: The style of the character is actually quite different to the rest of the video, and I’m pretty sure it is 2D animated over the video.

How this was done:

Toon Shader (and a texture)
Two layers of Freestyle
- a broad stroke of white for the white insets
- a narrow stroke of black for the edges

Blend file if you would like to take a look
LORN-ANVIL_Scene1.blend (769.7 KB)

This may not be the best way to do this, but I did it this way because it doesn’t require any compositing.

Zinssaw · April 11, 2020, 10:38am

Wow thank you so much! Exactly what I was looking for!

About the character: Yeah, the creators of the video also stated that they mixed classic 2D animation and 3D animation.

I found a way to get the strokes without always having black within them, but just as you said you have to composite for that.

Your way is definitely easier. I will play around a bit with different scenes and see which one fits the need best. Thanks again for your time, much appreciated!