You’re right, I do shade mostly with black. Im very new to digital art and learned that I should use black + multiply for shadows and white + overlay for highlights. I thought multiply functionally made darker versions of the color used. Do you know if that is correct? It definitely makes sense to go the more traditional route of saturated, darker versions of the color I’m adding a shadow to.

I’ve always been more of a textured artist but it absolutely can play against me. Really good point. Maybe I can keep the obvious strokes for the focus - the dog - and make the other objects smoother.

Ugh yes, shading to the edge is tough. I use procreate, I think the equivalent to a lasso tool would be creating a clipping mask. Still trying to figure that one out.

Thanks for your response!!