*facepalms so many times he gets brain damage and forgets what he was going to say*

.......

oh yeah! Shoulders!!!

What about shoulders you ask? Oh nothing...they're just the REASON I'VE HAD SO MANY PROBLEMS WITH MY ART!!! That's all!

"Wah..Jakey! Don't tell me you're injured?!! D: "

No no, nothing like that XD

I mean, that the reason my art keeps having little errors in it that never change is because I missed the VERY SMALL detail that I've kept messing up on, that effects all the others. What is it? Yep, you guessed right.

SHOULDERS.

For the longest time, I've been drawing most, if not all, of my shoulders too wide and square. Not that big of a deal?? HA! Let me show you just a few of the problems I've had because of how I draw the stupid shoulders of my characters:

Rigidity-
Lots of people have noticed this by now, but my art is often considered a bit "rigid" or "stiff". Why is this?? Simply because I kept drawing my shoulders too square, which makes them look rigid, and because my eyes balance it out while I draw, I end up drawing everything else rigid too! D:

Thick Necks-
The infamous problem I used to have with my necks being waaaaaaaaaaaaay too thick XD I've fixed that now, I think, but some of you even say that my necks are too SKINNY now! lol But it's not the neck's fault. No! It's the dang shoulders! Because the shoulders are too wide, it's often hard to get the neck to line up on center. So, before, I would widen it to make it center easier. Now that I've skinnied it, the thinner neck and wide shoulders don't match anymore, so the neck ends up looking skinny.

Body Builder Women-
Another infamous problem that I've nearly fixed by now as well. That is, that whenever I drew a girl, I drew her "chunky" and just about all of you said they looked like body builders (thanks for that insult btw XP You all know who you are!). Because my shoulders were too wide, the rest of the body had to follow because again, my eyes try to balance out the drawing when I draw, and I never considered the shoulders being the problem. So, I balanced it by making the limbs and torsoe of my characters, especially girls, thicker than they should've been.

Masculine Women-
A similar, yet slightly different problem. That is, that my women often used to look too "masculine". Why is this?? I wonder....yeah, it's the shoulders again! Any artist will tell you that the characteristics that mainly define a male and female body is that a MALE has WIDE SHOULDERS and smaller hips, while women have smaller shoulders and hips that are equal to the width of their shoulders. THAT is why they were masculine! They had a man's shoulders!

Elongated Heads-
This is a problem that's kinda hard to explain in relation to the shoulders problem, but it IS connected to it! Like I said before, my eyes try to balance things when I draw. So, when I drew the shoulders too wide, and once again stupidly didn't even consider them when wondering why it looked wrong, I tweaked the head to match them. And that, in a way that's too hard to explain, ended up making the heads taller than they should've been, and not wide enough.

------

So there you have it! The shoulders are the root of all evil for me! I have no idea HOW I managed to miss this super freaking simple mistake for all these YEARS, even after being told they looked rigid on occasion.

"But Jake...it's such a simple mistake. How can it possibly fix EVERYTHING?"

Simple. I've already tested it out, focusing on making the shoulders narrower, and BAM, it looked SO much better! On top of that, I was able to draw sketchily, which I LOVE and have been wanting to do forever, and I drew it twice as fast! That's because I didn't have to go back and tweak things because everything finally looked right!

Speaking of which, I tested the shoulders theory on the last frame of NaruHina Forgotten: Chapter 2 - Page 2. Yup, the page is now fully sketched. And you all know what THAT means

I know it's crazy, but I'm hoping that fixing this shoulder thing will end up fixing just about every problem with my art, even things like drawing speed and sketchiness. That, coupled with my new pencil brush that I've been training with (which, if it works, will allow me to ink MUCH faster) means TONS more art SUPER fast for all of you! Finally! I can meet deadlines! Finally! I don't have to struggle with each and every piece! Finally! Art is fun again!

So, to end this rant, let me just end with this last statement: