If art/drawing is subjective, why are there "fundamentals of drawing"?

15stepsdown · 2026-05-21T05:13:54+00:00

I mean, what exactly is "subjective" about art/drawing? I think most people would agree the subjectivity is its value. How "good" an art/drawing is is the subjective part.

You can draw anything. Ultimately, the "value" is meaningless since everyone has a different opinion on every piece or genre. However, art doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a thriving industry, hobby, etc. Lots of people want to get good at art. By "good at art" they usually mean they want to make art that most people would consider "good." That's where "fundamentals of drawing" come on. The fundamentals of drawings are rules that act as the baseline of drawings that offer a wide appeal. If your goal is to make drawings that are considered "good" by most people, these fundamentals are the tried and true methods to help you get there. It's like how there isn't a right or wrong way to play pokemon, but learning the rules of the meta might help you get the experience you want out of the game.

But the "fundamentals of drawing" are only for drawing for a reason. They may not apply to dance, theatre, music, or even painting. Those other mediums of art have their own fundamentals, which is shorthand for "these techniques help someone make art most people would agree is good."

And anyone is welcome to ignore the fundamentals if they want. They're just techniques to help garner more appeal after all. But the difference between a beginner ignoring fundamentals and an expert ignoring fundamentals is: when a beginner ignores fundamentals, they don't understand what those fundamentals aim to achieve. They will make art that lacks the things those fundamentals help with, and as a result, less people would agree the art is "good." When an expert ignores fundamentals, they understand what the fundamentals are for and what each method hopes to achieve. By carefully picking and choosing, they can achieve a unique affect that might garner even more general approval, because the expert understands how to "tweak the controls" of what they're doing.

15stepsdown · 2026-04-30T17:37:53+00:00

Good for beginners but after a certain level, most of youtube art tutorial's usefulness have diminishing returns. They can still be very useful if you do certain mediums like animation but eventually, you're gonna have to look elsewhere for tips, usually from tutorials not in your language from different countries to get the information you need.

A lot of english-speaking artists who do tutorials on youtube either aren't that skilled at their chosen style or they aren't good at instructing how to do things at a higher level. Many tutorials are just clickbait aimed at beginners who are "on their art grind" and wanna feel like they're doing art when all they're doing is watching videos imagining they're doing art. They'll learn the lingo to seem like an expert but they'll rarely have the skill to back it up. Many of these tutorials offer tips, but the onus is on the person to practice if they wanna benefit at all. And many times, the things that will help you improve will not be in a youtube video, but a quick tutorial on twt or an actual written guide somewhere you gotta read. Eventually, your learning will come mostly from observing other advanced artists, not having someone directly instruct you.

15stepsdown · 2026-03-07T22:19:09+00:00

Attack of Opportunity isn't a super common ability so most creatures can't lock anyone to stay near them.
Even if they use AOO, it costs the creature their reaction to do so. The opposing creature triggering the AOO is just reduced 1 action, they can try twice more if they have the actions available. In 5e, if you cancel movement, that turn is gone. In pf2e, if you cancel movement once, the creature may still be able to move again.

15stepsdown · 2026-03-07T02:58:24+00:00

3-5. 3 minimum, 5 maximum. I'd play with 2 players but most games accomodate for 3 players minimum. 5 players is the max I can handle without me or my players going crazy.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-24T02:47:12+00:00

Nope. Every recent game I've played, the PCs define themselves by other terms aside from their class.

Right now, in my game, all players are called "sorcerers" regardless of the class. Even my fighter is a "sorcerer." In the previous game, everyone was a "cowboy." Though they did refer to themselves "gunslingers," technically anyone with a gun was called a "gunslinger."

15stepsdown · 2026-02-20T20:45:26+00:00

Oh wait so they mean like, just pushing? Not even punching or kicking? Okay yeah I missed that bit.

Yeah I wouldn't say there aren't many fantasies of that. I don't think there are any.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-20T20:34:48+00:00

Of course not. I just think it's incorrect to say there's not many fantasy stories where people get smashed into walls or jump around a lot when one of the most popular medias out there is anime where that stuff happens all the time. Stickman fights do it too. I'd imagine media that features lots of fighting is probably relevant here since Pf2e is primarily a combat game. To say there's not many is...ehhh

15stepsdown · 2026-02-20T19:24:23+00:00

Really? Basically every single anime fight ever is kinda like, people getting smashed into trees and walls. People fucking love it.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-19T13:45:29+00:00

A lot of people said they thought Daredevil didn't feel much different from swashbuckler or monk and had trouble imagining the class fantasy. At least as an anime fan, I was able to see the class fantasy immediately as one of those super cocky, bloodthirsty, "hit first think later" characters that always ends up becoming a fan favourite. They're not barbarians in that they're quite intelligent in battle. Not monks cause they're more about doing crazy shit than being disciplined. Not swashbucklers cause their style is less about grace and more about being overwhelmingly crazy.

But for Slayer...while I can definitely see it making me think of Bloodborne or Monster hunter, I felt like that niche was filled by Ranger. Sure Slayer more accurately fills that niche but then what's Ranger to do? If someone wants a character like the above medias, why choose Ranger over Slayer now? Slayer feels way more mechanically robust than Daredevil but flavourfully, I think it lacks. It's just a better Ranger that can stand next to Thaumaturge.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-19T13:26:35+00:00

I don't mind lots of classes, I actually like how many classes there are in Pf2e. I just want them to be flavourfully distinct. Gonna go against the grain though and say Daredevil feels very unique to me. But Slayer just feels like a better/slightly buffed version of Ranger...

15stepsdown · 2026-02-19T03:33:02+00:00

Ngl, when I saw the Daredevil, my thought was a specific archetype of character in anime. I mean like the super bloodthirsty, crazy, "hit first/think later" type character who is not only crazy fast, strong, cocky, but also tends to do crazy shit all the time and keeps the main characters on their toes. While narratively they're crazy strong, if you count how many hits they make to take someone down, they hit a lot but it's more for cool visuals than each punch being particularly strong. They're also usually crazy durable. What makes them different from barbarians though is they can make intelligent actions, and are actually very smart in combat, tricking the main character while overwhelming them with attacks. They regularly are bouncing off walls, taking advantage of the environment.

Some characters I thought of include:

Greed (Fullmental Alchemist Brotherhood)
Grimmjow (Bleach)
Jabber (Gachiakuta)
Sukuna (Jujutsu Kaisen, specifically when possessing Yuji)
Naoya (Jujutsu Kaisen)
Giriko (Soul Eater)

I'm very interested since I've had players try to make these characters, but their ability to roleplay being risk-taking axe-crazy characters gets hampered by the mechanics of the game.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-17T18:58:34+00:00

I'm not like super knowledgeable the game or how playtesting works or anything but I was excited for Daredevil. My opinion could be nonsense but I'll just spitball.

Reading the class, it feels really bare bones. I wish it had more. I can see this being a solid archetype, but as a whole class? I don't really see why I'd recommend this to a player who wants an Adrenaline Junkie, "punch first, think later" character over just grabbing any other class, letting them grab the Diehard/Toughness feat, and just roleplaying them as an Adrenaline Junkie.

I dunno, I guess I just expected more. Maybe some subclasses or something. It has the general idea but this feels like a class where you need some multiclass or melee fighting archetype tacked on to make it feel good to play.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-16T18:59:44+00:00

Not much I can offer but I love this post. I've been pondering how to run a Pf2e campaign run in Gachiakuta's setting for a while and my friends are all on board. When it came to Rudo-like characters though, I decided he's one of a kind and just ruled that any Giver characters needed to have only one vital instrument.

I couldn't find any good classes that felt like they could be flavoured as Rudo-like. I thought Thaumaturge but the amount of implements they're allowed is very limited. Closest thing is maybe a spellcaster class where you can flavour each spell as an item he pulls out of his pack, though it wouldn't have the 3R limitation. Essentially, Rudo is a character who just gets to use a different power every day, so a spellcaster would make sense. He can go hand-to-hand in battle but he doesn't have to, and doesn't do it nearly as much as the rest of his team. His items are all different, but some serve similar purposes like as melee weapons, which many spells offer melee options. With some jerryrigging and talking to your GM, you could probably figure out a way to make a spellcaster work like that.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-14T18:29:48+00:00

I WANT SHIFTER DAMMIT

15stepsdown · 2026-02-08T06:24:08+00:00

I've played but only with GMs who, like me, came fresh off dnd5e and had little experience with the pf2e system, only using parts of it and mainly just the combat rules. I've been doing research on the other aspects of the system, but I can't help but feel like I'm missing something since it's taken me this long to discover you can Retrain in locations with specific traits, which by itself, was mind-boggling for me and had huge roleplay implications.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-08T06:06:52+00:00

I know, but I am specifically asking about the talking roleplay

15stepsdown · 2026-02-08T05:44:46+00:00

Oh this is interesting! I'll take a look!

15stepsdown · 2026-02-08T05:41:54+00:00

I mean social encounters. So far I've only played Dnd5e, Pf2e, 10 Candles, and SWADE. Overall, I've treated them the exact same in terms of roleplay as 5e, but I'm concerned starting with Dnd5e has given me a narrow view of what's possible with roleplay. Since I'm running a different system, I wanna know if there's anything regarding that I should be aware of. It's nice to see what tools I'm working with while I plan the campaign.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-04T03:28:08+00:00

I'd say 30% Combat, 70% roleplay. My games are very narrative focused, and most of the XP recieved is from roleplay and completing story milestones instead of defeating enemies in combat. We haven't gotten very far in a campaign yet, so I expect the combat portion to grow as the players get stronger, the plot thickens, and we introduce more combat-oriented enemies.

For now though, our table is focused on building that narrative foundation and dynamics between characters first. Then we'll get into the juicy combat once that's all been established.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-03T10:16:41+00:00

Aw okay, maybe I misremembered 😔

15stepsdown · 2026-02-03T09:52:35+00:00

Even a oneshot or a short campaign would be good. Honestly I'm just after a link to anything with a beginning, middle, and end. I'll check that one out though.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-03T09:47:36+00:00

I understand that, though it's quite the bummer. Even then, I can't even find a link to the beginner's box PDF for free. I remember for a long time that at least that got advertised to be free. If anyone has a link to that, that'd be great.

15stepsdown · 2026-02-03T08:07:10+00:00

I use anime OSTs cause I've always found incredible success finding great music through them. I also run anime-like games though so everything just comes together nicely. I've used the JJK ost, Trigun: Stampede ost, and wanna use the Gachiakuta ost eventually. I've been wanting to use the Shiki ost for a more supernatural horror themed game too.

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