Shiage

Shiage is the japanese term for "finishing" or "final work." It's the point at which the individual frames are colored, checked, and finalized before compositing and editing.

Doing freelance work in shiage is pretty rare, but it's something you'll need done for a finished animation if you're doing something on your own or in house with a studio.

Before going into any of the technical details of how shiage is done, it's worth pointing out that there isn't any unified program or process for digital checking and coloring of anime cels. In fact, since the process itself is pretty simple, there are a lot of different ways you can do it while still achieving a finished result. It's not at all uncommon for different studios or individuals to use completely separate programs for the process. All that matters is that the final result is a set of fully colored cels with any minor problems from douga checked and fixed, and there aren't as many special processes to worry about learning as douga.

Well, it starts with the colored character settei, like this:

You'll be opening this kind of settei along with the cut you work on and color picking from it so you have the right colors for everything. Exactly what this looks like will vary from project to project and character to character. Some settei will look simple – just the character in a turnaround, in color. Less important characters might just have a single view in color, and you might need to extrapolate colors for things not in view. "Mob" characters (background characters with no dialogue and little screen time) might just be a single generic color scheme. For example, a group of background soldiers might all have slightly different designs, but share the exact same color scheme. In other cases, a one-off, unimportant prop or character might have no colors assigned to it at all, and you'll be expected to choose colors that make sense for it.

On the other hand, Sometimes settei has a few extra elements. Shows with bigger budgets or for commonly seen, complex main characters may have special callouts of colors in large, easy-to-select boxes for each part of a character or object. That's particularly helpful if parts of the settei are small and hard to color-pick from.To show a limited example of this, we can see what it would look like if we did it for Sophie's head. Generally, each box will have a highlight, midtone, and first and second shadow color (though some may have more or less colors to pick from). If the same character is seen in different lighting settings, then you may see the same character in those different lighting conditions–sunset, night, etc. You're going to be picking colors from these boxes and using them to fill the matching areas on characters or objects in your cut.

You might have noticed that there's no pure white in this settei. That's partly because pure white usually looks really intense compared to any other value, but it's also because some software–especially older programs like paintman--actually interpret white as a transparency and will eliminate it. Likewise, if a compositing artist is trying to select pure white, the'll end up selecting anything that's pure white in the character, too. Usually the highest you'll see white objects go is about 252 (out of a maximum 255) in hex value.

Once you have the settei you need for coloring, you can get started. The process usually goes like this:

1. Import the cels for coloring. These will usually be .png and/or .tga (TARGA) files. For .tga files, the lineart might be separated as its own set of exports. Import everything and make sure they're lining up properly. You don't need to time out shiage from a timesheet in most cases, but it might become necessary to overlap certain ceis to make sure you're not misunderstanding any areas where there's overlap.
   1. These cels are usually exported with "transparency" if they're done digitally. If they're not, you may need to "key out" (remove) the white before coloring. In clip studio, you should be able to do this with the "magic wand" tool. How you do this is somewhat program dependent–but don't forget to do so! By the end of coloring, you should have only the areas with line art or color fills full of any color.
2. Once the cels are imported, you need to check them. Make sure nothing's missing or messed up. This is usually pretty quick, but keep in mind that you're able to make small fixes to the linework if you have to. One problem you might see more often is missing "gap closing" lines. You might also see frames mis-labeled or missing. Be sure to catch these problems and address them ASAP – especially if it's something you need to contact a PA about.
   1. In some pipelines, the black lines are separated here, too (if they aren't, already). This helps to keep the outline from getting filled in accidentally. This can be done by "keying out" the black lines. Again, how you do that varies a little by program. In clip studio, you should be able to use the "magic wand" tool to select them.
3. From here, you can start coloring. In almost every modern painting program, you'll be adding the colors on a separate layer. It should usually be underneath the black outline art but over the shadow maps and colored separation lines. Technically you can color everything on one layer, but that is easy to mess up. Do it at your own risk!
   1. Shiage work also involves changing or removing sections of the line work. Separation lines are re-colored to match the shadows or highlights they delineate, and outlines are shifted away from pure black to match settei in most cases.
4. Final exports are done as .pngs with transparency or as .tga files. It's pretty rare for there to be any changes to the timesheet, so in most cases you won't need to adjust it.

That's pretty much it for shiage! It might sound really straightforward in concept – and the basics are simple–but shiage requires good attention to detail and focus across huge numbers of frames. Here are a few important notes to keep in mind when working through coloring:

First, separation lines are rarely deleted outright. Instead, they're usually colored in the same chroma as whatever they were separating. For example, the separation lines around highlights are given the same color as the actual highlight. This stops shapes from changing and messing up the balance of a drawing in this final stage.

Second, even on simple characters, it can be very easy to miscolor small parts. Human brains are good at editing out these small mistakes when we stare at the same image for too long, but find them really jarring when they see them with fresh eyes. Which is a nice way of saying that a small coloring mistake you're blind to might be glaringly obvious to a supervisor or a viewing audience. Flipping through your drawings as you color is one of the best ways to check this. Look for "flicker"--areas changing colors abruptly between frames.

(example–flipping through showing a small missing area)

Third, it's expected that there will be no holes in the coloring anywhere on the character. Even a single pixel gap isn't something you want to leave in if you can help it. That's one of the major reasons that everything in the douga stage is done without aliasing. The solid, on-or-off nature of leased lines helps color filling to be more accurate, but it's still not perfect. You should always be double-checking your work to make sure you're not missing any areas.

One particularly good way to check for holes in your coloring is to set an entire layer to black temporarily – a hotkey for doing this is best. It will show any holes very clearly against a white background. After your check, just undo the color change and fill in the missing spots.

(TODO: cropt the above image)

In all reality, that's everything that you need to do for shiage is going to come with experience much more than special processes. If you're looking to practice shiage on your own, you can always practice from your own drawings. You don't even need a character per-se. Something as simple as a ball with highlights and shadows can help to give you an idea of how the process works.

Exporting Shiage

Exporting shiage is pretty simple. All of your files should be exported as .TGA in most cases (again, double check with your PA!). Do one final check before submission just to make sure you're not missing any frames or accidentally doing something similar. Remember that you should have no notation, cel numbers, or other marks other than the colored objects at this point.

File naming remains exactly the same as in other stages, as do your submission procedures!