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Settei (設定(せってい)) is the Japanese word for any images relating to a character, location, or object. It's one of the most important words for you to know since the settei informs how and what you draw.

Sophie Engineer Genga Settei

As a layout artist, you'll be working with the genga version of the settei most of the time. These aren't colored, but feature clean drawings and often come in versions with and without shadow maps. The shadow map colors in settei aren't arbitrary. They relate to the kind of material a shadow is on and the intensity of the shadow. If the character designer creating settei was rushed or the character depicted is of secondary importance, they might just have flat blue shadows.

Even when the settei itself has flat shadows, it's helpful to add color variation for different objects in your layout if you have the time. Like with everything else, exactly which colors indicate what varies from studio to studio. The chart to the right has some pretty common color variations.

Just having different colors for different materials helps douga artists a lot, especially in situations where there's complex overlapping. Imagine trying to figure out whether a little dot of blue shadow poking through Sophie’s hair is her backpack, her shirt, her skin, or the shirt of another character when everything is the same flat blue. Yuck! Just having different shadows distinctly marked can save cumulative hours as a cut is cleaned up and colored.

Alright, that's enough on the files you'll get for now. Let's spend some time looking at how to actually use this stuff when making a layout.

BLACK LINE Outlines and lines that don't disappear.
BLUE LINE Shadow line that indicates division between light and dark. Does not appear in final paint.
RED LINE A line that disappears but is used for special color fills, especially for whites of eyes and highlights.
GREEN LINE Hidden features, like hair under a hat or a torso under a cloak, used to make better drawings without being shown in the final animation.
BLUE FILL Shadow on clothes, eyes, teeth.
GREEN/PINK FILL Shadow on hair.
YELLOW FILL Highlights.
GREEN FILL Areas filled with black, sometimes used for other purposes.
OTHER FLAT Various purposes, usually dividing a particular color or feature, like a logo.
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