Style advice please? D:

[Rin]

Hello there~ I need some advice for my style, shading to be more specific.
I used to drew and shaded with solid color in a few layers. This is a sample sketch (I sketched others' OC)



And I just tried to make the gradation softer, as well as added some realistic on the face. I colored on 1 layer.



I personally prefer the former shading style for clothes but the new one for the skin/face. But that's just me I guess? One of my friend said the former style looks much much much better in every side, and I shouldn't change. The new style fail ;_; Lemme zoom the face, here:

>>>>



I think not much people prefer the realistic style here, since I don't see much VN's art uses it (or not any), but give it a try wouldn't hurt :p Speaking of skin, I don't use light color for it, seems much darker and orange-oriented than others. Is it bad?

Please gimme some critics/advices about the two face styles, I'd be grateful for any. Other things than face is always welcome.

Thankies :3

[Auro-Cyanide]

What program are you using?

[Deji]

I think it would look good if you could , somehow, mix the two styles (hard and soft) for the clothing. I like how the skin looks in the softer coloring, personally.

[Rin]

What program are you using?

I'm currently using SAI for both sketching and coloring. It works pretty well with pressure :p

I think it would look good if you could , somehow, mix the two styles (hard and soft) for the clothing. I like how the skin looks in the softer coloring, personally.

Thx Deji, it's really nice to have your advice :p I can figured out the mixing style you mentioned. Still I think I need some practicing before it works properly. I couldn't identify where it'd be darker and where lighter for now that's why my shading fail I suppose ;_;

[Auro-Cyanide]

Like Deji said, if you are going for softer shading, you do have to use a mixture of hard and soft, otherwise everything looks wishy washy and it lacks depth.

To be able to shade well, you do need to understand how the shadows will fall. The first thing to do is figure out where your light source is. If you have to draw a little sun on your page to remind yourself, do it. After that, you have to imagine the forms in 3D and imagine what would happen if the light fell on them. Studying from life can help you a lot with this.

I like your soft shading one, but it's too soft. It might help if you paint in hard shadows and light first and then blend. With lighting, shadows can be hard or soft depending on the strength of the light, how close the object is to the light source, diffusion of light and the material and shape of the object. There are lots of good tutorials around about shading and light. I really like fox-orian's on DA.

[Omnificent]

I'm actually biased in favor of the hard shading for everything. I think high-contrast works well with your more stylized and sharp-lined art, making it pop off the page more.