Part 3: The Need for Speed

The shading method I was using for much of early 2019 was slow, as I had to design a shadow color pallet to use. This became a problem when I joined my first collaborative spec project, OurFoodChain.

Some of my early OurFoodChain species were actually unshaded, because I was trying to hit the project's 2 species daily limit. The first species I submitted with shading was this thing:


The shading on this, and all of my shaded OurFoodChain artwork, is vastly simplified from what I was doing before--instead of having a shadow color pallet, I just used blending modes like soft light and overlay and did the actual shading in black and white.


This method carried into my early Sagan 4 Beta species:



And even into my earliest Alpha species, though I started using more gradients to fake good lighting better:



I consider the need for speed to be a bit of a step back in the development of my shading style, as it does not look as good as the slower method that I originally learned. However, shading with blending modes was absolutely vital to how I arrived at my current style, so showcasing this step is necessary to transition into part 4 of how I learned to shade.

Part 2: Refined by Necessity

After drawing that AU version of Sonic, I immediately began work on refining the process with additional artwork. After a few weird experiments, I arrived at the method I used for a very long time, first seen in this drawing of one of my OCs, Gomedha:


Gomedha's design is a lot more complicated than what I had been drawing up to this point, not to mention more complicated than any characters covered in the tutorial I learned from. For example, just having a shadow color pallet to pick colors from when drawing edges or gradients doesn't work because she has a bunch of complicated markings that aren't contained by convenient lineart like Sonic's belly was.

The way I handled it was with folders!


In essence, what is happening here is I have a folder called "contain" (name doesn't matter) which is set to "normal" blending mode. It contains all of my shadow layers, but in black. Clipped to that folder is another layer, "darkclip", which is a duplicate of the main coloring but recolored into the shadow color pallet. Both of these are contained in another folder set to "normal", which is clipped to the actual base color.

Doing it this way allowed me to not only shade the complicated markings with ease, but also made it much easier to change my shadow colors on the fly--all I would have to do is un-clip the shadow color layer and replace the colors. This is what it looks like without the darkclip layer:


However, I was not using this method by the time I joined Sagan 4. I'll get into why and how my strategy changed in part 3.

Shading is hard, and even if you have the light direction and basic shape of the shadows down it can still be tough to make it look good. This thread documents how I learned how to shade, which might be helpful to some of you.

Note that by the time I started shading my art, I already had a grasp on perspective and 3D visualization. This may not help you much if you're an absolute beginner artist.

Part 1: That time I drew a weird Sonic

Art programs that support layers and clipping are recommended. Don't use GIMP, it is really really bad for this. I used MediBang Paint Pro.

First and foremost, my current shading style is directly descended from what I learned from copying this tutorial: https://www.deviantart.com/herms85/art/How-...gehog-374292113

I simply did not try to shade before I used that tutorial. I just didn't. The first piece of art I ever made using the tutorial was this AU version of Sonic the Hedgehog:


Allow me to break it down...

In early pieces like this, I had a layer that I used as a shading guideline, showing light direction. This can be done by just drawing a bunch of lines radiating outward from the light source, and I had them cross over my drawing so that I could reference them while zoomed in. I don't do this anymore because I can keep light direction memorized now.


Onto the actual shading. I started with the hard shadows:

Note, it's good to turn off anti-aliasing when doing the lineart and shading (basically, when you zoom in you should see hard pixel edges). I'll get to why in a moment.

Now, shadow color can be a bit tricky. In some cases you can get away with just shading with black and setting the layer to soft light, however this doesn't work very well for white parts, such as (in this case) the gloves, sclera, and parts of the shoes. The method I used for this first piece was to just have a shadow color pallet and change the color I use when shading each part, using a light grey-blue for white parts. This method is not great, but I'm not gonna get into how I refined it just yet because it's really complicated to explain.

Now , hard edges alone don't really look that great, which can result in shading seeming like it's more trouble than it's worth (the main struggle I had when first learning to shade). They're best used where there is an actual physical edge and at the darkest parts of the object. This is where gradients come in.



So, the reason you should have anti-aliasing disabled is because the easiest way to get those gradients where you want them to be is to use the magic wand tool:


This lets you select individual chunks of the image to add gradients just to them. Anti-aliasing makes this more difficult, as it makes the edges blurry, so you can't select them properly. Your gradient should be from the local shadow color to either the base color or transparency, depending on what your art program of choice supports.

I did the same with "highlight" gradients (in this case just white and set to soft light), completing the shading:


After this, I considered my AU version of Sonic complete. However, it would not be long before I began to refine this shading method. Stay tuned for part 2.

MNIDJM Shouldn't this and other Sagan 4 related art threads be in Sagan 4 general? Tide pool specifically says it is for stuff that is not related to Sagan 4.

Fanart of Avian, the fursona of Tess (owner of Chicken Smoothie):


Which is coincidentally a redraw of one of if not the first pieces of artwork I ever posted online:


??????:


Off-site commissions:
Illie, who belongs to Pilotlight (and is absolutely adorable):


Valentine, who belongs to Suchgo:


More "Be An Alien" fan species (these and the previous one are from a fanfiction about an island continent that defies literally everything Caz has said about the world lol):
Narvaretherium


A basal "centaurisaur":


Crebit:


Another take on the one I posted before, Bakiron:

I should really post some of my non-Sagan art here. This is actually a clone of another art thread on another forum, but with Sagan 4 and Avolix art excluded because I already posted it elsewhere on this forum and chickenpaint art and chicken smoothie fanart included because it was specifically excluded on that other thread.

(Comments are allowed!)

Tira:


Serina fanart:




OCs:
Gomedha:


Faux:


Hohki:


Knight Wish (who absolutely cheated on his wife):


Be An Alien fanart:


Be An Alien fan species:


(cont. in next post, as there's a limit of 10 images per post)

Every single link here is dead Guess we need to make new tutorials?

I could probably make a few.

Clarke update: We can't ask for his input. He appears to not want anything to do with Sagan 4, and expressed this by blocking me on all social media.

Clarke has expressed disinterest in returning to Sagan 4 by blocking me on all social media

Making a bit of a callback to velishroot, descended from opportunity shrew:


Thinking of calling it something like velocitoon

I've illustrated a (harmless) collision between tamjack and marine tamow nests:


Possibly fitting for the seafaring shrew prompt, but I also think of it as just a funny little moment as well, like the previous drawing I did of a flumpus basking on a seashrog's nest.

The color difference is individual variation. Males and females normally only differ in size.

Admittedly, I forgot the pink insides of the ears. I'll just quietly fix that...

Lemupus:

I've added some bearhog prompts

A lot of major events in Sagan 4 history have no artwork to go with them. It would be nice if they did, as it helps illustrate Sagan 4's natural history. Here's a list of illustration ideas:

Major Events

• Solar flare or coronal mass striking Sagan 4 at the end of Week 1
• The impact event at the end of Week 2, perhaps from the ground seen by and/or obliterating biota of the era
• The irradiated landscape / dead biota following the gamma ray burst during Week 15
• The impact event at the beginning of Week 19, perhaps from the ground seen by and/or obliterating biota of the era
• Glaciers looming over summertime polar biomes in Week 21
• Something representing the loss of deep sea life as the sea levels dropped
• A winter scene during week 22
• A gif showing the ice spreading and the sea level dropping, then the reverse happening, from space throughout the ice age
• The supervolcanic event at the Week 21/22 boundary with orbit voltfloras firing as described
• A solar flare or coronal mass striking Sagan 4 at the end of Week 22
• Mason's seas boiling despite visible sea ice during the Week 23/24 boundary
• Fauna from different continents meeting for the first time when the supercontinent formed in Week 26

.

Minor/Local Events

• The hurricane and resulting debris/rafting event that happened in Week 6
• Dead and dying purple flora from the flora virus which occurred in Week 10
• Dry landscape and dead plants from the major drought which happened in Week 13
• The volcanic eruption that happened in Week 14, perhaps including the landscape right after when all the trees were knocked down
• Debris and fauna rafting following the super hurricane in Week 16
• The entrance to Rabid Sandstone Caves closed off after the cave-in in Week 17
• The volcanic eruption and its effects from Week 18
• Also Week 18, the effects of the minor impact event that created Ramul Crater
• From the super earthquake in Week 19:
  • The blood lava tube sea caves with their entrance closed off
  • The eruptions in the Hydro volcanic region
  • Tsunamis looming over Hydro Coast, Ovi Coast, Ninth Bay, South Polar Coast, Huggs Coast, and Krakow Coast
• The wildfires caused by the drought in Week 20
• Water rushing into various caves during the flooding events that followed the end of the ice age
• Last survivors on sinking islands

.

Broad clade-specific events

• Plents
  - The earliest ambulatory plents on the early landscape
• Worms
  - Beach thornworms crawling from the sea

.

Smaller named group events

• Sapients
  - Domestic/home scenes, any species
  - Encounters with wildlife
  - Tripodician's pyramids
  - Endlings following the mass extinction events
• Nodents
  - A nonibble mother with a train of offspring behind her, each holding on to the tail of the one in front of them; showing the first appearance of one of the most defining traits of nodents
  - Nogbarrels being the little disaster taxon they are, taking over the landscape when they evolved
  - Victims of no-snarf
  - Genteel tuskents, including domestic scenes with tripodicians and a scene of small breeds running feral after the end of the snowball event
  - Trogagons emerging from the caves following the end of the snowball
• Shrews
  - Victims of shrew plague
  - A depiction of the survival of the river shrews, such as them swimming with drowned death soriparasites detaching from their fur
  - A desert soriparasite attached to a cave-dwelling earback
  - Blood shrews emerging from the caves
  - A xolagoba rafting across the ocean
  - A joviglut during the impact winter at the start of week 19
  - Whiskerpicks during the snowball
  - Jaydoh island scene with multiple shrews
  - Seafaring shrews on the seas around Week 24
  - A beach cheekhorn rafting across the ocean, perhaps eating right from the debris it's rafting on like nothing's happening
• Saucebacks
  - An early sauceback in its environment
  - Victims of sauceback plague
  - Falsequill sauceback or a descendant that's still an ambush hunter, lunging at prey
  - Long eared saucebacks emerging from Martyk Sandstone Caves for the first time after the gamma ray burst
  - Oceanic False-Larval Saucebacks in Jujubee Polar Sea during the snowball
  - A scene of a glacial sauceback on the global glacier
  - Something representing the evolution of eyesight in Hearthead or its descendants
  - A visual comparison between the ability of earlier blind and later sighted saucebacks to detect brightly colored prey
• Bearhogs
  - A scene with a basal bearhog plent and an early sauceback (as they were competitors early on)
  - Pleeduhs in the aftermath of the gamma ray burst
  - Demise of the last cavehog
  - A scene featuring blind hoofplents
• Wingworms
  - A scene prominently featuring early wingworms in flight
  - Something representing the massive loss of wingworm diversity as a result of the ice age

.

Feel free to suggest more (but please keep them species-nonspecific where possible)! Also, if you plan to fill one of these prompts, please leave a comment.

Sometime during Week 25, Hydro said that there is no need for a basic list of niches. I'd argue that's false. Note, the niches listed are not the only niches and only cover what's a given. This post is a work in progress.

Here are some basic niches that will usually be filled in a given biome:

Flora
On Sagan 4, these can be filled by various flora groups. The specific flora groups present will dictate the niches to be filled by fauna.

Land:
• Crusts: Happy to live on a rock or bare dirt, helps break it up and add nutrients as well so new stuff can move in later too.
  Earth Examples: Lichen, some mosses
• Annual plants: The little stuff that pops up once a year when and where conditions are good. Often very r-selected. Can be thought of as the rodents of the plant world.
  Earth Examples: Dandelions
• Ground cover: Self-explanatory. May have adaptations to spread faster or get eaten more slowly than other flora, thus keeping itself as the dominant cover. Probably genusable, and multiple species and genera can coexist. Generally speaking, the ground cover can thrive in poor conditions, though it will still be patchy in certain environments such as deserts.
  Earth Examples: Grass (modern, grows stupidly fast and can regrow when all parts except roots are eaten); horsetails (prehistoric, literally made of glass so eating it destroys your teeth, thus it was eaten less than other plants and could take over)
• Bushes and shrubs: Usually woody plants that can be scattered or clustered in an open biome, either a shrubland or an immature forest, or sometimes dotting a desert.
  Earth examples: Bushes (obviously), smaller cacti
• Sun-loving tree: Large plant that pops up where it can in an open patch of land or a young forest, but doesn't do well if trees that cast a lot of shade start to grow nearby. Scattered in savannas and shrubland, might be found in some plains and deserts.
  Earth examples: Acacia, pines, large cacti technically
• Shade-tolerant tree: Large plant that takes over large patches of land in a biome, keeps others away by casting shadows. Not always actually a tree, can be a shrub if the biome doesn't support large size. Usually absent in desert and plains. Multiple species and unrelated genera can coexist.
  Earth Examples: Oaks and hickory (forests), small oak trees in chaparrals
• Dim light specialists: Plants that can thrive in dimmer light, such as in the shadows of larger plants. Largely absent in deserts and plains.
  Earth Examples: Moss, some ferns
• Low soil quality specialists: Plants that can live in patches of low soil quality (such as from toxic compounds, lack of nitrogen or phosphorus, or simply being too thin) where nothing else but ground cover (and sometimes not even that) can live. Sometimes carnivorous, if the quality is low enough.
  Earth Examples: Tumbleweed, venus fly trap
• Generalist macro decomposers: Like mushrooms. Usually small. Many different kinds can coexist.
  Earth Examples: Mushrooms
• Specialist macro decomposers: Often variants of the decomposers present, especially present in forests. On Earth, this mostly ends up being wood and bone decomposers. On Sagan IV, depending on the flora and fauna present there might also be chitin-wood specialists, flass specialists, etc.
  
  Ocean/Sea:
• Mangrove: Tree which grows in coastline waters and salty/brackish wetlands.
  Earth Examples: Mangroves (obviously)
• Meadow plant: Covers the seabed in sheltered regions, like ground cover.
  Earth Examples: Seagrass
• Submerged forest plant: Tall seaweed (up to a few meters tall) which resides in cool upwelling zones, but can be found in patches elsewhere as well.
  Earth Examples: Kelp
• Sessile planktivore: Anchored organism that eats plankton as water flows over or through it. Usually not a plant, but does not have to be an animal, so I'm not counting it as fauna. If it lives in shallow waters, it might be a planimal.
  Earth Examples: Many cnidarians, sponges, mussels
• Reefbuilder: Sessile planktivore that can build either on top of others or by growing and branching continuously, forming what we know as reefs.
  Earth examples: Corals, some sponges, rudists (prehistoric)
• Hydrogen sulfide chemosynthesis: Larger macro organism which produces food using chemosynthesis, requiring hydrogen sulfide. Broadcast spawner which can settle at vents, cold seeps, and whale falls all over the seafloor.
  Earth Examples: Tube worms
• Methane chemosynthesis: Smaller macroscopic organism which produces food using chemosynthesis, requiring methane. Broadcast spawner which can settle at vents, cold seeps, and whale falls all over the seafloor. May act as ground cover.
  Earth Examples: Bathymodiolus

More (and fauna) to be added.

"Needs a descendant to account for an evolutionary pressure" and "should literally actually die because it has no way out of the extremely bad situation it is in" are completely different. The former does not belong on this thread.

I don't think those are maladapted in the same way.

Insects in deserts are actually quite plentiful, especially underground. Megafaunal insectivores are questionable, but as ectotherms, they don't need to eat tons of them as long as they don't have a high metabolism to keep up with. There's snakes that specialize in eating the juveniles of one species of lizard for a small part of the year, and just never eat the rest of the time.

For Fermi's biota working with cryobowls especially for reproduction, migration to the tundra every summer for reproduction instead would resolve many of their issues. Tundras turn into wetlands every summer.

Outside of ongoing extinction events, lots of animals can feed from the same food source just fine. The "one animal per niche" thing on Earth is super recent.

When I say extremely maladapted, I mean the organism is at a state where its position in the environment is flawed and fragile and there's not really much it can do to get out of its situation and survive should some competition or predators show up. Like the desert tilecorn.

In this case I figure the single line formation works with the assumption that the skull is overall like that of an ungulate. The face is very long and the braincase and jaw muscles don't need to be taking up a lot of space. With the size of the eyelids, bunching them close doesn't work as well in this specific case.

The hoof to toe ratio is altered for life in the desert (flatter, padded toes are better for walking in sand). It's not neotenous, just modified. The more claw-like look is an artifact of their modification. I might smooth them out a bit, though.

Sagan 4 has a few extremely maladapted species that should probably be outcompeted or eaten to extinction. If you know of any, please list them and your reasoning here.

----

Here's an example of what I mean by an extremely maladapted species:
The desert tilecorn (which I intend to largely outcompete next gen) is pretty much screwed in a competitive sense, because it is a large desert-dwelling ectothermic herbivore with a high metabolism which depends on water to reproduce.

• Because it depends on water to reproduce, living in a desert means that it is not guaranteed to have an opportunity to breed every year. Because it is a large animal as well, it needs larger bodies of water than, say, a desert frog would, meaning breeding opportunities will be even rarer. This puts a severe restriction on its population growth, so it's likely a very rare animal in its environment; being a rare animal also means that it isn't putting up much of a competitive fight for its niche, so another species can literally just steal it at any time.
• The high metabolism is more implied than directly stated, but it would need to have one to function as it does, travelling long distances on foot between sources of food and water like a camel. While living in a desert as an ectotherm does facilitate a higher metabolism that could allow one to be highly nomadic in its environment, that is without taking into account other factors. The desert tilecorn is a large animal and an herbivore, so it must eat a large amount of food to meet its daily nutritional needs given its high metabolism. However, as an ectotherm, it cannot take advantage of cooler parts of the day as an endothermic herbivore could, so it is restricted more or less to late morning and early evening on a normal day; it's too hot to do anything around noon, and too early or late and the temperature is too low for it to go on because it's an ectotherm. Given that deserts aren't exactly known for being hot spots of plentiful food, it must be barely scraping by, so combined with it already being rare because of its low rate of reproduction, the appearance of competition would very likely result in its immediate extinction.

Thinking about this again, I figure there are probably areas with and without easy ways up and down the canyon walls, as they're gonna be pretty eroded anywhere wet and they're not being treated as major barriers. They'd be too frequent in this period for landmarks to be feasible, but it could be great for diorama inspiration.

Just a heads up for people who mainly use the forum since it was discussed and approved through Discord, the Shimmering Marephasmatises have been edited to clarify the morphology and origin of their "nematocytes" in more detail.

I don't think using old art is an issue. It's comprehensible.

I was thinking more like the wings of draco lizards