shirtless + some cel shade stuff with Not grima fire emblem

Hello Red! I'm happy to say you've inspired me to start drawing comics, but the biggest issue I've encountered is that it takes actually forever. I'm always really happy I did it when I'm done but it's hard to convince myself to start when I know a couple panels is gonna take me days. So I was wondering if you had any advice regarding streamlining the process for time efficiency or keeping up motivation for long projects, and, if you remember, how long a page took you when you first started vs how long it takes now?

Hoo boy. Yeah, I can help out with that. The very first page of the comic took me, if I'm recalling correctly, a full week. No other projects or pages, just this.

A lot of work went into details that are frankly impossible to see, though I am still glad I did it, both as a learning experience and because I felt like I owed it to Vash to do it some justice before I squished it in twelve pages.

Hell, if you look closely, you can even see the cavalcade of little visual errors I missed because I didn't have it in me to do a seventeenth cleanup pass after a week straight of drawing tiny houses. Getting faster meant I'd have more energy left to polish the pages and get them looking nicer.

The process of getting faster has been kind of a fits-and-starts situation. Drawing that many humanoid figures over and over again eventually means you just get better at the parts you're less sure of, so the process of lining the pages has gotten rather faster since I don't need to burn as much time getting the character poses and lines right. Currently, depending on page complexity, I can fairly consistently get 3-5 pages fully lined in one night. Backgrounds have also gotten faster, and I tend to do those in large batches, sometimes filling out entire chapters with location backgrounds and skyboxes because the scene location isn't going to change and that makes it easier to keep it consistent.

Initially my backgrounds were both more complicated and worse-looking, which is a bad combination.

I ended up deciding between chapters that painstakingly lining a bunch of background trees probably wasn't worth the effort, and worked on finding a shortcut that would work better. I ended up doing something a little more lineless, a shortcut I initially discovered because I didn't want to plug in my drawing tablet and was playing around with things I could do with just my trackpad.

It was simpler, faster, not too jarring, and it meant my clearly-lined foreground figures were more naturally visually separated from the distant background. Win-win-win.

For the style of coloring I do, I tend to shade before I add color, though this is a shortcut I didn't figure out until something like chapter 6. This process is also pretty fast, all things considered, though I've had a lot of practice doing this kind of cel shading which is why I can hammer out a lot of pages' worth of shading quite quickly.

I like working in batches of about one scene, often broken up into subgroups of 4-6 pages at a time, so I can't give a front-to-back turnaround for an individual page - but I also think this kind of assembly-line process has sped up the process overall and makes it more fun for me, because I can storyboard basically as far in advance as I want to, which in turn makes it easier for me to motivate myself to keep going, because I know there's all kinds of good stuff I'm looking forward to drawing down the line. There's some good shit I'm excited for in Chapter 21, and bursts of enthusiasm on the storyboard end of things often translate to enthusiasm on the page-finalizing end which makes it easier to slog through even the tedious bits.

As a bonus, working ahead means the story's got a better chance of making sense and having good pacing when it's read back as an archive. Another win-win.

Overall the greatest optimization tool I can recommend is just working on the project. There's no better way to identify the parts that feel unnecessarily slow and could be changed, or the parts of your art you're unsure of that need polish to get more speedy. If you're planning on publishing the comic anywhere, I recommend building up a buffer beforehand - something like the first chapter (or in my case, first three chapters) will give you a very good sense of what parts need more practice or improvement as you move forward. And it is genuinely easier to motivate yourself to continue if you have an audience giving you positive feedback and/or panicking at what you're doing to their darlings.

FEATURE: Happy 10th Anniversary To Every Anime Opening Ever Made (The Video)

  I don't remember where I was at when I first watched "Supercut - Every Anime Opening Ever Made," but I do remember the inescapable truth it showed me after I watched it. Maybe I was on Gaia Online or some other forum when someone posted the link and asked "have you seen this?" I started the video and saw the seagulls flying in the sky. Then the white text on a black background showed up, saying that the following was in every single anime opening sequence...

    The montage began! Cameras heading towards the sun! Going right into the character's eyes! The running! This dude was right: This stuff IS in every anime opening!  

  This Youtube supercut turns ten years old today, and if you were in the anime fandom around 2010 you had probably seen this video at some point. Now with 3 Million views, I think the reason it resonated with so many people is that for as much anime we watched, we probably noticed these trends but didn't make the full connection until it was fully presented in front of us. Regardless of genre or tone, there was this underlying connective tissue across dozens of shows that we may or may not have seen before. And shown in such a slick and edited fashion provided a connection across the shows we love.   While videos like this are likely uploaded onto Youtube now more than I can imagine (maybe even right now as I write this!), this supercut was the original, back in a time when fandom was certainly a lot smaller and growing. Even though Youtube was becoming more of a hub for anime content  (as we were slowly getting out of the Bleach-episode-split-into-three-parts era), fandom was more split in the sense that everyone had their own particular hub or forum they claimed home. There was no AniTwitter or Youtube Community tab to trudge around and find out what wider fandom was talking about. And yet, everyone seemed to have come around and appreciated this, a small stepping stone to what the community would end up becoming today.   I was just going to celebrate this little piece of fandom fun with an article going down memory lane, but I decided to try to reach out to Derek Lieu, the original creator of the video, to see if he had anything to add for this retrospective. And luckily he got back to me really quickly! Can you first introduce yourself and what you do?   My name is Derek Lieu, I currently live in Brooklyn NY and I make video game trailers! I’ve worked on trailers for Firewatch, Subnautica, Spelunky 2, Ooblets, Dead Cells, Half-Life: Alyx, and a lot more.   How did you get the idea to make the "Every Anime Opening Ever Made" video?   When I learned the American X-Men animated series from the 90s had alternate opening sequences made for when it aired in Japan I became fascinated by what made those openings so distinctly Japanese. I don’t remember my precise thought process, but I started downloading textless versions of anime openings from YouTube to start, and started sorting the footage. I think the one exception I made was for Neon Genesis Evangelion because I couldn’t not include it.   About how long do you think it took to edit?   Believe it or not the whole project took about an afternoon and maybe part of the evening. Downloading all the openings took longer than the actual editing. After downloading them I sorted the different tropes into categories like I normally do when editing stuff. Once the footage was sorted I barely moved anything around except to adjust for music sync and also where each chunk of tropes fit into the video. I used a specific Ayumi Hamasaki song which was used for the cel-shaded Molly Star Racer trailer (which much later became Oban Star Racers). The original remix song is much longer so I edited it down to about 3.5 minutes.  

  Is there anything in particular that stood out to you when you were making it? (Outside of so many shows using the same shots, obviously haha)   I think the main thing that occurred to me is that so many of these tropes are just great ways to create cool moving images using as little animation as possible, but which still feel dynamic and fun to watch. One interesting bit of trivia is Trigun is one of the few series whose opening is footage from episodes cut together. This was by far the exception to the rule.   I remember this video very fondly back in the earlier Youtube days, and it has 3 Million views as to date. Did you ever expect it to be that successful?   Haha, not in the slightest. It seems the videos I give the least amount of thought always get the most number of views and the ones I spend a lot of time get the fewest.   What do you think is your favorite and least favorite "trope" in the original video?   I like the head turns. I didn’t even give attention to that one when I started the project, but it very quickly revealed itself as one of the most common ones. I don’t think I have a least favorite; they’re all fun to watch. One of the funniest is a person reaching their hand out to someone on the ground; I like this one because it’s so incredibly specific.  

  Do you still watch any anime? And if you do, do you see any of those same shots/frames/movements in particular still being used today?   I don’t currently watch any anime, but I assume a lot of openings still use a lot of these tropes. Because they cover everything from standing still to running. I later made a video for unique anime openings because there are some which have really great stylized art and interesting images. I also made one for classic anime from the 80s and earlier which helped me see where a lot of the tropes originates.   Do you have any other thoughts on the video looking back on it ten years later?   Reading comments from people who watched it as a kid and now are rewatching it as adults makes me feel old, haha. Also, people keep telling me I “forgot” an anime. I once tallied all the anime people say I excluded and the list was far far longer than the number of anime in my video. Also, a lot of people mention anime which released after the video was made :P One bit of trivia, I didn’t include any Naruto because at the time I thought it would’ve been funny to exclude the most popular anime at the time. Sorry, Naruto fans.   We'd like to thank Derek Lieu for not only making the video, but also for taking the time to speak to us. You can find him on Twitter and Youtube.  

    Kyle Cardine is an Editor for Crunchyroll. You can find his Twitter here.

By: [email protected]

I kinda was saving this for when i had the time to type everything out in one go, so let’s just get this over with before Smash drags me back into the depths of hell. XD

So, like, things happened back in 2017. a lot of things. graduated highschool, felt the winds of freedom as i stepped into the world of adulting and.....fell into a deep abyss of crippling depression as my life took a rather....wild turn to say the least. these feelings would linger and continue to haunt me throughout the majority of 2018. if you’d like to hear them or just need a refresher, my 2017 summary WITH that in depth description is on my DA that i no longer use cuz all i can think of when i go there is that year as a whole.

That’s not to say the year was cruddy, though. it really looked up by the end and it’s been one of the better years of my life as an artist. i’m about to go into that, so sit tight if you wanna actually read everything.

January: Arcus ~Collab with KLou

Things got heated at grandma’s after the holidays and we left in a huff cuz yeah, big fight the night before. it wasn’t something i ever wanna remember, but i gotta acknowledge it happened. thus began the struggles of living life as a nomad basically. From this point on until May, i won’t say much about our situation cuz honestly, time grinded to a halt after hotel life began.

February: Let’s Save the World

Believe it or not, this was a mobile drawing. i still didn’t have my tablet or my computer, so i tried using my phone for awhile. this was, of course, after i got Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory for PS4, so this right here was my Dracomon babu Takumi, named after the former wearer of the goggles i equipped to him.

March: Let’s Kick It!

A brief moment of light as i fINALLY GOT MY TABLET BACK ONLINE! i felt like things were going to be different, we’d finally get somewhere and i felt like i could do anything again! this drawing, while super simple since it was just me around most of my current OCs at the time, was meant to represent me being back in business after around 4 or 5 months of being restricted to traditional work, a medium i, at the time, didn’t have much development in. (although, those months sure did help me learn how to draw that way in more than just sketching. so i’m actually kinda grateful i was stripped of the tools that i realize i may or may not have taken for granted.)

April: Spyro the Dragon

The Reignited Trilogy was announced and that’s why i drew that cuz literally everyone was doing Spyro fanart. i remember also doing a bunch of little doodles of other people’s characters in this same coloring style since some of the drawings i did before like the mobile drawing and my traditional work gave me inspiration on how to go about doing this new watercolor/marker like style that i started to experiment with throughout 2016 and ‘17.

May: Memories in Pieces

Remember how i said time grinded to a halt after hotel life began? yeah, this is where it reeeeaaally started to effect me. the days dragged on and blended together, we STILL could secure a home to house all of us and it just felt like my life was just....over. like, all the important stuff happened and now my story’s just done. it didn’t help that memories from the year before decided to come back and hang over me like an undying demon cloud. my anxiety and depression couldn’t have been higher. and yet i still managed to wake up. in fact, i woke up bright and early every day somehow. it felt like there wasn’t anything to believe in and yet....i still had hope that we could get through this. i knew deep down we weren’t gonna be completely out of luck.....but i still hurt at the same time.

I never uploaded this drawing anywhere, but this was, to put it simply, partly a new direction for a future project but also a vent art of sorts, representing the negative thoughts and regrets that never seemed to leave me alone no matter how much time has passed.

June: Digimon Atlas Adventures Ultima Vocal Collection

My second commission ever made since i opened that month. it was also the first time i really cel shaded along with made a logo since the year before. this day marked the turning point along with the end of my depression for the most part as the parents finally gave up and took...some of us down to Florida. a couple of siblings had jobs to keep up with, so they had to stay back in NY with.....eghh....grandma. to this day, i’m still hearing stories even if some of them eventually found their own place. i swear, the more i hear about what’s going on, the less i wanna go back to NY. >_>’

July: Drake ~Art Fight 2018

Oh yeah, we moved down to FL, but we were still in hotels IN FL, so there was change, but still pretty similar circumstances. we quickly found a place at some point, though. a cozy apartment complex that i’m happy to live in.

This is when Art Fight began....or rather when it was supposed to begin cuz they had technical difficulties for the first week or so. the day i revamped Drake for it was like i was saying hi to an old friend after parting ways years prior. it was a really fun experience that i’d gladly partake in again next year if i’ve got the time.

August: Gathers Under Night...

A very ambitious looking piece i did as an attack against a friend during Art Fight. it was my favorite attack i ever did and could quite easily be my favorite drawing from this year. after leaving hotel life behind me, i rarely, if ever, had war flashbacks or anxiety over the past. i felt like my life was finally getting somewhere again. for real this time. and that it did, thankfully.

September: Lost in Thought

A gift i made for a longtime friend and art senpai to try and cheer them up. i still look back at this and think “yeah....this is the style i’ve been longing to emulate. and i’ve finally achieved it.” granted, it took a lot from Kingdom Hearts II’s title screen, but where do you think i got my love of watercolor from?

At this point, i started to become a new person. i mean i already was considering the summer also involved me trying to become a little less total weeb at least in terms of music taste and also leaving my hoodie lifestyle for a good few months, but yeah. in fact, i think this was the month i buzzed off all my emo hair and really ended up resembling how i looked like back when i was little, anime cowlick and all.

October: The Lethal Protector

Oh yeah, Venom happened. i should’ve disliked that movie with all it’s flaws and unused potential, but instead i wholeheartedly stan it and i luv the portrayal of Eddie and Venom to the point where i forgive where it went wrong.

Yeah, i completely moved on from everything that tied me down at this point. i yeeted the past into the stratosphere and focused solely on what i wanted to do now. what my next move was. and i can thank these two losers for helping me stay focused on my craft. i also kept branching outside of Digimon. i wanted to be more than what i used to be.

November: My Favorite Ninja Frog

Didn’t do much this month, so all i had was a doodle of my starter partner for Pokemon Y. i never evolved him past Frogadier cuz i preferred him over Greninja. it was the tongue scarf, dude.

Why? ehh, it was most likely Warframe. i got into that game at some point cuz a friend persuaded me to do it. i don’t regret anything. i luv this game when i’m playing with friends.

December: Draw Your Roster Ultimate: The Winds of Reunion + Holiday Arcus

The Winds of Reunion cuz Wind Waker and the fact that everyone including Wolf, Young Link and even Pichu returned to Smash Bros. when Ultimate happened. this game cured my depression, cleared my skin and reignited my love for Starfox oddly enough since Starfox Zero AKA 64 with a new coat of paint and motion controls that weren’t as bad as you think didn’t exactly do it for me. i haven’t been so content with the way things are in a long time and i’m happy i finally got my hands on this treasure of a game. now, to wait for Kingdom Hearts III. ;w;

And now we finally get to the end of this long as heck recap. thank god Tumblr gives you unlimited characters, amirite? XD

Overall, this was a year of recovery and rebirth. it was a long and rough winding road, but in the end i think i’ve healed enough to finally get on with my life.

I’m not the same kid i used to be when i graduated highschool, and i’m definitely not the same kid i was when i was first starting out as an artist. my journey has been full of ups, downs and all arounds and it was all a much needed learning experience. even if i felt like i was suffering at times.

My future is mine to decide, and i’m not letting anything stand in my way again.

For the future i want to believe in.

Omny’s Commission Information

Commission Prices + Examples

Single Character Pencil Sketch $5 +$3 per Additional Character Example:

Black Ink $15 + $10 per Additional Character Examples:

Color /w Cel Shading $30 + $20 per Additional Character Examples:

Color /w Soft Shading $40 + $30 per Additional Character Examples:

Adding Backgrounds +$10 and over, depending on level of complexity (a simple meadow, empty room, or a cloudy backdrop will be much cheaper than complex cityscapes, looming space stations, or massive mountain vistas).

Backgrounds will otherwise be left blank or given a simple gradient. Transparencies free on request. Pledgers to my Patreon get a discount on commissions, and can ask for as many as they want, of any kind! The more you pledge, the greater the discount!

Commission Description and Payment

Once you've claimed your slot, just send me a PM or an e-mail at [email protected] with a description of what you'd like me to draw. Descriptions can be as detailed as you'd like- you can even just give me a brief summary of what you want and I'll let my imagination do the rest. Reference pictures are very much appreciated, but not required.

Once you and I have settled on what you want, I'll send you a PayPal invoice for you to pay (think of it as a digital bill of sale). Don't worry: You don't have to have a PayPal account to pay a PayPal invoice!

If you have a preferred method of communication- Discord, Telegram, Skype, or a private message, let me know ahead of time and we'll talk.

Rules Regarding Commissions

-Cash only. I will not take payment in the form of DeviantART Points, Steam gifts, favors, or anything other than money. Non-U.S. money is fine, so long as it is able to be transferred via Paypal.

-Regarding "additional" characters: when requesting a piece with more than one character, said characters must be interacting with one another somehow, not simply standing next to one another. Some examples of interaction include, but are not limited to:

Talking

Holding hands

Staring lovingly at each other

Glaring at each other

Preparing for battle

Fighting

Kissing

Hugging

Playing games

Sharing lunch

Reading a book or map

Shooting at a horde of zombies

-Nothing over a hard "R" Rating.

The most I'm willing to draw:

Blood/gore

General dark and disturbing stuff/horror themes (torture, monsters, death, etc)

Nudity of any gender

Suggestive/risqué content (pinups, etc)

Most fetishes (except anything involving pee/poo. Using those in a comedic context will be fine)

However, I will not draw anything involving the following:

Visible sexual penetration

Erect penises

Masturbation/sex toys

Extreme gore (I.E. anything that would look like overkill in a Saw sequel)

Underage characters in risqué/violent situations

Real people in risqué/violent situations without their express permission. For example: I will draw a sexy shirtless Deadpool, but I will not draw a sexy shirtless Ryan Reynolds.

Feel free to ask me if you are unsure about the content of your requests; I can be flexible!

-Nothing offensive or hateful. I will not draw anything for the purpose of mocking/insulting particular artists, nor anything un-ironically racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise promotes hatred and/or ridicule towards any individual person or specific group, nor anything that advocates hate groups (I.E., a character dressed like a Nazi is fine; a character endorsing Nazis is not). Again, if you're unsure, just ask! -Regarding Upgrades on Old Commissions: If you, for example, pay for a sketch commission and decide to upgrade it to a higher-tier picture (ink, color, background, etc), you only need to pay the difference plus $5: so to upgrade a sketch commissions to ink it'd be $15, for color it'd be $30, and soft shading would be $40, and so on.

-Regarding Commercial Use and/or Further Edits: Once you've received a completed commission from me and you've paid in full, you may not sell it as your own art, but you can use it for commercial purposes (logos, album covers, book covers, etc) as long as you give me proper credit doing so, keeping my signature on the art. Please let me know ahead of time that you wish to use your commission for a commercial endeavor or a logo for some project of yours- I'm not asking for royalties, I simply don't want to accidentally cry "art theft" when I see my art on a bookshelf or website somewhere.  

In addition, if you wish to pay another artist to ink and/or color my art, or want to do it yourself, you may do so.

You may not sell, commercialize, ink, color, re-color, or otherwise edit any art you yourself didn't pay for!

-If you don't want your commission displayed for whatever reason, like if you're commissioning a gift for someone or simply don't want it posted, let me know ahead of time and I will not post it. I'll simply send you the image file for you to download yourself. If you do want your commission posted, but you wish to remain anonymous for whatever reason, I will not put your name in the commission slot list or in the picture description.

-Tips and donations are not required, but are totally acceptable! Consider buying me a coffee.

Do you have any art tips?

Uhhhhhh Funk im not The Greatest Artist ™ but I’ll try to bestow some Wisdom on you. Keep in mind Art is Subjective and I’m no expert and all that so take everything with a grain of salt but that being said I’ll try to give u Tips and Tricks

-listen so if you have a boring class at school just draw in it. School is great because you have 1. Access to paper at all times 2. Incredibly boring lectures. If you have a study hall that’s the Drawing JACKPOT. Basically what I’m saying is practice all the time when you have energy but like that’s such boring art advice. It’s important but “practice! uwu” is like what people with Natural Art Talent say when they didn’t have to figure everything out from the ground up so it’s kind of aggravating

-There’s gonna be people better than you. Chances are you have a friend who’s better than you because this is Tumblr we all draw. Try Not To Compare Yourself ™ which idk how to do but it’s bad don’t do it

-unless you find a terrible person with worse art than you in which case FUCK DUDE COMPARE YOURSELF TO THEM! THEYRE HORRIBLE AND THEY CANT DRAW FOR SHIT LOOK WHOS LAUGHING NOW!

-“work until your idols become your rivals” is absolute bullshit because your idols are working at it at the same time you are. You fool. You imbecile. I feel like this works better for writing when your idols can become irrelevant or straight up die between you being an aspiring author 8 year old and a tired 30 year old who just wrote The Great American Novel ™ or just kind of. Leave the fandom if you’re writing fanfic. Anyway

-ok that’s all the preachy shit, time for Real Art Advice ™. Keep in mind I do digital cartoony shit with Strong Lineart and cel shading for the most part and I pretty much only draw people so my knowledge is limited to that. if you wanna be a professional artist maybe do other things and Expand your Abilities ™

-Ok first off if you’re using Gimp or Photoshop please love yourself and download Firealpaca or illegally torrent Paint Tool Sai or something. I swear by Firealpaca it cured my depression but like. Photoshop is Trash for drawing. Get Firealpaca it has Line Correction ™

-Keep Line Correction ™ at like. A 5 when you’re sketching and at a 19 (the maximum) when you’re lining, coloring, shading, highlighting, doing literally anything that isn’t sketching

-Sketching digitally can be hard if you’re used to sketching on paper and I find it easier to do a sketch on paper, take a picture of it on my phone or scan it, and line/color it digitally. You do you and figure out what works best

-speaking of which I refused to use sketchbooks until I was Worthy ™ of not drawing on notebook paper and uhhhhhh that’s dumb just get a sketchbook they cost a little more than a notebook at Target it’s not super expensive. Although if you’re not financially in the position to buy a sketchbook anyway, just hoard notebooks from school that you didn’t use much. Bam, that’s your new sketchbook

-the Head Circle Cross Thing and the Spheres For Shoulder, Elbow, and Wrist Thing are good and important and will save you

-hands are hard so use references but bullshit your way through it. eventually they’ll look good (I haven’t gotten there yet)

-HAVE FUN WITH NOSES OH MY GOD. Noses are super fun and cool because there’s, like, infinite variety with them, they can be as long or short, thin or thick, rounded or pointy as you want, you can make them be, like, triangles or circles or more squareish or diamond-shaped, the base of the nose can be about as high or as low on the face as you want, you can make the nostrils prominent or not really there at all, they can add another Layer to a character’s design, oh my goodness noses are so fun. They’re like, severely underrated and oh my god I could gush about how fucking fun noses are

-same with facial expressions. Where you put the pupils and how big they are, how much of the eye is covered by eyelids, the way the eyebrows are, the mouth, tons of other shit. There’s loads of variety and so much you can do and honestly having fun with the facial expression is The Best Part. There’s tons of Face Art Chart Memes floating around, you know the ones, save it to your phone/computer and practice those on your own time it’s fun

-if you don’t know how to do something, avoiding it won’t help you. Just kind of draw around with it in your sketchbook or in a “I’m not posting this” file until you feel confident enough to do it in your Real Projects ™.

-Ok for lining did you know..… it isn’t illegal to erase parts of the lineart to clean it up.… just be careful and draw it back in to the best of your abilities if you erase too far and use a smaller eraser brush/lining brush for this… I know it’s tedious nobody likes lining it’s okay you can do this put on some good music

-use mcfucking references

-eyedrop character’s official colors but adjust said colors based on the color of your background to make them look less funky is my general rule for clothing, I usually pick the hair/skin by myself or from something I’ve already drawn though

-for flats, make sure your lineart is all closed off and there aren’t any “holes” cuz that’ll mess up your coloring

-so how I do flats is I use the magic wand tool to select whatever I want to color, expand selection 3 pixels (in firealpaca you can set it to do this automatically), pick the color I need, turn up the brush to as big as possible, and color it in. It saves the time you’d spend with cleaning up where the color gets outside the lines

-you can do the flats on one layer, but I personally like to do every Object on a different layer so when I do shading, I know what goes on top of what

-if a color is darker than the lineart it looks ugly so pick your line color with caution (or just use black! Unlike shading black lineart tends to go with pretty much everything)

-SHADE YOUR GODDAMN ART. Like, what makes people go “wow holy shit that’s good!” is the shading + highlights, don’t be lazy ya fuck.

-I’d take a break before shading to Refresh Your Eyes ™ but also I constantly forget this is a good idea

-don’t shade with black oh my god. Unless you’re doing Strong Punchy Dramatic Stuff or monochrome black and white stuff, don’t shade with black, and if you’re doing that it’ll probably be drawn into the lineart. Don’t shade with black please we can tell you’re doing it and it looks bad

-highlighting with white isn’t too bad though, especially with the eyes, but it might look too strong in some places

-As a general rule, shading is darker and more saturated, highlighting is lighter and less saturated. Whether it gets warmer or cooler depends a lot on what color or thing you’re shading or what you want the feel of the picture to be and I’m not 100% sure how to do it myself so uh. Trust your gut and change the color if it looks wrong I guess.

-where exactly the shadows or highlights fall depends on lots of things, just kind of. Look at how things work irl maybe? This is the kind of thing that you just have to practice, and it’ll look like shit until suddenly it doesn’t sorry I’m not sure what to say

-One Medium Sized White Dot on a layer above the lineart where the pupil borders the Iris (or the whites of the eyes if you’re like me and you make the pupil and Iris one thing) works for a glint in the eye that makes a person look less dead and more cute. How big you’re gonna make it depends on how adorable you want the person to be

-SMOOTH BORDERS FOR THE SHADING ARE REALLY IMPORTANT IF YOURE DOING CEL SHADING which is why firealpaca is my best friend thanks line smoothing. If you’re doing like. Soft shading or painterly shit or other kinds of shading it’s less Super Important but like. Still be sort of neat. Unless being really messy and sketchy is what you’re going for but even then you still need to be sort of careful

-for simple backgrounds, it’s like. Easy to make it interesting. Add polka dots to the background or a big old square or a gradient or a cloud filter or something the possibilities are endless. Another option is to straight up make it transparent and write a secret message in white on the side. But uhh never do a blank white background at the very least fill it with a solid color

-ok style is kind of hard because I never had to struggle to find my style? I just “drew in my handwriting” so to speak and then if along the way I realized something looked shitty I just changed how I drew it slightly? I guess a thing you could do if you’re in tune enough is look at the styles of things you do like and things you don’t and figure out why you do and don’t like it. “I like how *2010s cartoon* does Eyes!” great take that general concept. “I hate how this shitty yaoi has enormous hands!” great then don’t do that. It’s all Personal Preference my dude style is Your Own Thing

-notes aren’t everything but fuck do they feel nice. Self reblogs are fine but don’t overdo it, I’d say reblog it Twice to account for time zones and tag it as self reblog so as to not be a dick

This got long whoops. That’s all I can think of but I hope this helps it’s All I Know