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You don’t HAVE to use shading. It’s certainly worth learning how light works though. The style you have would probably look much worse if you added light.

Line art, sketching, is more important than anything I think. Also, if you practice drawing anything and everything it helps. It can hurt your progression if you keep sticking to comfort.

Of course it all depends on your plans and intentions for drawing. Most professional artists get to where they are by forcing themselves to explore other areas from time to time even if they are more drawn towards landscapes, portraits, paint, pencil or whatever.

Often seemingly unrelated areas boost each other.

 

I'd say leave shading to a different work. You've got the line art vibe going now. The cleavage is appropriate for the style, so a line or two maybe for the clavicle to fill in at the nyk?

 

To be fair, I’d taken art classes for 20 years more or less (from a young child to college). I’m not particularly great at it, but I’m good, and I’m great at imitating. That picture is not out of my own head, but based on the pose of an existing drawing but I just changed a bit of the clothes and the hair and all the facial features. I draw best with references.

So yeah, I mean, out of my friends who actually do art I’d get “come on, girl, I remember in high school you learning about light sources and clothes draping and everything same time as me. You honestly have no excuse but your own laziness” which is fair criticism.

I’d probably be a better hand at drawing if I had less of a “screw it” attitude. But I’m “artsy” more than “artistic” in a jack-of-all sort.

I have no intentions at drawing. I just have a bit of a creative side. Sometimes I write shite stories, sometimes I doodle silly sketches, sometimes I sing absurd songs. Just scratch the creative itch, then move on to the next thing. Only personal enjoyment and that of my friends who aren’t seriously inclined to the creative arts and a billion times more accomplished than me in any and all of them.

 

I think it helps a bit.

Like here is her face before and after I tried to remember how bone structure catch light and shadows:

Spoiler: Images

Before:

After:

I feel like it still adds something to the otherwise flatness

 

Looks good to me. For fun or not, it’s always worthwhile building in a skill ... who knows where it’ll lead you

I’ve been practicing for just over a year now and its clear to me you’ve got a solid foundation. The thing with shading on alike yours is it’s a combination of learning how to use the drawing program you’ve got (they are quite daunting sometimes!) and then playing around with layers and such.

It’s fun as well

I draw to improve my writing ... strange as that may sound! Haha!

 

That’s really cool that it helps improve your writing. May I ask in what ways?

 

I see ... I used to do that too. You’ve gone WAY too subtle on the shading. It’s barely noticeable.

I’ll have a quick go ...

 

Haha. I think it’s the image size. When I’m working on her face, it’s zoomed in and so all the shading and highlights look really obvious and contrasted close up. It’s when it pulls out again to the full image that I’m like “oh, not quite as stark. . .”

It’s probably also because I’m still figuring out what colours to shade with. I was doing a just darker shade of the skin tone before I realised it’s better as a deep red at some level of transparency around her eyes and a lighter red around her cheeks (although I’m still not sure now what level the transparency/opacity it should be at).

edit to add: Also, I’m drawing with my chubby fingers on my tablet with Adobe Draw. I’m sure it might be better if I invest in one of those art pens for tablets and an app with more than four brush types. probably leave less smudged on my device that confuse me about what’s shaded and what’s smudge marks on my screen~

 

Do you work in layers?

 

Yes, but probably not well or the right way. I just downloaded Adobe Draw a few months ago and started screwing around.

You are amazing and it makes so much sense when I see it like that.

 

Haha! The green is a bit extreme, but you get the idea ... playing with it can be great fun.

Using dark purple for shade on skin is usually nice. Just use another layer and then turn the transparency up. White dots on skin between nose and eye is something that adds a degree of ‘realism’ too because there is an oily patch of skin there that shines a little. Putting this natural feature into your style might help it pop a bit more (just a suggestion).

 

Krita is an excellent drawing program, and it's completely free to download and use. It has professional features as well.

One good thing about working in layers is that you can duplicate the layer you're working on a number of times to try out different things, like colors, shadows and lighting effects etc. This way, your original layer is preserved, and you don't have to worry about the limited amount of undo options.

You do really nice work, by the way.

 

Spoiler

 

Rembrandt’s Triangle

I guess you remember the first time you added specular light to the eyes? Unbelievably tiny details like a white dot can completely change an image.

The human eye is generally drawn to eyes and hands. Yours are both good

It helps with writing because it makes me look at the world with slightly different eyes and notice details I never noticed before. The in thing is to talk about ‘shape language’. Also, I draw to try and explore aspects of world building. If I can create an image of my abstract ideas it helps me navigate a story/setting and express these things in a more concrete sense. We’re mostly visual creatures after all ... also, mood and facial expressions are more readily attended to so it helps with descriptive pieces of writing, ‘painting with words, and conveying mood through the image/scene given in the writing.

 

Look at me, getting one-on-one art tutoring lessons. I’ll be a pro in no time~

Although now I’m a little peeved knowing all y’all can write and draw.

That seems a tad greedy. . . ☆〜（ゝ。∂）

 

Your line work is better than mine! You should give me lessons as I’m incredibly messy! Haha

I know I prefer a more ‘sketcherly’ style, but I still try and improve on my line work - hard on a slippery screen (need to buy paperlike screen protector soon tbh)

 

If they can do maths too I'm going to be right pissed

 

The secret is to draw the lines confidently, go “that looks stupid,” erase bits at random, try to redraw smaller sections, then go “. . . okay, less stupid,” move on to something else then realise “uw, I missed this bit. This bit is actually the most stupid,” and then repeat the erasing random bits and trying to redraw them ad nauseam.

And when you’re tired of not getting the arm angles right, just draw a bunch of intricately detailed mehndi from her fingers to just below her elbow and hope to god the busy-ness of the image distracts from all the flaws of your technique.

Only show to family and friends who struggle with stick figures.

You are now passably competent for the uneducated masses.

I am such a great teacher.

 

Maybe not the math exceedingly well, I can get most in technical departments of troubleshooting literally everything. My job is fun.

But my drawing has fallen behind. Poor thing. It had some solid life and then I let the leaves wilt and the branches falter...

Us degreeless few accept your competency! Hail the confidence in lines!

I think I find myself in badger's issue of messiness more often than not. Oh well.

 

This is probably my best piece ...

 

If only...

 

Gorgeous.