I keep seeing anons talking about how pencil shading and smudging is the only way to achieve gradients and blurs and stuff, and was wondering if anyone had any good resources for people about hatching and cross hatching and ink drawing in general.

If you’re learning art and you're trying to get past /beg/ tier pencil shading, switching to pen and learning how to cross hatch and think about lights and shadows in terms of line separation and intersection to create illusions might be a good thing to practice for awhile.