After spending a whole day tweaking lights in this cel-shaded scene, it still looked flat… so I decided to paint the light directly into the textures. 🎨
Surprisingly, it’s much easier (and more cost-effective) than I thought! I can pick any color I want, fix light leaks, and get that beautiful global illumination feel. ✨
I’m using a free painting tool that supports layers, just like Photoshop. https://tawansunflower.gumroad.com/l/paint_system
There are plenty of tools like this, but I love this one because it’s super lightweight to render (only 3 nodes)! I don’t have a high-end GPU, yet there’s no lag at all while painting. You could easily build a similar setup yourself, but using this tool is much faster.
Painting in Blender is such a blast! Seeing everything update in real-time is just so satisfying.
Final result
Behind the scenes
Before & After