"In General," is the key phrase for tonight.
As we all know, what people find appealing in
art is subjective.
And trying to construct strict "rules" around
art, is pretty much a fruitless task.
A lot of stuff just depends.
But I sometimes find common themes between art that in general,
maybe not all the time,
but most of the time, I find to be undesirable.
Yeah, sure.
A lot of these things can simply be a consequence of learning.
And there's no shame in that.
But that doesn't stop me from talking about this in kind of a harsh manner
because I just think it's entertaining
and I guess some other people think it's entertaining too..?
I dunno, it doesn't really matter.
Nothing really matters.
"My existence is characterized by suffering."
So let's just get this show on the road I guess.
"Weird Spiky Hair"
Usually this starts out with something like a bowl haircut
with a bunch of random hair spikes at the end.
And sometimes within the hair itself.
I know hair is complicated...and not an easy thing to draw,
but one of the best things you can do to get out of that lack of understanding
is to realize there is volume in hair.
It's a 3D object.
Not some kind of cut up sheet of cloth
you just place on the scalp.
Also, before I say anything else
I'd just like to point out how it seems like the eyes were moved apart
just so that they could fit in this lock of hair.
That's pretty amazing.
But back to what I was talking about.
I also think that experimenting
with different shapes could add more to the hair.
It could have curves, and varying sizes..
All kinds of stuff.
Go crazy.
"But what about different styles?" I can already hear you typing.
Well, I guess it just depends on what you're going for.
And this applies to everything in this video.
But if you want your hair to look fluid and dynamic,
then I would focus on understanding volume and experimentation.
Don't worry. I used to do this kind of stuff, too.
"Black Shading"
Black shading kind of has an infamous reputation in the art community.
The people who say,
"Never shade with black under any circumstances."
seemed to have never picked up a comic book.
Black shading is just an art technique that can be used well,
or badly.
Using black with color creates a very harsh contrast.
It can be used to set up a mood,
or create a style.
I think one of the major problems is when black shading is just used poorly.
Soft shading with black,
and colors that are very close to neutral colors,
sometimes just makes your characters look dirty,
instead of shaded.
And sometimes, it's just visually bland.
Cell shading usually gives off a better effect in my opinion,
but believe it or not what may look like black
in a shadow or shading,
can actually be a completely different color.
And that doesn't just mean it's a darker color of the base color.
You'll be surprised what colors go well together when you research a bit.
It's actually quite fun just to explore this stuff.
"Weird Highlights"
So what are highlights?
Well, they're the thing that makes your thing look more like a thing.
ok.
They're the small touches that make something look reflective or brighter.
It just depends on the texture, really.
The problem is when someone figures this out
and decides to just put highlights everywhere they can.
This seems to happen most frequently with hair.
And no, I'm not talking about those kind of highlights.
or.. I might be.
Do women inject light into their hair somehow?
Or something?..
I'm sorry-I don't know very much about women's hair
Or women in general.
I'm talking about the literal light that reflects off people's hair.
Some people just like to put a random streak across the hair and call it a day.
But, no!
There can be more to it than that.
You can follow curves.
Sometimes there's splits and crap.
Even with simple art styles you can do this.
You can do all kinds of things.
Hair is weird.
"Lack of Value in Shading."
The amount of value you put in your artwork can vary depending on what kind of effect you want.
But I think if you want to make your drawing look like it has shading,
it would be wise to make sure people can actually see it.
There comes a point where it just looks like flat color.
This is just another case of things that look different from what they actually are.
Some shading is actually darker than it appears,
and some highlights are brighter than they appear.
It's just something that you can look out for.
Sure if you want to go for something more gentle, you can.
But at least make it so that I know it's shading
and not some random shift in color.
"Cut Off Legs."
This might be getting into nit-pick territory,
but I do see it very often and for some reason it just bothers me.
The art I'm going to show isn't really bad by any means.
I do want to give a little credit.
But I also want to use them as examples.
For some reason some artists like to draw 80% of a character,
and then hack off their legs near the bottom of the frame.
It wouldn't even take the much to just extend the legs to the bottom of the canvas.
Or make them bend up at the knees.
It wouldn't really destroy the balance or anything, it's just kind of an odd choice.
This happens with other limbs as well,
but most commonly with legs.
It not like you can't cut off portions of your artwork,
but usually there's some kind of fade..or lack of line work
that indicate that this is a natural cutoff
and not the result of surgery or something.
I mean I hope these aren't supposed to be amputees.
If they are, I'm so sorry.
Anyway my name is Solar Sands and- goodbye.
*music*