Originality With Shading - How Experimenting Works

For me, shading is crucial to making anything stand out in an otherwise bland space. I've been experimenting with different 'textures' for all sorts of different objects, ones with character that could really use some unique shading-- or one that lacks character because it has no shading in general.

Here, you can see me trying another unique style. This is a "heart" sign, a sign with character and it's own unique shading. Experimenting with shading can prove to be pretty difficult, especially when I'm making things like this without any reference whatsoever.

I do feel accomplished with how it turned out, but most of the time my attempts to make unique shading will result in a mess. It takes a lot of patience to finally come up with something I'm really happy with, and I reckon this post'd be of use to fellow devs somewhere.