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Inspired by this post

There's really nothing else but practice and using reference 😖

Knowing anatomy helps a lot - I'd daresay you need to know it to draw appealing semi realistic people. It's important because to stylize you have to know what forms you're stylizing - I reccomend figure drawing: design and invention by Michael Hampton for learning anatomy, and I've found this video to be helpful at explaining how exactly to draw appealing anatomy in general, despite being about drawing animal anatomy.

Also just. Use reference! Look at other people's drawings! Oh and make sure to keep perspective right, look at kim Jung gi's drawings for that.

For shading, there's two main components: values and colors. Values are important when establishing the composition - try to block in values using only black and white and see if that's appealing. Then add details but keep the overall black and whites you've established consistent. Also this is where learning anatomy and the forms of what you're drawing helps; the more you know, the more rendering you can do, etc. For colors - knowing what color temperature is is a game changer. Here's an article that explains it - https://drawpaintacademy.com/what-is-color-temperature/ (for some reason the hyperlink doesnt work??). Try to change the hue and saturation whenever you change the value. Also a good cheat is to find a picture with good and natural colors and using the colors in that picture. (You can color pick if you want, but it helps to not)

Some other misc tips: keep a collection of art you admire and look at them again and again: look at even the minutest details, see how they used the colors, how they rendered, how they made shapes. There's something about art that even if you read and learn so many art tutorials, some things don't click until you yourself explore and find the things you like and practice based on that.

Also be patient; for me, in a period where I learn a new thing and try to implement it, my art tends to get worse. In art you need to experiment a lot but that inevitably leads to many, many failures and misses.

Luke duckwalker

Mermaid luke