Behold! Tried some different approaches at shading. Which version do you guys like the most?

(Below is a lengthy explanation behind why I did this)

Something that happens to me every once in awhile (and I’m sure that other artists can relate to this) is that I put so much time in effort into a piece of art, only to see that it didn’t get much recognition compared to my other work. Then, when I half-ass a piece of art that has messy line work and sloppy, simple shading (or no shading at all), it’s extremely well-received.

While I am always happy to see something I drew grab peoples’ attention, it also kinda sucks to realize that something you put hardly any effort into got far more attention than something you spent so much time on.

I could whine on about how my artistic life is like an angsty Linken Park song, but I’ll spare everyone. The point is that the way that I shade may be subtracting from my art as a whole rather than adding to it. Either that, or the majority of the fandom may just prefer simpler forms of shading. So I went ahead and tried out two different shading techniques to compare to how I normally go about shading (version 1) to see which one people like the most. Hooray for experimentation!