Here’s what I got after following along with the “10 steps Digital Painting” and about 30 hours of more work after ...

I mostly took away the part of really nailing the sketch and also the baking metaphor, having a process. Even though I do not worry too much about it at this moment, I'm more at nailing the sketch part, but looking forward to exploring what process I will go for in the future.

I'm working on the basic exercises at the moment but thought it could be fun to do a complete painting. The first one in years. I have painted and draw a lot before but been on a long “break”.

Forums scare me and I never really understand them, but thought this could be a good start with my posting here and I'm looking forward to being more active here once I get the hang of things ... Is this the way to do the forum stuff?

@Valerie-Light Looking good! One thing I think you can try, is to turn their head a little bit, now we see them straight one and completely in profile. I think a little turning can make them look more dynamic.

@erinrew Thanks for sharing! I think it looks promising. Maybe you can have more contrast between when the tree transforms to other things and becomes magical. Like it can become really tall or maybe the whole tree is out and flying, stuff like that. Think it would give a more magical feel. I would also recommend trying to break up the perspective or composition a bit more but I guess that goes with your doing them more dynamic phase

@carlianne Thank you! Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting to learn more about illustration and how this forum works!

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Thank You! I feel very welcomed

@Jacy13 Thank you!

@dafoota Thank you! I'm glad to inspire you That´s some great note-taking, I will definitely use them when I do another take on this in a month or so.

Thanks for sharing your progress with this course. It's really nice to see how this one develops. I think I prefer the “D” for the safe feeling and maybe you can combine it with a purple light coming from our left that hits the fox on the side, hinting there something weird happening there. Maybe then you can even darken that side of the picture even more to give a more dangerous vibe… And I agree it’s a nice feeling to start to be more deliberate in the development in an early stage, for me it feels like a big key.

@Valerie-Light Thank you! I did the “Light and Shadow for Illustration” before this one, and I do feel like that course breaks down the value stuff in a cleaner way, so I probably took a lot from that course while doing this one. After I had my sketch I also made more masks than Will did so I had a mask for the background mountains, midground castle, and foreground character which I also think helped with keeping it clean but I didn't use a clipping mask or anything like that, but I had them ready when I needed them, its a balance, I definitely feel like too much masking can slow me down and make it look to clean and stiff… I might also add it's not too late to start to work from back to front, if I remember correctly it was sort of after the color studies that Will started from the back and doing the refining.

@Valerie-Light Looking good, nice to see the development... I would maybe try to turn the fox a bit more orange, especially in the shadows, maybe raising their level and adding some more saturation, they look a bit muddy now. The leaves and environment are looking great!

Big thanks for answering my “question”! I remember feeling a bit bad the day after I sent in this question, it´s basically a lot of different questions in one, but I appreciate the effort.

My takeaway is that I should aim to do my exercises to the level I want to be working at, and not over do them. Some related questions for the forum:
How much time and effort do you spend on basic exercises?
How do you get motivated to do them?
And what balance do you have between doing basic exercises and “just” doing Drawings/Paintings and getting the exercises that way?

I think my plan with these questions was to be able to get down a effective training program for drawing fundamentals...

@Valerie-Light Looking good, nice to see the development... I would maybe try to turn the fox a bit more orange, especially in the shadows, maybe raising their level and adding some more saturation, they look a bit muddy now. The leaves and environment are looking great!

@erinrew Thanks for sharing! I think it looks promising. Maybe you can have more contrast between when the tree transforms to other things and becomes magical. Like it can become really tall or maybe the whole tree is out and flying, stuff like that. Think it would give a more magical feel. I would also recommend trying to break up the perspective or composition a bit more but I guess that goes with your doing them more dynamic phase

@Valerie-Light Thank you! I did the “Light and Shadow for Illustration” before this one, and I do feel like that course breaks down the value stuff in a cleaner way, so I probably took a lot from that course while doing this one. After I had my sketch I also made more masks than Will did so I had a mask for the background mountains, midground castle, and foreground character which I also think helped with keeping it clean but I didn't use a clipping mask or anything like that, but I had them ready when I needed them, its a balance, I definitely feel like too much masking can slow me down and make it look to clean and stiff… I might also add it's not too late to start to work from back to front, if I remember correctly it was sort of after the color studies that Will started from the back and doing the refining.

Thanks for sharing your progress with this course. It's really nice to see how this one develops. I think I prefer the “D” for the safe feeling and maybe you can combine it with a purple light coming from our left that hits the fox on the side, hinting there something weird happening there. Maybe then you can even darken that side of the picture even more to give a more dangerous vibe… And I agree it’s a nice feeling to start to be more deliberate in the development in an early stage, for me it feels like a big key.

@Valerie-Light Looking good! One thing I think you can try, is to turn their head a little bit, now we see them straight one and completely in profile. I think a little turning can make them look more dynamic.

@Samu Yeah, rendering is a big topic. I can recommend the “Light and Shadows for Illustrators” if you haven’t done it. Lee break´s it down very well in that one

I think it looks very promising. You probably could add more occlusion shadows in the contact points between the character hooves and the skulls, to make them sit more in space. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. And just curious, why is rendering a nightmare for you?

@Emma-Echter Nice! Thanks for the tip, I´m definitely looking to watch and try a lot of different digital workflows

@Samu Nice! I´m thinking of that one too, have an Intuos 5 now. The lack of touch on Cintiq 16 is probably the thing that holds me back and the cheaper alternatives... But I do like the idea of getting the Wacom Art pen which supports rotation of the brush...