Shoutout to the guy who told me to stop using the smudge tool

A few months back, I was showing a piece in a Discord group and this one artist, goes by PixelPete, just flat out said 'Your work looks muddy because you're leaning on the smudge brush like a crutch. Try blocking in clean color first and only blend where you need to.' I got pretty defensive, honestly. I'd spent like 80 hours on that portrait and thought the soft look was my style. But after hitting a wall on three more pieces, I gave his way a shot. I opened a new file, picked a hard round brush in Clip Studio Paint, and just laid down flat colors without any blending at all. It felt wrong, but once I had that solid base, adding light and shadow was way easier and the final image looked so much sharper. I was using the smudge tool to fix drawing problems instead of actually solving them. Has anyone else had a piece of advice they fought against that actually fixed a big issue in their workflow?

2 comments

2 Comments

michaelnguyen1mo ago

Hard disagree on the clean color block-in being the only way. That method just makes my work look stiff and dead. The smudge tool is key for getting those soft, painterly transitions, especially for skin and organic shapes. You just have to know how to use it without making everything look like mud, which comes down to brush settings and a light touch.

piper_green1mo ago

Remember my friend who kept getting told her watercolors were too pale? She insisted it was her delicate style, until a teacher made her mix colors with half the water. She was mad, said it looked like mud in the palette, but on the paper the colors finally had weight. Sometimes the tool we love is just covering for a step we're scared to do right.