Hello everyone!~ I am Stormy and I have been self taught on digital painting for a year, but I took this class in order to learn techniques that I did not find on my own that are specialized in painting. I have found that there were quite a lot, and after doing an assignment for this class and trying new things, I happily found myself in managing my layers much better! I actually had no idea how to use masks on layers before, or at least, not the right way! I I used to look up incredible professional illustrators and see them use the "curve" filter, and have no idea what they were doing or why it was helpful to them, and I am happy to say I used it in this assignment! I am eager to use these skills to create more works. For the assignment, I could not help but fall in love with how sassy the photoshop demo reference photo was. I took the "make it your own" direction very seriously, and so I added even more sass to her expression, and made the piece feel lighter and peppier, almost like it could be animated. I also Kept my worktime to a couple of hours, and focused on using the tools that I had learned and never used before. I notice (and have noticed since going digital for a year) that my grievances with digital tools so far are that I am not as good at as traditional art: - my lack of brush and blending tools in photoshop - my ability to blend areas that look to my standard - airbrush strokes look awkward and not "soft" when I try to stroke lightly (maybe is a pressure sensitivity problem? Its a setting/tool problem for sure) - not creating enough mask/filter layers that cause me to be destructive to my painting - creating too many layers and finding it difficult to merge because of the layer filter applied is not kept when merging What I absolutely love about digitial: - the time save on starting the sketching stage of the picture - the ability to undo my paint/marker/watercolor look, an absolute lifesaver - the ability to try out so many possibilities before committing - not having to buy all of my supplies, especially if I am trying out a new technique Thank you for the lessons!