Ponythread Learns to Draw! Together!

[Beacon of Chaos]

I'm not going to claim I pay any real attention to it in my own work, but one thing strikes me.

I have no idea where the light is coming from in the picture there.

The characters seem to be lit from above, and/or towards the camera. The cylindrical hatbox from the right, but it's shadow from the left. The box matches it's own shadow, but seems lit from above and to the left, somewhere past and behind Santa.

However, shading weirdness aside, the colours are good, and it really brings it all together nicely, I get a much stronger sense of "Oh, you!" from Santa.
Also, best present.

Yeeeeah. It started off with the light coming from the camera and then went up, I guess. Then the gift boxes had their own lights. I dunno. I was a bit annoyed because Photoshop was fighting me while I was doing it (you'd think that clicking the button to turn off the pressure sensitivity would do something but noooo) so I did what I usually do and said "Screw it. Good enough."

The best advice I got with shading is to think of your drawing as consisting of simpler forms smashed together, and then try and shade those forms. So it isn't an arm or a torso, it's a cylinder with some oval lumps or a slightly puffed out rectangular prism. Also practice shading those simple forms in different lightings as part of your fundamentals to get something to build on.

I guess I can try that. Thanks for the tip.

Speaking of tips, this tumblr (http://artiststoolbox.tumblr.com/) has loads of little tutorials and things gathered within. Well worth a look.