Beam Struggle Doodle

[Capta1n_Henry]

Ok, I know I'm pillow shading but I felt like it was appropriate for a beam. My question is: what should I do to make it better?

[eishiya]

Things that are glowing, like beams of energy, don't have shading. But, you are on the right track with using something like pillow shading for them. It's just that instead of going from midtone to shadow, you should be going from bright to less-bright. It might also feel more like a glow if the bright part dominates the beam, with only a few darker pixels. Also, where the beams meet, there should probably be more intensity, instead of the beams fading out towards "shadow" before they make contact.

Here's an edit with all of my suggestions:

[Capta1n_Henry]

Like this?

[DracoDragon42]

I had a lot of fun with this edit. But first, I will tell you what I did. So because this was a traditional lazer, or magic fight, I found a reference. I saw how they did things and what looked good, then I did my own thing. I tried to go with a fire vs water, but it turned out more just like two different types of beams. I think it helps just to be looser, more like when you are drawing. Anyway here it is, hopefully you can learn from it!

[Decroded]

Like this?

Its very strange how u go from bright to a dark, then a bit brighter, then dark again.
Definitely try to loosen up as mentioned.
Such a high concentration of energy should appear as difficult to contain and trying to escape rather than such geometric shapes.

Where the 2 beams collide would be the strongest concentration of energy yes?
So that area should glow brighter (whiter) than anywhere else and perhaps emit purple energy bursts.

[Capta1n_Henry]

Oh wow. Didn't even think of that. Thanks!

[surt]

If the purpose of the image is to portray luminous beams then I would suggest changing to a background that isn't full-bright white as the beams cannot possibly be brighter than that.

[Capta1n_Henry]

Made another edit

[MysteryMeat]

RE: the beams, you usually want to keep it a proper shape and avoid outlines.
Examples below, tried to stick with solid colors instead.



Forgot to recolor the "noise" on the second one, but you can sort of see the difference between them better here

[TOMOYA]

I think DracoDragon42 and Mistery Meat nailed a great detail on their edits, by making them a little bit more messy, and you started taking that path with your last edit too.
Having that in mind I did my own attempt at it.

An energy beam (wich is how I interpreted your beams as) would probably be less "controled" and "mechanical" and look more like plasma. So I would suggest you going for more a more imperfect and organic look, with more jagged or doodly lines instead of laser-like straight lines. That would not only make it look more natural and readable, but more dynamic too.

As you can see, even the clash of the beams is asymetric, and I added small sparks or particles flying everywhere to enhance that messy look even more. Think about how an explosion, with stuff flying everywhere, or paint splashing against an object would look like to get the idea.

Then I just polished a little bit and added more colors. There is still a lot of room for improvement on it, but it shows the basic idea that comes to my mind when I think about two guys shooting beams at each other.