Beware? Yes, beware.

Photoshop is a tool. For some, it can be a great help. For others, it can be a hindrance.

What do I mean? Well, I'm not going to link to any specific works, because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm picking on them.

But think about it this way. You wouldn't use a screwdriver to pound in a nail, would you? And you wouldn't use a hammer to put in a screw, would you? Of course not. Hammers and screwdrivers are both great tools, but they do different things well.

Photoshop... has a lot of tools. But sometimes I see people trying to use these tools instead of developing their own talents. (At least, that's what it looks like to me.)

Folks, learn to color. I don't mean just take a crayon and scribble some color into a space on a sheet of paper. Seriously sit down and learn how to use color to convey what you want to convey. How should the texture of this section go? Which directions should my lines go? How should I transition from one color to the next? Where do the shadows and highlights go?

I see a lot of people out there using Photoshop to make up for their lack of color-thought. Photoshop makes colors look really good. It's like Crayons on steroids. AWESOME COLOR! So nice! But awesome Photoshop colors do not entirely make up for lack of thought in the process. A major problem I see in pictures like this is that people don't pay very good attention to the lights and darks. They just throw on some color, then throw in some random highlights and some random shadows, and yay, it looks good! But in the end you've got blobby shadows all over the place with no real rhyme or reason to them.

Does this mean folks should throw out their copies of Photoshop? NO! It just means that you have to keep in mind that even though what you get with it probably looks a lot better than what you would get with some colored pencils and paper, on a technical level, you haven't necessarily improved.

Now here: [link] is a nice little tutorial on using Photoshop to do shadows. It doesn't really matter whether you're doing your art with crayons, pencils, oils, spray paint, Photoshop, or whatever--so long as you learn to use your medium well and keep trying to advance your technical abilities. Don't use a particular medium to try to skip the learning process. While this tutorial is specific to photoshop, the basic underlying ideas it presents are pretty standard and would apply to shading in any medium--just the process would be different.

And here [link] is a much more detailed tutorial on some shading basics.

Good luck.

I'm sure folks are at least somewhat aware of the various DRAMA which goes on over in the "popular" gallery. In case you've missed it, I'll summarize the various sorts of drama which tend to go down.

Someone "popular" posts something. Someone posts a critique. Hordes of raving fans jump all over them for being a horrible human being who would daaare say anything less than ass-kissing about their favorite artist.

Someone popular posts something. There are accusations of cheating/stealing/breaking of rules of some sort. Raving fans duke it out or something.

And something which ought to cause drama, but for some reason doesn't: Someone "popular" posts a total piece of shit which belongs in 'scraps' at *best* and their raving fans fall all over themselves complimenting it and pushing it onto the front page. If it's a completely derivative piece of shit which they basically copied from some popular anime or video game, even better! Because who cares about actually putting in the effort to create an original work of art when you can just copy someone else and ride their coat tails to popularity?

Oh look, it's an shitty comic based on Kingdom Hearts: [link] Let's all go fave it!

What, another one? [link]

And a craptastic Naruto comic: [link] It must be good because it's NARUTO!

I'm sorry, but what the fuck is this and why in hell is it on the front page?: [link]

And what about the 'good' art?
[link] Oh look at me, I'm copying Final Fantasy. How original!

[link] This one isn't even as good as the last one, but OMG it's a Naruto character, it has to be awesome. Even though his pants look idiotic.

[link] Oh good, more Pokemon art. Because a bad TV show and a game for preteens which came out what, a decade ago, is exactly what I think of when I think of fine art.

[link] Is this supposed to be a comic? Learn how to draw borders. Then learn how to make your own damn characters.

[link] Oh look, I drew Kingdom Hearts Characters!

[link] Don't tell her, but she forgot his nose. His nose. How the hell is he supposed to breathe?

[link] It's a sketch. A sketch, people, and it's not even a particularly good one. Her left hand looks like it just got crushed by a car door. But at least it's not just a fucking Naruto clone.

[link] this is the only fanart on the popular page which deserves to be here because this is the only one which has actually gone above and beyond the original character to create something new.


Out of the 24 pics on the popular page, only about 10 of them are actually worthy of the spot. The rest are either bad or just not that good.

Welcome. Most of the material here is older concept work for some of my stories. Some of it is random doodles.

What should you know about me? I guess that I'm lazy, liberal, and like elves. I draw a couple of comic strips: [link] and [link]

And I had icecream and cookies for dinner. I love being an adult.