2 value study, I made this study to practise shape design .I do not think I did well though because I feel like some of my shapes are too complicated and similar in size Please give some feedback and some tips about how I can improve, thanks you! The flower I put in there is one of the references I use. I took that picture a few days ago. (Sorry for bad English)

Hi mii! Looks like your image example looks a bit flat compared to the others, this may happen because the value range is not very wide. I was watching Marco Bucchi's youtube tutorials and in the lighting and shape episodes, he pointed out that the light and shadow region will typically have distinct luminance. And for the lit areas, if you look at your first three example images, their "brightness" are all distinctively higher than the adjacent unlit areas. If you take bouncing light and frensel effect into account, you can get some rim-light and stuff, but they are much lower in brightness compared to direct light. But that's the topic of another day I guess... Another thing I've noticed is that the skin tone is too white against the background, making the shape hard to read at a glance. Especially when the eyes are relatively dark. Maybe you can tone down the skin a little bit and it will pop out more against the background. Also the light rim around the clothes area might be a bit too bright, try tone it down and see if it looks cleaner to you :D

Hey there! As far as I can see they are mainly using basic brushes, so that would be my first recommendation. Don't bother with several different brushes, you can achieve basically anything with the basic ones. Especially if you are painting stylized stuff, you need to learn gesture and shape language, I recommend that as one of your main stepping stones. At the moment don't bother that much with color, build up a decent understanding in lights and values first, and then the colors should come naturally. Have fun on your journey mate! :)

I think the best way to start is to study values, if you have good values and edges you are already at a good point. Maybe try to pratice on really simple 3d shapes and make them look "realistic" using values only. There are really good tutorials on how to render a sphere, that's always a good exercise! Also, try to really understand why an artist you like made some particular choices and try to really understand how they achieved that. And of course... pratice, pratice, pratice :D

Hey Mii, love your piece! There's some fun texture in there and really lovely colors. It's great to see your goals and inspiration as well, that helps a lot with knowing where you're aiming with your work. My main suggestion would be to devote some time to fundamental studies: figure drawing, portrait drawing, still lifes and practicing painting light from life and photos. Art fundamentals are universal regardless of style; the best anime artists have extremely good fundamentals and can draw realism just as well as they draw anime. Their stylized work is merely an "editing" of that fundamental knowledge: choosing which parts of it to use and which parts to ignore in order to achieve both the style and the desired level of realism. Once you know how to draw and paint realistically, it becomes infinitely easier to stylize! There's a lot of fundamentals to study, so I would suggest picking one you're passionate about and just focus on that for a month or two. For instance, you could go through Proko's portrait drawing courses, do the assignments, and maybe halfway through the course and after you're finished try doing another portrait in your own style to apply what you've learned in the way you want. It may seem a little counterintuitive but I promise it'll help a lot! Feel free to reply if you have any other specific questions, happy to help. :)