IVE

I would be happy to provide a rendering tutorial at some point in the future, but what I can tell you for now is that a good reference is an amazing backbone if you do realism. I can work without references, but it just doesn't turn out as good. Never let anyone convince you that you have to work without those. As an artist you subscribe to the fact that you will spend most of your life learning and improving. Perfection is unachievable and having help is good. Skill will come with time.

I have a background in oil painting, so that influences how I work. I start from dark colors or mid tones and gradually light everything up. I work on as little layers as possible, sometimes only on one if doing a portrait.

Also never actually go into detail. Make stuff look good from a distance and save yourself the pain. Let color and value do all the work, not thin lines and overly rendered detail. Here is an example:

So I've read the manga and this man is my absolute favorite. With that said I decided to draw him using his distaff(ignore the lack of a spindle, it's a wip) the way one is used but realized one thing.

Tokushin is too short to be used as a belt tucked distaff and is probably a hand held one. Naturally, this would require me to start over with the posing and anatomy. But I am stubborn and decided, fuck it, I'll just draw more versions of him spinning, potentially with different distaffs.

But then I remembered these bad boys exist: