An introduction of DOOOOOOM

Hi guys, I'm new here!  I've been a brony since early Season 2 (like October 2012 or so) and I'm starting to branch out to various sites in search of other chill people.

Some details about mine self:

-- Digital artist (hobbyist currently, but starting to get serious)
-- Aspiring game designer (either video or conventional games, not sure yet)
-- Part-time worker, full-time student, all-the-time awesome person
-- Curator of the finest fanfiction (seriously, if you want suggestions for what to read, ask me.  I have spreadsheets.)
-- Casual player of Starcraft 2, Magic: the Gathering, Minecraft, and League of Legends.

Some places where I regularly hang out online:

-- Website for Nightfall in Equestria, an MLP-themed Magic: the Gathering block. (My pet project).
-- Minecraft server, Arkfall
-- DeviantArt account.  (I'm taking requests now, eventually will start commissions.)

It's a pleasure to meet you all, and if you actually read all the way down to here, I hereby award you one free internet.

-- Doom

Greetings, and welcome to the forums! I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we're glad to have you here. Currently, most of the activity comes from the Fallout: Equestria-related threads, but we have some other active threads related to things like art and music. The regulars here are usually over in the PHCC Chat Thread in General Chat. We also have a Steam group where we occasionally get together for game nights. Lastly, if you have any questions about anything, feel free to contact RoboRed or CamoBadger, who are the two head admins.

With that out of the way, it's great to have another fellow artist here on the forum. Most of us seem to tinker with digital art to different extents, and quite a few of us are avid gamers, so you are among like-minded people. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Greetings and Salutations!
Iron pretty much covered the basics of all of us crazies on the site. It's an on and off thing with the Teamspeak Server hosted by CptAdder for game nights, depending on if anyone feels like dragging everyone else along to play something. Stoneslinger and I can usually be found on there chilling out if someone feels like chatting, as well as most of us in a Skype Group.

*notices your avatar*
You drew that? *squees*
That looks amazing! Do you have tips on shading? What do you use to draw?
*looks at DA account*

*ahem*
Sorry. Really like drawing, but takes practically as long as Fred Gallagher to draw something. My avatar took me about three to four weeks of working on it about half an hour every day on average. Anyways, welcome to Cloudsville! Enjoy your stay!

OneMoreDaySK wrote:You drew that? *squees*
That looks amazing! Do you have tips on shading? What do you use to draw?  

Thank you very much. :D

I use Photoshop CS5.  My Wacom "Bamboo" tablet isn't fancy, but it gets the job done.  As far as tips for shading, if you're using a "paint" program like Photoshop, SAI, etc, there are four things to keep in mind:

[1] -- Lower your brush's flow rate.  This allows you to shade very easily. 5-15% is what I use for shading.

[2] -- Decrease your brush's hardness.  Low flow with high hardness looks really weird, trust me.

[3] -- Increase your brush size.  On a 12000 px document, I'll typically use a 300-500 px brush for small shading, and a 1000-2000 px brush to shade large things.

[4] -- Using fancy brush styles isn't usually necessary.  I just use the default round brush for everything, although I do have multiple hardness/flow presets for that brush to make my life easier.

Thanks for the advice, but I was kinda hoping more on where to shade in a picture, as opposed to the technical aspects. I suck at figuring out how lighting direction affects the shade. More or less keep practicing, is what I'm told. But on what to practice on? *shrugs*

Also a Photoshop user on a Bamboo Capture.