For me that would be :
"Don't use the transformative tool for things related to perspective, just use forms or lines"

Like yeah i get it, we are suppose to learn how to do it on our own, but at the same time.
I've been drawing for more than 7 years and even then i've been sucking when it comes to perspective and than thing just saved or at least reshaped some of my art.

"don't shade in black."

yeah sure if you're doing super realistic stuff yeah you shouldn't but realistic art is not the be all and end all of art. sometimes it's fun to just do what you think looks cool

Here comes a big fat non-answer.
Most 'rules' have their place and exist for reasons. If you find one irrelevant, you might not be doing anything where it would matter. Occasionally there's snobbery around tools and shortcuts- other times it's true that the end result of those has specific faults. Those faults might not really matter though- taking shortcuts on a background when the focus and majority of your canvas is taken up by a character probably won't have as big an impact as it would if you were drawing an image where a building was the subject. In fact, if your focus is not the background, breaking perspective in order to better exaggerate a focal point through composition might be the best course of action.

There IS one thing though that I get kind of a hate-boner for, and it's because I fell for it in high school, and that's "correct proportions." They're... okay to keep in mind when you're doing stuff freehand, as loose guidelines. To actually learn how bodies are put together though? Do life-drawing. Take a class with nude models, people watch and sketch at the park, do photo studies, etc. There's SO much variation in how people are shaped and built and that's not counting how perspective and motion change the way things look. Don't waste your time drawing rigid 8-heads-high blank-faced idealized dudes and chicks.

art is subjective, but it isn't random

the basic "rules" exist as a launching point for you to get where you want, the more you understand them the more you can twist and break them to get your desired result

Generally speaking, if a rule starts with the word "never", it's not very good art advice. There are exceptions to everything.

As the saying goes, "know the rules so you know how to break them".

Protogen oc creation rules.

Where are these rules coming from?

Generally in (decent) art education, as Glen Vilppu said, "There are no rules, only tools" .. any rules set should be in the scope of developing some particular skills
(eg 'no erasing/undoing' to encourage the artist to be decisive and clean with how they work)
. Either you are trying to develop particular skills or you are not (and 'not' IS an acceptable answer, at least some of the time -- people who have a lot of commissions to complete just kind of do need to crank things out).

This creates a kind of circular / bootstrap paradox situation, where you need to have X amount of understanding before you know whether following a given rule is worth it, but (if the rule is worth it) the rule is designed to get you to X amount of understanding, and a lot of the other ways you can approach the problem just won't gain you knowledge as fast.
So you just have to know what you are aiming to do, guess whether the rule will help, and if so, commit to it WITHIN THAT PART OF YOUR STUDIES.

The latter part is important. Studying different aspects is what really informs you about any particular aspect. Applying the rule to every single case (even if it's a good rule), won't inform you very well about what you should be doing.

Take the perspective tool example: your manual skills with perspective are what allow you to use the perspective tool to produce a sensible result. But the fact that perspective tool is interactive also means that (once you have *some* grasp of perspective) you can use the perspective tool experimentally to help develop a clearer model of how things work in perspective. And drawing orthographic views (side / top / front etc) before going to perspective helps make the 'perspective' problem a problem that is properly separated from 'design'.

goldencarrot said:
Protogen oc creation rules.

Primagen versus Protogen is basically 'I win' rule?

Imagine there's an original species called Reallygens, and two others called Almostgens and Somewhatgens. Almostgens need to have at least 2 of 6 characteristics missing, but Somewhatgens need to have at least 4 of 6 characteristics missing. That would be different but similar idea. That actually could be fun to mess with, in a game environment. That or incredibly frustrating.

I just looked up the Protogen OC rules, and they seem to be primarily to dodge copyright concerns? At least, if I'm looking at the correct page. I was expecting something stupidly restrictive, but "don't be a Primagen" seems pretty reasonable.

I have seen some individual character adopts, though, that try to restrict how they can and can't be used under threat of reclaiming, and I'd call those bullshit if not downright laughable. News flash to anyone who does this: that's called a "license", not an "adopt". "Adopt" means you relinquish all rights to the character and put them in the hands of the adopter.

lendrimujina said:
I just looked up the Protogen OC rules, and they seem to be primarily to dodge copyright concerns? At least, if I'm looking at the correct page. I was expecting something stupidly restrictive, but "don't be a Primagen" seems pretty reasonable.

I have seen some individual character adopts, though, that try to restrict how they can and can't be used under threat of reclaiming, and I'd call those bullshit if not downright laughable. News flash to anyone who does this: that's called a "license", not an "adopt". "Adopt" means you relinquish all rights to the character and put them in the hands of the adopter.

From what I saw, the entire thing was unreasonable. :shrugs:

savageorange said:
Where are these rules coming from?

Generally in (decent) art education, as Glen Vilppu said, "There are no rules, only tools" .. any rules set should be in the scope of developing some particular skills
(eg 'no erasing/undoing' to encourage the artist to be decisive and clean with how they work)
. Either you are trying to develop particular skills or you are not (and 'not' IS an acceptable answer, at least some of the time -- people who have a lot of commissions to complete just kind of do need to crank things out).

This creates a kind of circular / bootstrap paradox situation, where you need to have X amount of understanding before you know whether following a given rule is worth it, but (if the rule is worth it) the rule is designed to get you to X amount of understanding, and a lot of the other ways you can approach the problem just won't gain you knowledge as fast.
So you just have to know what you are aiming to do, guess whether the rule will help, and if so, commit to it WITHIN THAT PART OF YOUR STUDIES.

The latter part is important. Studying different aspects is what really informs you about any particular aspect. Applying the rule to every single case (even if it's a good rule), won't inform you very well about what you should be doing.

Take the perspective tool example: your manual skills with perspective are what allow you to use the perspective tool to produce a sensible result. But the fact that perspective tool is interactive also means that (once you have *some* grasp of perspective) you can use the perspective tool experimentally to help develop a clearer model of how things work in perspective. And drawing orthographic views (side / top / front etc) before going to perspective helps make the 'perspective' problem a problem that is properly separated from 'design'.

This sounds a lot like math or music. You wonder WTH you do something some way, then oh look.

All rules are unnecessary because art should not have rules. We should always take them as just advices.

That being said. I agree with Manitka on the "you shouldn't shading with black", shading with black can work just as well as shading with colors. This rule was only invented because many new artists who don't have much knowledge about how to use colors end up using black without knowing what colors they should use to achieve the result they want.