[Leion]

Hi everybody!
My name's Leon,i'm 17, and i'm a digital artist in-training.
I've been trying to talk to people here to help get better at digital art.
I live in Portugal,so here,i get lucky if i find a digital artist that isn't a wannabe.
Anyway,i was hoping,since this is basically a site for digital artists,if good artists like you guys could give me a few tips and advices in my case of paintings.
I usually have problems in doing skin and background landscapes.

Hope ( )you can help me improving and thank you for reading this!

[OneEyedJack]

Hey Leion!

Basically all you can do is really keep studying.
There are no secrets and no short cuts for the true badass artist.

Download Anatomy books by Andrew loomis and Bridgeman, they're free and legal.
Copy every image in these books and read about how to construct them until its second nature to you. Keep doing this till you die of old age.

For backgrounds, Find photos on the internet of landscapes and try to copy the landscapes, do not color pick from the photo!
Keep doing this until you die of old age.

Basically, you will never ever get to a point where you can stop studying. Study everyday, even if only for an hour.

The "big secret" is that the more you do it, the faster you get better. So if you study 8hours a day, think of where you'll be one year from now!

[MatthewDickerson]

hey thanks for the tip oneeyedjack!i went in search for andrew loomis- this is a good download link to the pdfs..

http://placidchaos.com/Loomis/

and here's a very good blog which has them all and bridgman's one's too! enjoy

http://processjunkie.blogspot.com/20...ooks-ever.html

[EonWorks]

The best advice is to study the best and learn from them. Read their tutorials, buy books or DVD's if they have any. And practice a lot. Learn to be independent and develop your own unique style.

Start small and gradually and steadily improve your skills. Concentrate on fundamentals - learn the basics first. Build a solid understanding and experience by working with the medium - this takes time (years). Learn one tool well, and learning new ones will be much quicker and easier. Don't try to rush things. Take your time and don't hurry - the more you hurry the less you learn. Outline realistic goals and break them into small steps. Achieve your goals and take the time to enjoy each and one of them.

Choose a specific area (concepts, 3D, illustration, etc) that you especially enjoy doing and start specializing in it. Develop a wide variety of QUALITY skills within the area of your interest.