Your studies are amazing! I am from India, and was in a similar situation 3 years ago when I was 21. I would like to pass on some advice that helped me, I met one mentor for a very short period, but he helped me with invaluable advice. He said- 1. no matter what, your hardwork won't go to waste. You just need to be honest about your criticism towards yourself, so if you're overdoing it, do less. If you're underdoing it, be more honest. 2. After you get good at fundamentals, don't let anyone tell you how to do your art. It's your style, be proud of it. So, back then I was 21 and had no social connections, etc. I kept studying, I took a break once in a while too to destress. It's very important to disconnect from your pursuit to basically get a better overall look of where you stand. Eventually, I found Proko, a few other discord art communities, where I was able to work at least 5-6 hours a day and have fun while doing it, since others also join in. So try to have fun, trust the process. Do not compare yourself to big superhero professional artists, I have less than 2 years of work experience and I'm not super happy with my fundamentals still, it's a constant process. It never ends and there lies the fun! It's completely different when you're studying and when you get professional work. There are so many new factors, time saving methods, etc. involved, but most importantly- direction. Art directors, managers, executives guide you into their specific vision. So there's a lot of collaboration that happens I'd assume for others too. Hence it's different from one person doing concentrated studies, I feel like studying without feedback was more stressful for me. If you're unable to get results from head studies, try something new you always wanted to. Try experimenting, and make a couple of serious pieces out of those. For head studies, I think proportions help. Please look up traditional methods of measurements, I love the 2 pencil technique where you measure angles as well as size. It really helps with faces especially, since most of it is just placing the features right. Try larger canvas sizes, make mistakes, and then redo it, but after analyzing your mistakes. Take notes right on your canvas so you remember which mistakes you need to fix next time. For lines, a lot of artists tend to refine their lineart with multiple passes. So if it's wobbly at first with your sketch, that's okay, but try for 2 more refined layers. Look at how other people's lineart works, if you're working digitally - I can guarantee that a professional artist already has their preferred sensitivity setting, their preferred brush settings. Easiest way to try and mimic this is to trace over an artist's drawings, adjust your pen settings, see which gives the closest and most natural result. Tracing is okay when you are studying, but do not rely on it solely, it will take away critical thinking ability. In this case, lineart tracing helps to construct new brushes! I hope you find this encouraging, it is very nice seeing someone from a very similar circumstance to mine, so I was a bit eager to respond here. Please keep working, share your work with others, look at how others are being critiqued. It is a constant process for all artists, I would love to see your work here again! :)

Thanks for the detailed response Kristian, I'll be sure to check out the videos you've mentioned. This is very helpful! I'll definitely try to loosen up a little ^_^

Thank you so much! I was trying to be conscious of this when drawing.

I agree, the horses were definitely tough for me. I've posted my latest study in this thread, by using fewer values I'm trying to focus on just the larger shapes for clarity. I will continue to focus on all the points everyone has brought up. Thanks for your help!

Go for it! =D I know 100 seems a lot, but they are fun to do and help you improve a lot!

I agree, their shapes are also very distinct and since the backdrop is so light, they pop more easily even though they're not the darkest elements of the painting, it's such a good piece! And thank you :)

Hi @Prathamesh Pagare, I think you nailed this 2 value study! I especially liked how you simplified the figure of the woman into just rim light and one dark shape. I think I would have found that section to be difficult to simplify into two values. There isn't a proper way to analyze composition unless you know it's component parts. From there, you can choose a specific subset of composition to analyze. Off the top of my head, here are the ways you can study a composition: Abstract Design of the Composition (the shapes created by value) Values - How does the artist compress/contrast certain values to create focus and clarity Metaphors - How does the artist's use of values reflect the mood/story that they're trying to tell? Shape Design - How do the shapes harmonize with one another? And how do contrasting shapes create focus? Motifs - How does the artist use harmonizing shapes to tell a larger story? Implied Lines/Directional Lines - How does the artist use these tools to lead your eye? In addition, all elements of contrast like detail vs rest, warm vs cool, light vs dark, etc. all fall under the decision making process of composing an image. There are many ways to break down composition, and to make studying a composition easier, its best to focus on one. Right now you did a 2 value study which trained your artistic brain in a few ways. One is that it forced you to simplify and make decisions about a complex piece. When you were in the middle of this study, I hoped you found difficulty in deciding what things should be kept white and what things should be kept black. The way you make these decisions should be informed by what YOU as the artist think is important to keep clear in this image, and I think you did a wonderful job at that. After doing a few hundred of these studies (haha) you'll find it much easier to organize the values in your own painting so that they still simple and focused. (Also, these studies should only be kept to about 5-15 minutes long, so you really can crank out hundreds of these in the course of several months.) One way I can think of analyzing this composition is through the distribution of light and dark shapes, and how that emphasizes the story. From your 2 value breakdown, we can see that there is a large distribution of light shapes on the left side, and that the right side with the figures is mostly black, with only some small light shapes coming from the rim lighting. It's also almost perfectly split down the middle. Even without your original photo, I think we'd be able to surmise the greater story about their relationship just by looking at your value breakdown. Their half of the image is mostly dark, which means the status of their relationship is probably just as dark. I could even make a bigger leap with my assumptions based on the positioning of the female figure. She stands over the male figure and is almost centered, which communicates that she has power over him. Additionally, she is physically blocking him from the light, which could imply that she is the one that is causing him to feel these dark emotions. I obviously have no context from this film, but most directors are intentional with their decisions, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of what I mentioned is true. It might sound too 'artsy fartsy' but these are the things that we absolutely have to consider when composing an image. Hope you find this helpful, I could offer you different ways to study a composition down the line, but for now, doing a lot of these 2 or 3 value studies is a great way to go if you've never done compositional studies before. Let me know if you have any questions!