That moment I realized I was shading everything completely wrong

I was drawing at 2 AM (like you do) and trying to shade a sphere with cross-hatching, and it kept coming out looking like a weird hairy potato. My partner walked by and said "why are you using the side of your pencil like it's a crayon?" and I just froze. Turns out I had been holding my pencil nearly flat for 6 months, thinking that's how you get smooth shadows. Has anyone else had a basic technique click after someone pointed out a simple mistake like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesley_hart5d ago

Wait, are you sure that's actually why it looked wrong? I mean, yeah, holding it flat is a common mistake, but honestly the real issue with cross-hatching is almost always about the direction of your lines and how tight your spacing is, not the pencil angle. Using the side of the pencil can actually give you nice soft shading if you're doing it with purpose. The fact that you were trying to cross-hatch with the side of the pencil is the weird part to me. You kind of picked the one shading method where you absolutely need a sharp tip and consistent line direction. Nobody ever talks about how cross-hatching is basically just controlled scribbling with a point.

robert2755d ago

Had a similar thing happen with blending stumps. Thought you were supposed to smash the tip into the paper like a stamp. Took me forever to figure out you actually drag it. Felt pretty dumb after that one.