Help with crosshatching

[sinkoman]

Hey all, i've never really posted in this forum. Oh well.

Anyway, I need some help with my crosshatching. It always ends up looking like just one small section of hatch. I can never get the hatch to look like it's fading in and then out. Here's an example.

http://img249.echo.cx/my.php?image=cell12zn.png

This pic is Uber old, and i've progressed much when it comes to the rest of the stuff in the drawing, but i'm pretty much still stuck in the same place for the stipling and the crosshatching. For the bush and the tree, I started getting pissed off at my inability to hatch and just scribbled in the spots that were supposed to be dark :E The stipling looks O.K. zoomed out (http://img135.echo.cx/my.php?image=cell1web9ml.gif) but the crosshatching still looks like darkened rectangles :frown:

Here's another example. It's the second cell of a comic I was working on (the other image being the first cell) I found that crosshatching didn't really work out for me, so I decided to try a different shading technique. I like to call it random-scriblling-'n-scratching.



That didn't work out too well, but I posted it as a thumbnail because it looked ok to me when I stuck the picture on a wall in the living room and backed up all the way into the kitchen.

Well you get the idea, I pretty much suck at shading. I'll try to find some more recent pictures or just wip up something else to show you where i'm at now.

So how do you guys do it :O

 

[eatbugs]

Don't focus too much on cross hatching, it's shading that you need to work on (although Michelangelo was a great one for cross hatching) if I were you I'd have a look at a few Michelangelo sketches to get an idea. I should scan one for you to give you a guide.

There, I scanned this for you, hope it helps, look at the underside of his leg and it's evident there. I could scan more but this is all I can be bothered with right now. Sorry if it's not too great but it's just to give you an idea. Hatching isn't essential anyway, Michelangelo only did it for sculpting purposes.

 

[CR0M]

Hatching is just shading using strokes. Short of using a very soft pencil and smudging it with your finger or stippling, that's all you CAN do.

Vary the direction of the lines so they're not all going diagonal bottom left to top right (as you're right handed) and keep em short. For detailed areas follow the contours of what you are drawing with the strokes. Using the pencil at a shallow angle so it's almost parallel with the paper gives a wider, darker stroke and is good for non-detailed background shading.

Think about the highlights and shadows as you shade, squinting cancels out colours and shows objects in higher contrast - do this to see where darkness and light are at their strongest. Using the edge of an eraser gives sharp highlights.

To begin with just use 1 lightsource and assume the opposite side is going to be darkest. When you are ok with your style move up to 2 and then start considering ambient and reflected light etc.

 

[MikeL15]

Uh... CROM pretty much got it I guess, but basically, use thick lines for darker areas, and thin lines for brighter areas. Also, use double hatching for dark areas, and normal hatching for brighter areas...

Heres kinda an example... I didnt feel like scanning anything though, so I had to do it on the computer... kinda sucks, but you should get the general idea.

 

[TheSomeone]

Crosshatching with a pencil and with a pen is not the same thing. Although you can vary line width with a pencil, you can't with a pen. In that case, you vary line spacing rather than width. The tighter the lines are together, the darker it'll be.

Here is a small tutorial on ball-point pen crosshatching: http://www.portrait-artist.org/basics/techniques2.html

 

[MikeL15]

Kinda off-topic, but everyone says you cant shade normally with a pen. But Ive done it. Its easy, just dont press as hard on the lighter spots. It might work with hatching also, but I havnt tried it yet...

 

[baron insig]

Kinda off-topic, but everyone says you cant shade normally with a pen. But Ive done it. Its easy, just dont press as hard on the lighter spots. It might work with hatching also, but I havnt tried it yet...

yeah you can all you have to do is use the pen very lightly,and use it like a pencil in the way u add a base shade to large arease practice it ive found it very useful when i cross hatch

 

[Druckles]

I tend not to shade, and if I do, it looks like a scribble lol. Therefore I stick with web design/cartoons and other stuff that doesn't require pencil shading

 

[SE7EN]

try drawing 3d boxes, and draw lots of lines on them... give them some good shading. Just let your mind do the work, not your hand. =)