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Having trouble coming up with something to draw? No worries - while you'll eventually learn how to start from a tiny seed of a thought and gradually nurture it into a complex concept to explore through design and illustration, it's perfectly fine not to be there just yet.
For now though, here's an idea that might interest you.
The Annual Parade
Running a small business isn't easy. In the small town of Paradeville, running a small business is even harder. Paying for advertisements in the local paper just doesn't seem to gain the kind of traction it once did, everyone wants to hear about your services from a friend of a friend, otherwise they're unlikely to ever give you a shot. Hard to get word of mouth though, if no one will bother hiring you in the first place!
The town has one saving grace, though. One thing that keeps you from packing it all in and moving to the big city. One thing that, if used correctly, can take your business from a debt-ridden failure to an overnight success.
The Paradeville Annual Parade. Every year, the whole town gathers to put in the greatest procession of oversized, colourful, and utterly delightful floats in the world. And here's the kicker - anyone can enter a float. The bigger and more extravagant your float, the more the townsfolk will remember your name, and of course, your business.
Design the most eye-catching float to get the town talking. While you should definitely think about the type of business you're running in order to decide how to sneak its name in and ensure that free publicity isn't going to waste, you don't have to limit the float itself to something obviously related to whatever it is you sell or provide.
This one isn't doing it for you? How about this one instead: In Memoriam >>>
The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something we've used ourselves, or know to be of impeccable quality. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Steven Zapata's Secrets of Shading
Some of you will have noticed that Drawabox doesn't teach shading at all. Rather, we focus on the understanding of the spatial relationships between the form we're drawing, which feeds into how one might go about applying shading. When it comes time to learn about shading though, you're going to want to learn it from Steven Zapata, hands down.
Take a look at his portfolio, and you'll immediately see why.