[PG-13] A look in your sketchbook

[Richard K Niner]

I'll admit that most of the spots where I didn't go in the same direction were done earlier in the sketch, and were more along the lines of following contours.  Still pretty poor practise, though; it's true that getting them all in the same directions works out nice, but so does cross-hatching, and following the direction of the fur, I'd imagine (though that would leave two discontinuous spots, thanks to the furry ball theorem).  I wasn't really trying any of the above, unfortunately.

[Bringerofpie]

Whyte, I couldn't see any of yours besides Comedic Gold (it was comedic gold, by the way).

RK, yours had very skinny arms, but you may have been going for that because he's a dog.

The person who drew the three anthros (one of them had a sword, one of them was crying), I don't remember who you are, but they were excellent.

Oh, Giz, there are multiple forms of shading, what you were thinking of is standard shading, in which you want to use very small lines that are extremely close together in one direction and blend them together.

[Gizensha]

I'll admit that most of the spots where I didn't go in the same direction were done earlier in the sketch, and were more along the lines of following contours.  Still pretty poor practise, though; it's true that getting them all in the same directions works out nice, but so does cross-hatching, and following the direction of the fur, I'd imagine (though that would leave two discontinuous spots, thanks to the furry ball theorem).  I wasn't really trying any of the above, unfortunately.

I thought cross hatching was more an ink technique than a pencil one...

[Lissou]

No, cross-shading works for pencil as well.
The way I was taught (in Hell school) was kinda special, as we were not allowed to use several pencils Any specific drawing had to be done with the same pencil (same hardess, it is). usually it was B or 2B.

The way to do it was to always follow the direction of what you're shading/darkening. Always start by finding the spot tat will be wite (the light on the white of the eye, for instance) and NOTHING ELSE will be white. Even the reste of the white of the eye will be a very pale grey. For the eyes (that are a sphere, and don't really have a "direction"), left to right (or right to left) while following the curve is usually the best. Same for a face, horizontally following the curves of the face.
Then, you add the shadows. Then, you can use a different direction. It will clearly show that they're shadows, this way. Start from the way light comes from and go towards the opposite way. Also, never draw the outside border of a shadow before fillign it, as the outide border is the lightest part of the shadow, and the point of origin is the darkes.

For hairs (and I'm guessing fur applies here), we were to follow the hairs individually. With the same drawing, the way of shading/colouring the hair could give the impression of messy hair or tidy one (can you say tidy for hair?), depending on whether all the hairs were going the same way or not.
Hair is REALLY hard to do, because to do it properly, you want to first draw the hairs and colour them, then add the shade on the hair, the add the sades from some hairs on others. It's long andannoying, although the result is worth it, but I wouldn't advise trying drawing a furry animal this way.

[Zavion]

Your advice might work out fine on the head/hair head/fur (Whatever it's called), but less so on bodily fur.

[Richard K Niner]

Got bored in class...

[MysticalChicken]

Here's some of my stuff on DeviantArt.  I haven't been able to upload anything recently as a.) I'm lazy and b.) even if I weren't, the scanner isn't hooked up right now and I can't find the cables to hook it up.  Besides, there's literally no room on this desk, anyway.

http://mysticalchicken.deviantart.com

[Lissou]

Hey, you've got a drawing of Vivian, from Paper Mario .
I've always liked her/him. it's good to see transvestite characters in kids games that are not completely ridiculous.

[MysticalChicken]

Vivian is probably my favorite character in that game.  Besides Bowser.

[Lissou]

Vivian is probably my favorite character in that game.  Besides Bowser.

Yes, Bowser is hilarious. Especially since he's not the bad guy in that story and, well, they could have just zapped him, but they didn't and the result is great.

[Bringerofpie]

See below for empirical proof that I am the creative genius of the century:

[Bocaj Claw]

Just something I drew'd.



As you can tell, my artistry skillz are only matched by my mastery of the english language and my ability to conduct electricity.

[D.Whito]

this looks like rather light card, what do you think?

I think the Forest fight is the best draw.  Dont get me wrong, Ill be watching the show just doesnt look like one of their better cards.