Can anyone here draw worth a damn?

[Guest chirs3]

Just to give myself a reason not to go to bed until 2 AM every night, I bought a shiny new mechanical pencil and box of Crayola colored pencils, and started staying up late, drawing various cartoon characters (thanks to Kazaa, I can download the episodes, pause it, and use it as source material).

 

Now then.

 

How the HELL do I do shadows with just a mechanical pencil and a box of Crayola's? Is it even possible? I can make certain sections of skin look like they're covered in dirt, or perhaps infected or frostbitten, but never like they're shadowed. Same with clothing, armor, whatever.

 

Anyone?

[Guest 5_moves_of_doom]

Well, you can't. Obviously.

[Secret Agent 0]

I always find mechanical pencils hard to draw with, but doing shadows or shading in general is all in the pressure. I recommed a set of drawing pencils with various lead weights.

[Guest TheAntipop]

I'm pretty sure there's lots of good drawing tips here.

[Guest Grand Slam]

As a man married to an artist, I have three suggestions without waking up my wife and asking her, although I will later...

 

1. Crosshatching - If you are working in a very "line art style", which it sounds like you are, you can draw little crosshatched lines to mark shadows. This is a very "black and white" method, and if you are coloring, may not work the best.

 

2. Soft lead - Short of buying art pencils, this is a great way to shade. Buy some of the softer lead available for mechanical pencils (ask someoe at the local office supply store, the numbering system escapes me for the moment) Put the pencil at an angle to a scratch paper and start to "color". Eventually, the lead will be worn at an angle and you can get a nice, smooth mark on the page. Go to your drawing and fill in the shadows. Now with a tissue paper or your finger blend the darkest part of the shadow out to the non shadowed part. Shadows are all about a color gradient.

 

Blend Crayola colors - According to Debbie (my wife) Crayolas are great because they are a smooth color. With minimal pressure you can get a nice shade on the page. If you put more than one color in an area with that minimal pressure, you tend to mix the color a little bit. Experimant on scratch paper and see if you can get whatever color you need to shade to blend smoothly from the base color to a darker version, denoting the shadows.

 

If my wife has any other suggestions (and I'm sure she will) I'll have her post them here.