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Rant: A professor told me to drop the soft brushes and I ignored her for months

My digital painting professor at Phoenix College kept saying that soft airbrushes make everything look muddy. I loved my soft brushes and used them for everything. After failing two assignments, I finally switched to hard edge brushes for blocking in shapes and it saved my portraits. Anyone else have a teacher call out a bad habit you didn't want to break?
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christophermorgan
wait, you actually stuck with the muddy look for months?
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dylan265
dylan26528d agoMost Upvoted
Man, I feel this so hard. My first portrait teacher called me out for the same thing - she said my work looked like I was trying to paint with a fog machine. I was stubborn too, kept using soft brushes because I liked how smooth it looked. Turns out she was right, ones I forced myself to start with hard edges for blocking in shapes everything popped way more. Took me like two months of bad grades to finally listen, and @christophermorgan it was rough at first because you lose that soft look you're used to. But honestly once you blend with a hard edge brush and then soften only the parts that need it, you end up with way better control. That professor probably saved you a lot of headaches down the road even if it stung at the time.
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