Yesterday I was trying semi realism again on phone and I realised that I just can't do it xd. You need the right tools to do all that. I think you should do traditional since you have skills and experience in that and also I see many posting traditional splinterlands entries.
Too bad your puppies ate all the stylus. I hope they are okay xd. Cell shading is possible with fingers but you will need god tier patience and experience if it's realism. It takes the joy out of painting xd.
So now you feel my pain with realism 😅 it's seriously not doable without the stylus or a drawing tab since it has a lot more brush stroke and mixing than in anime style and not being able to do a proper line with fingers annoy the heck out of me too. Hopefully you can get the tolls you'll need for semi-realism tho. I think I'll be saving up for clip studio and a new stylus. Clip studio is a lot closer to sai. Krita mobile is still in beta so it keeps dropping on my tab
I totally understand xd. Anime style painting is doable with fingers. The only headache with that is the lineart but after that it's super easy to paint. Everytime I see someone do realism I get an urge to do it but I think its time to forget it until I get all the tools. Now I'm just trying to achieve cell shading mastery hahaha.