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My old design teacher said to never use pure black in digital pieces, and now I'm wondering if that advice was actually right
Back in 2019 I was taking a digital painting class at the community college in Sacramento, and my teacher, this guy named Ron who had worked on some indie games in the 90s, kept hammering us about never using pure black in our work. He said to always mix in some color, use dark blues or browns instead, because pure black flattens everything and looks like a rookie mistake. I followed that rule for like four years, even got kind of smug about it when I'd see other people's pieces with harsh black shadows. But then last month I was looking at some concept art from a game I love and zoomed in on the shadows, and sure enough, it was basically pure black in a bunch of spots. So now I'm sitting here wondering if Ron's rule was a real thing or just his personal taste that he passed off as law. I tried redoing one of my old pieces with pure black in the dark areas and honestly it looked fine, maybe even better in some spots. Has anyone else had a teacher give them a hard rule about color or shadows that you later started questioning?
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finleyfox19d ago
Ron ever show you a piece where pure black actually ruined it?
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