Just the snail for now. I attempted to draw the boots but it's too overwhelming for me. Can someone suggest a subject that is easier than the boots but harder than the snail?

I think I'm getting a hang of this. Does this pass? What should aspect can use the most improvement?

For a single scene, is the size and shape of ambient occlusion constant regardless of ambient lighting color and intensity? The only thing that changes is value?

Here's my attempt in Krita. The one thing I want to work on the most is producing clean and render-like tones. I have spent several hours experimenting with various brush sizes, opacities, and hardnesses in combination with layers and masks and identified that I struggle most with compressed gradients, when it's unclear where a gradient starts and ends, overlapping gradients, and non-linear gradients.