Less effort, more results?

[Rio]

Why do crosshatching when you can do something simpler like gradation? All you have to worry about is how hard you're pressing on the pencil.

[GunZet]

Shading with a pencil is as simple as having control over your pencil and how much pressure you apply. Another big factor is the hardness of the pencil, a regular HB #2 should work good enough.
[personal experience] Shading with a .7 lead pencil is...difficult.

[Fenn]

Why do crosshatching when you can do something simpler like gradation? All you have to worry about is how hard you're pressing on the pencil.

Becuz I am a noob. And the shading always ends up just looking like scribbles or zigzags...

Shading with a pencil is as simple as having control over your pencil and how much pressure you apply. Another big factor is the hardness of the pencil, a regular HB #2 should work good enough.
[personal experience] Shading with a .7 lead pencil is...difficult.

Yep I tried that too. Terrible.

[Scarletlight]

Oh...I was just basing it off the suggestions. I'll try more stuff, although it's not going to matter what I draw until I figure out how to shade with a pencil! I've tried crosshatching but I lose the simplicity of the piece and it starts looking as complex as Gunzet's stuff, only ugly...

Shading with pencil takes pacience. Its not the type of medium you can just pick up having learnt others. For example having learnt to cross hatch with biro, you can then adapt to ink nibs, markers and ect faster but.. pencil stands alone. Its the first tool you use as an artist but the hardest to master in my opinion. You just have to keep at it. The most important thing it not to be afraid to apply pressure.

[Rio]

Fenn, you should try using a tortillion. It's basically a piece of pointed paper that you can use to help smudge/blend your pencil work so you get the gradation that you want (or to smooth out the lines). You can buy it at art stores but if you prefer, you can make your own:


How to make a tortillion by ~edelric666 on deviantART

This may be helpful as well:

[Hamachi]

Could you please explain this with an example?

Blargh, I put off responding to this for an extremely long time and kinda regret it now.

What I mean is carefully taking each step in illustration to its limits. For example. You're drawing a person.

Most people start with a stick figure, right? Does that mean you can just draw some lines and then draw the body right over it?
The answer is no. Even when starting with a stick figure you have to take into account how gravity factors in and whether the center of weight is correctly positioned. If you're drawing an action pose, you have to set a good foundation for tension even in your skeleton. Action and reaction, stretch and squash. Add that to perspective and correct proportions and you've already got an armful.

Do you, then, just draw some general shapes over your skeleton? Sort of, but it's harder then that. You can try using general rectangles and cylinders... right? Yes and no. You need to have a strong grasp of how each part fits in perspective and in relation to all the other parts, which is where people fudge things up a lot, myself included. You also have to have an innate sense of what unique shape each body part might create based on the context of the drawing, which is based on anatomical knowledge.

Then, detailing. Oh could I count the ways I've done this wrong. I could talk forever on this subject, but I'll just say that knowing how things should look before you make mistakes is not an easy thing to do. Then you move on to textures and lighting, and things just get... peachy, shall we say?

All this goes to say that there's a lot of factors you have to pay attention to when drawing just about anything, and you have to know what they are and progress carefully to end up with a good drawing. If I wanted to draw a face and didn't know what eyes look like from different angles... well you get my drift.

[Fenn]

Shading with pencil takes pacience. Its not the type of medium you can just pick up having learnt others. For example having learnt to cross hatch with biro, you can then adapt to ink nibs, markers and ect faster but.. pencil stands alone. Its the first tool you use as an artist but the hardest to master in my opinion. You just have to keep at it. The most important thing it not to be afraid to apply pressure.

I'm starting to think fear is my biggest issue, which is silly but probably true.

Fenn, you should try using a tortillion. It's basically a piece of pointed paper that you can use to help smudge/blend your pencil work so you get the gradation that you want (or to smooth out the lines). You can buy it at art stores but if you prefer, you can make your own:

[Rio's image]

This may be helpful as well:

That tool loooks quite handy. As for the chart, I had an idea about it already, but it brings up a good point: when I good to shade, the pencil marks end up looking like that: squiggles. Am I supposed to just smudge it to make it look more seamless? For some odd reason I always thought of smudging as "cheating" and unreliable...

Blargh, I put off responding to this for an extremely long time and kinda regret it now.

What I mean is carefully taking each step in illustration to its limits. For example. You're drawing a person.

Most people start with a stick figure, right? Does that mean you can just draw some lines and then draw the body right over it?
The answer is no. Even when starting with a stick figure you have to take into account how gravity factors in and whether the center of weight is correctly positioned. If you're drawing an action pose, you have to set a good foundation for tension even in your skeleton. Action and reaction, stretch and squash. Add that to perspective and correct proportions and you've already got an armful.

Do you, then, just draw some general shapes over your skeleton? Sort of, but it's harder then that. You can try using general rectangles and cylinders... right? Yes and no. You need to have a strong grasp of how each part fits in perspective and in relation to all the other parts, which is where people fudge things up a lot, myself included. You also have to have an innate sense of what unique shape each body part might create based on the context of the drawing, which is based on anatomical knowledge.

Then, detailing. Oh could I count the ways I've done this wrong. I could talk forever on this subject, but I'll just say that knowing how things should look before you make mistakes is not an easy thing to do. Then you move on to textures and lighting, and things just get... peachy, shall we say?

All this goes to say that there's a lot of factors you have to pay attention to when drawing just about anything, and you have to know what they are and progress carefully to end up with a good drawing. If I wanted to draw a face and didn't know what eyes look like from different angles... well you get my drift.

You my friend, get a cookie. Brilliant, very helpful.

[Rio]

That tool loooks quite handy. As for the chart, I had an idea about it already, but it brings up a good point: when I good to shade, the pencil marks end up looking like that: squiggles. Am I supposed to just smudge it to make it look more seamless? For some odd reason I always thought of smudging as "cheating" and unreliable...

You don't have to if you don't want to. Some people leave the lines alone which creates a unique look to the finished piece but if you want to blend everything, that's fine too.

Pencil lines not as blended:


Pencil lines really blended:

[Fenn]

You don't have to if you don't want to. Some people leave the lines alone which creates a unique look to the finished piece but if you want to blend everything, that's fine too.

Pencil lines not as blended:

Pencil lines really blended:

Thanks. I'm working on the "drawing on the right side of the brain" workbook and eventually I'll get to shading.

[GunZet]

Don't think about it, just do it. Your brain takes care of the rest. Confidence is something that is an absolute MUST with art, if you're not confident, nothing works.
Go for it bro, looking forward to some results.