Step. 1

Open the imaging software of your choice—in this case, Photoshop or similar software is used. 

Use the polygon lasso tool to draw your self nice smooth, thin lines; perfect for anime style drawings. Do not be too worried about making it looking right for now.

Step. 2

Create a new layer set it to multiply.  Now choose a nice light color you wish to be the base tone or skin color.  Here, I went with a nice light pink highlight the head area using the polygon lasso tool.

Fill the area with your skin color.  Also remember to cut out the eyes with the lasso tool so his eyes are not completely pink.  Lol.

Step. 3

Define a light source choose where you want your light to shine on his skin take your polygon lasso tool again and select the area for your highlight set your brush screen opacity 50% an go over the highlighted area with the brush now you should have a highlight on his skin

Step. 4

Add in reflective light or another highlight to show the brightness of the light source.  Depending on whether you want to show it or not, you can skip this step.  Again, take your polygon lasso tool and select out a nice tiny area for the reflective light source.  Color over with your brush again and again until its almost white but not completely white

Step. 5

Shadows!  First pick out a different color because if you use the same color as I am here the shadow will turn out red. Since I went with a light pink, a light brown works best.  Set your brush to multiply, leave opacity at 50%, now go through and highlight again with the polygon lasso tool where you want your shadow to be.  Go over this with your brush and you should have a nice shadow effect.

Step. 6

Time to blur!  Select the blur tool.  Now this part varies greatly depending on how well you want the colors to blend.  I set the strength at 75% and went over the whole thing.  It also helps hide your cutting color sections you created with the lasso.  The edges will over run from too much blur, so be careful.  If this happens, just erase the excess.