How do you decide where to put the full black shadows? It's an element I love in art and I really enjoy seeing it in your art - I struggle sometimes with deciding how much to use that effect though, I findit so easy to go too far and flatten out the drawing too much or take away more detail than I like.
Hey that's a really good question! The shitass self-taught artist core answer is that I do it when it Feels Right, but I wanted to answer this properly, so I thought about it a bit, and this is what I came up with. lol
Basically I use solid blacks for emphasis of
1. Shape
2. Drama
3. Material
So, let's look at that in more detail. In my art, I tend to use cel shading, which lacks the variety in depth of shadows that you'd see in more realistically rendered art. All shapes are naturally gonna look flatter. Solid blacks can help overephasize the darkest of shadows, creating more contrast with the lightest parts of the drawing, and adding overall depth.
The trick here is to use it sparingly - I want the shadows to follow the curvature of the object, and any significant variations in its shape should remain discernible. Here's an example to show what I mean:
the solid blacks here follow the wrinkling of material, adding depth to the shapes created by the clothing, and adding contrast between this part of the character, which is away from the source of light - and the part in light (face and hands) which is meant to be the focal point of the drawing. Note that even though there is no reason for the butt to be darker/in more shadow than the grass it's sitting on, I kept the grass green - I don't want the character to be blending in with the background.
Basically, it's important to remember that any part of a drawing that is covered in solid black is not going to have any detail, only implication. Its purpose is to make the amount of detail in other parts of the drawing all the more significant. When choosing where to put solid blacks, you're also choosing where NOT to put them, and making that the important part of the drawing.
Here's an example to illustrate what I've tried to get across so far:
While solid blacks signify the deepest shadows in the drawing, it's not a simple as placing them where deepest shadows ACTUALLY would be. We're not making realistic art here - it's all about artistic representation, and emphasis. Hence the "drama" point at the start! To illustrate what I mean, an often used example of a purely dramatic choice of solid black shadow is the Serious Eyes:
Or, for instance, you might cover the eyes completely with a solid shadow to communicate something about the character (this one's lifted from a wip lol)
To sum it all up, here's a piece of mine from a while ago annotated with some notes!
Now, I did also mention material - this post is already long as fuck, so I'll be quick. Sometimes in my art I like to use solid blacks to emphasize the way metals and leathers reflect light and create strong contrasts between lights and shadows :)
Do note how in the example focused on drama and material, the shadows still follow the shape of the clothing/object/body. Careful not to obscure details that contribute to perspective and the level of realism I'm going for.
I hope this was helpful in some kind of way, or at least informative!! Let me know if u want me to talk about anything further lol. And thank you for asking! <3
