6 month progress teaching myself to draw and paint

In mostly chronological order...

This is where I started

I heard it was best to start with traditional, so I spent the first 2 months doing charcoal drawings


He looks nothing like the reference, but since no one knows him you can't tell.

same here :P

Pro tip: If you need create a likeness, choose a character with lots of scarring and unique facepaint to hide your flaws :P

..or pick someone wearing a muzzle :P

Now back to digital!

Learning charcoal first helps heaps! Shading is no longer a mystery.

Now for some color!

This took waaaaaaay too long. Like 30 hours.

I also did some sketches for practice
Pretty bad

Eventually tried a "cartoonish" style

Added unique facial expressions

Sometimes I'd completely fail


or just lose interest and never finish it.

Sometimes they finished, but I wasn't quite happy with it

This one in particular was trying to be cartoonish, but it ended up just looking weird.

December arrived, and I was hit with the Star Wars fever :)

Note: for some pieces like this, I drew from hand first, then overlaid the reference photo to double check measurements. It's a recommended step for beginners to learn their mistakes :)

Another attempt at a cartoonish style

Thanks for looking!, will post more later!