I was reading back through the replies today and I think I may have some tips for y'all struggling with shading/anatomy. I am no professional but I can still try to help <3
Words that go with the images are found below the image
Mods- linking at lot of stuff so everything (c) 222973 // ilasdoodles@da unless otherwise stated.
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https://i.postimg.cc/fzszGpJv/image.png
1st tutorial, back legs)
1-Start with a big rough shape. If you have a dog at home, it helps to take a quick peek just to make sure that you're doing your hip right.
2-Draw a long oval with a circle at the end (it's the joint!)
3-Draw in a paw and connect it to the circle at the end of the oval
2nd tutorial, front legs)
1-General shape for shoulder, I like to leave a little room on the bottom for the elbow joint
2-Circles for the elbow and where you want the paw's joint to be. Keep in mind the paw will go below this and the elbow should be lower than where I drew it
3-Draw the paw, connect it to the joint
3rd tutorial, paws)
1-Rectangle and circle because I can't draw paws without a reference point to where they're connected
2-Triangle for the paw
3-Connect the paw to the rectangle, smooth out the top pointy part of the triangle, and then add details
4th tutorial, smooth shading)
this is really rough and I promise I don't normally draw like this I was just being too lazy to make a decent head for this tutorial
1-Start with a flat grey color and decide where your light source is. It helps to indicate this with an arrow on another layer. Add some very general shading
2-Never shade without highlights. Add highlights in areas like the top of the head, cheekbones, and snout
3-Add some more shading, darker and smaller than the ones before. The goal is to outline your features in a clear way and the viewer needs to be able to pick out shapes
4-More, smaller highlights
5-Final, smaller shadings
Also note: it's best if you use either a red, blue, purple, green, or any other dark color to shade. You need to be able to find a good color for the character as well as the background. Red shading normally looks very good on blue characters. For example, I used red/purple shading here: ( https://www.deviantart.com/ilasdoodles/art/Leap-811784841 ) and green shading here: ( https://www.deviantart.com/ilasdoodles/art/YTH-YFH-COMPLETED-811825803 )
5th tutorial, roughly painted shading)
This is all on one layer. My brush has a little bit of blending in it already and I use it for everything in this style
1-Start with a flat base, I normally have a base painted with my rough brush (if you're using paint tool sai, I use the "blots and noise" brush with a "paper texture") but I'm a lazybones so reusing the last headshot "base" I made
2-Just dump some shading on there. It won't look good, if anything it'll probably look odd. But patience will pay off!
3-Color grab the first base layer and lighten it just the tiniest bit. Start to add highlights
4-Even more brightness! But don't cover as much with this highlight as the last one, try to only capture the areas where the most light hits
-Re-add your shading in the areas where it's needed
5-Cover up the oddness of the re-added shading with the same color used for the base layer
I highly recommend tweaking the image for as long as it takes for it to look right to you. I can share brush settings for my paint tool sai friends. The second example linked at the bottom of the smooth shading tutorial has an example of what my rough shading looks like, I just added some hints of green to make it blend in!
6th tutorial, detailed painting)
Already made this one, very outdated but it still gets my point across :')
Words n stuff in the link
https://sta.sh/01kn6q3gy6j8